The Smiling Edward

With a sense of familiarity, Kraft continued reading. The next section was the sort of thing that belonged in the fantasy and supernatural genres.

White Fluid, the book claimed, was a thick, cold liquid found in the brain and spinal cord. It had calming, stabilizing properties and formed the basis of thought. So if White Fluid was harmed, a person would show obvious changes in their mental state.

In mild cases, they became drowsy and lethargic. In severe cases, they babbled incoherently and could no longer control their movements. Once their White Fluid was depleted, they entered the final stage: falling into an unresponsive coma, unable to maintain even the barest trace of consciousness.

Since White Fluid was cold, the conclusion was that high fevers damaged it and steadily depleted it. To restore a patient's consciousness, one had to cool them by various means and promote the production of White Fluid.

The author had also noticed that the White Fluid of some feverish, delirious patients turned yellow and cloudy. He believed the fever caused White Fluid to turn into Yellow Fluid, thereby reducing its quantity.

As for why it turned into Yellow Fluid, that was because Yellow Fluid was warm and dry. It was produced in the liver and stored in the gallbladder, and represented the body's vital energy.

This liquid was thought to be connected to digestion. Food was broken down and absorbed in the warm Yellow Fluid, providing people with the energy they needed to survive.

The observant author had also noticed that some patients developed rough, yellowish skin and yellowing in the whites of their eyes. Traditional theory attributed these symptoms to an excess of Yellow Fluid in the body. Yet these patients also suffered from malnutrition and edema, along with loss of appetite, bloating, and diarrhea after eating greasy food. This was completely at odds with the theory.

It seemed partly right, but not entirely. Kraft began scratching his head. He'd set out paper and pen beside him a while ago, but hadn't written a single word.

He could take notes, but it felt like a waste of paper. On the other hand, not taking notes felt a little strange.

He had to admit, for all its flaws, this ancient theory was surprisingly easy to remember, thanks to the straightforward way it linked things together. As long as nobody tried to treat him with it, he could just enjoy it as a curiosity.

Last came Black Fluid, another substance Kraft couldn't match to anything in the real world. It was a heavy liquid that played the role of suppressor in the body, opposed to all its active qualities.

When there was too much Black Fluid, people became depressed and downcast. Those naturally high in Black Fluid were generally quiet and restrained, seeming somewhat cold, and they often didn't live long.

As all fluids gradually lost their properties, they turned into Black Fluid, just as everything eventually met death. Once Black Fluid passed a certain threshold, balance was utterly destroyed, and the body slid irreversibly toward lifelessness, all physiological activity coming to a stop.

This, too, was considered the mechanism of death: everything, sooner or later, grew inert and unchanging, until Black Fluid crossed the threshold and put an end to it all.

Naturally, given the different properties of these fluids, the author moved on to an even more classic idea. Guided by the belief that humanity was at the heart of the world, he matched the four fluids with the four fundamental elements.

The active Red Fluid corresponded to fire—in other words, change and heat.

White Fluid corresponded to water, constantly flowing yet following fixed paths.

Yellow Fluid corresponded to air and wind, both being mild, neutral, and balanced.

Black Fluid corresponded to the heavy earth, where all movement would eventually slumber, passing from motion into stillness.

And so the system was complete. The rest of the book was devoted to deducing and arguing the connections between diseases and changes in the four fluids.

"Never mind. Let's see what the next book is about." Kraft closed the book and set it aside. He thought he'd found the theoretical basis for bloodletting. The body's humors were out of balance, so you made an incision somewhere and let some out to restore the balance, right? Add in some talk about removing stale blood to purge harmful influences, and you had the most popular treatment around.

With a slight headache, Kraft pulled out the next book.

It was a copy of Human Anatomy. From the title, it seemed much like Systematic Anatomy, except that the Church forbade anyone from cutting open a corpse, and society's prevailing beliefs rejected the very idea of dissecting a body to study its structure. Such behavior earned you a guaranteed ticket to the stake.

So the author of this book was either making things up, or was a thorn in the Inquisition's side—a highwayman would seem timid by comparison.

