A Hidden Vow

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/21/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

For now, I took a handful each from the shelves of the herbs most likely to be needed at once: those with analgesic effect, and those with antipyretic effect.
With this, I should be able to manage the minimum. Only the minimum, though.

And then… there was no examination room, as such. But the compounding room for making medicine was right by the door, and quite spacious.
This had surely doubled as the examination room.
Looking more closely, there was a chair for me, and facing it a chair a patient would sit in.
Besides that, perhaps it had doubled as a waiting room: some five chairs were lined along the wall.

I see, I thought.
It went without saying that you could not look at several dozen patients all at once.
But if you narrowed it to one plus five like this, you could probably manage.
It had likely never been this crowded in ordinary times, and if people were made to wait outside, those who could not stand and wait would have been brought in first.
That way, the minimum necessary prioritizing would have been done.

“So this is the power of experience, I suppose.”

I found myself muttering it.
Granny Dia, who would not have received scientific backing or education as an assembly of rules of thumb, had made a place this efficient.
That, I thought, was truly astonishing, and worthy of praise.
The one to praise was no longer here.

“What I can do, first, is not to break this place.”

To be honest, at this moment I had no confidence I could do more for the patients than Dia had.
And I thought that was only natural.
The herb stores were nowhere near what there would have been when Dia was still here, and I knew nothing about the patients.

Even so. Even so.
There were things I could do; there was no way I could fail to do what I ought.
A person who can run from the patient in front of them, I thought, has no business calling themselves a doctor.

I was an apothecary.
But before that, I was a doctor. I was a doctor.

“Before those gathered here, I solemnly swear before God.
That I will live my life in purity, and faithfully fulfill my duty.”

I muttered it, a little.

“I shall strive, with all my strength, to keep the standard of my duty high.”

As if to chew on it. As if to confirm it.

The Nightingale Pledge.
Words a nurse would know.
I liked this sequence of words.
It was a nurse’s pledge, but I thought it was something a physician ought to engrave on the heart as well.

And.

“I shall devote myself to the welfare of those entrusted to my hands!”

I said it through, as if telling myself.

Yes. I.
My body and my soul, I had already devoted.

In that case.
A number of patients like this was nothing!

I fired myself up, and took a deep breath before the door. One, two.
A smile, a smile, so the patients who had come would feel even a little at ease.
Now, go. I told myself that, and opened the door.

“Sorry to keep you waiting! I’m sorry—first, only the six of you at the front of the line, please come in!
Ah, I should have said—I arrived here yesterday. I’m Asha, the apothecary!!”

I raised my voice as if to shake off all sorts of things.

Yes.
I was still myself, after all.

With only this much, I could tell a switch had flipped.
Apparently I was a doctor to the bone, more than I had thought.

Just confirming that left me a little satisfied.
No, no, I can’t be satisfied with that! I was scolding myself when Kira’s voice came from behind.

“Asha, sorry, I’m late.”
“It’s fine, no problem! But it’s going to get busy from here!!”

As I answered, I was relieved inwardly.
Kira’s face still showed anxiety, but there was no hesitation.
Surely she had not been able to have confidence in herself because she had not been given a role.
Now, given a clear one like this, she could face it properly.
Kira was a strong, wonderful girl. That made me very happy.

“Then, the person at the front, this way!
The other five, to these chairs!
Kira here will ask about your symptoms, so please answer at your leisure!”

First, momentum. I ought to dominate the air of the place with it, and send it the way I wanted.
Telling myself that, I showed the first patient in.
The other five sat in the waiting chairs as if used to it.
…Yes. Dia had probably run things much like this.

“Ah, um, how are you feeling today… ah, a fever? Your elbow hurts?”

Kira, too, was doing her best to take histories from people she had only just met.
Then I had to do my part properly as well!

“There, sorry to keep you. I’ll examine you at once!”

Bright, almost theatrically so.
It was to fire myself up as well, but more than anything.

“Yes, well, you see…”

Perhaps carried by my momentum, the patient opened their mouth a little more lightly.
Sadly, I cannot feel a patient’s pain.
So I have no choice but to be told.
In that case, making an air in which the patient can talk easily is my first job.

“I see, I see~”

Answering brightly. Taking care not to lose the brightness, at least.
I began my first examination on this island.

“Hmh hmh… um, excuse me just a bi~t~”

As I said it, I put my ear near the patient’s mouth.
No wheezing, no zei-zei sound. It did not seem to be an abnormality of the bronchi.

“I’m sorry, could you turn your back this way, a little… like this?”
“Eh, e-er… like this?”

Yes, it was probably the first time they had been asked; the patient turned their back, still bewildered.
Of course they wouldn’t be asked this.
Apparently even Dia had not discovered this method of examination.

I asked leave, rolled up the clothes to expose the back, laid my left hand on, and tapped the back of that hand, pon, pon.
I listened to the sound that came, attentive for even a little abnormality.

“When I do this, I can hear the sound resonating in the lungs, and tell if there’s anything wrong inside.”
“Heh. To think you can tell that.”

Relieved by a voice that sounded convinced, or impressed, I percussed here and there.
From what I heard, there was nothing wrong with the sound. In that case, I could take it there was no pneumonia, pleurisy, or fluid pooled in the chest.

“I think it’s a fever from a cold. Please eat something nourishing… um, a warm soup with plenty of ingredients, and go to bed early.
Today and tomorrow, if you can, I’d like you to rest from work and take it easy.
And please drink plenty of water.
I’ll give you this medicine for if it gets too hard.
The amount is about two pinches each time. Swallow it with water.”

As I told the patient that, I ground the herbs to powder in a tool called a herbal mortar, gori gori, and put them in a small container.
That thing—I would like you to picture the gori gori doctors do in period dramas.
Needless to say, originally I would have wanted them individually wrapped in paraffin paper or the like, but there was no such thing on this island.
So all I could do was put the medicine in a well-sealed container and give an approximate measure.
Ah~… I wanted thin plant-fiber paper, at least.

I had no time to escape into such thoughts; patients kept coming.
On the basis of the history sheets Kira had put together, I confirmed further myself and compounded the appropriate medicines.
It was terribly hectic. And yet I found myself thinking it was fulfilling, after all.

“Sorry to keep you waiting—next, please!”

I called out with as much of a smile and a voice as I could.