But, as he'd said, in a place like Wenden Port, the best the Church could manage was to clean the bird droppings off Saint Simon Square. In all these years, there hadn't been a single burning at the stake; they hadn't even lit a torch in the square. As long as the author didn't dissect anyone in the middle of the street, no one was likely to care.

The book didn't launch straight into the subject. Instead, it made a token show of explaining that it was the author's considered opinion, based on a study and comparison of the works of many predecessors and informed by his own medical experience, intended to save the lives bestowed by the gods, with absolutely no disrespect intended toward the bodies of the dead.

As for which works he'd consulted, or what medical experience had led him to these insights, the author had this to say:

It's been so long, I've forgotten.

Sure enough, a glance at the first illustration showed that all those disclaimers were just for fools. Though it wasn't as detailed as the anatomical diagrams produced after the great advances, this full-body image—half skeleton, half muscles—still gave a largely complete account of the body's locomotor system. It even thoughtfully showed the abdominal muscles separated from the outside in, as if the layers had been peeled back. The fibers of the internal and external intercostal muscles between the ribs were drawn with unmistakable clarity.

After skimming through the book, Kraft realized it was probably the first volume. It mainly discussed how bones and muscles formed the body's locomotor system, with illustrations and descriptions of the various parts and analyses of how movements related to muscle contractions.

Whoever had drawn the original illustrations must have worked hard at it. They must have watched dissections firsthand, and might even have been the author, sketching while someone was being cut open. The points where muscles attached were specifically marked and annotated to prevent copyists from misplacing them through misunderstanding.

In the copy of this manuscript Kraft held, whose edition he couldn't tell, the author's original meaning had still been conveyed accurately. Movements and their corresponding muscle groups were matched one by one, so even beginners could understand the causes of movement disorders.

The third book was, as expected, the second volume of Human Anatomy, covering the shape and distribution of the internal organs and blood vessels.

The author hinted that he'd confirmed part of Humorism structurally, and in a fairly reliable way. As for how he'd done so, he once again left that unsaid.

In any case, he agreed that clear White Fluid did exist in the brain and spinal cord. He'd also confirmed that Yellow Fluid came from the liver, was stored in the gallbladder, and had a passage leading to the intestines. Black Fluid, however, remained undiscovered.

On that basis, this pioneer believed that traditional theory was not without merit, and had at least been proven reliable within certain limits.

Furthermore, after analyzing the blood vessels, he'd proposed an innovative new idea: Red Fluid actually came in two kinds, flowing through different vessels.

One kind had thick, sturdy vessel walls; the other had thinner walls and a wider lumen. In modern terms, these were arteries and veins. But here, his reasoning went astray.

Since the vessels of the individual organs in the abdominal cavity all converged on the liver, he thought the liver might govern the venous system, while the arteries all led to the heart. This led him to believe that the two organs jointly controlled Red Fluid.

The book's final chapter returned to Black Fluid. Since the substances described above really did exist and could be matched to Humorism, the author thought there might be some oversight in his work, which was why he'd failed to identify this final element.

It was also possible that Humorism had circulated for so long that repeated copying had made it diverge from the original, with the discrepancies growing until later generations could no longer understand it. The contradiction that patients with excess Yellow Fluid could nevertheless lose their appetites wasn't the only one, suggesting his guess wasn't unreasonable.

Perhaps Black Fluid was something special. "Black" might simply be a name, not a literal description of its color. Or perhaps it was simply the embodiment of stillness and suppression, not a specific substance that actually existed. He just hadn't yet figured out what it was, and would need to investigate further to find the answer.

The two volumes of Human Anatomy ended abruptly there, with a mark unlike the one used by the Medical School in Wenden Port at the end. When scribes copied and reproduced various works, they always left such a mark to show respect for the author and indicate whose work it was.

An attentive student would recognize the fifth cervical vertebra, wearing a strange grin. Inside its vertebral foramen, shaped like a gaping mouth, was a hastily scrawled signature whose authenticity was uncertain: Edward.