"I think so. Your academy has deep foundations; even with only what remains, there should be enough to complete the experiment." Kraft pretended to head toward the shelving while speeding up his perusal.
The records passed beneath his fingers and gathered in his mind. Calman's distinctive, ornate signature greatly hastened the process.
Every time it appeared, several pieces of equipment had vanished from storage, only to be naturally added back to the academy's bulk purchase list. No one had raised any objections.
The losses had clear and reasonable explanations: a small portion of the glassware had broken; most of the metal equipment had been exposed to patients with contagious diseases and could no longer be returned to storage or reused with the other instruments. It looked as though Morrison's research had begun to shift toward infectious diseases.
These included syphilitic lesions that caused disfigurement, a disease described as "clusters of warts on the private parts," subcutaneous abscesses, tubercular coughing up of blood, and the bodily deformities caused by leprosy—many illnesses believed to afflict those with weak faith or unclean habits.
A considerable number of patients chose not to seek medical care until the disease had progressed to the point where the lesions were visible on the body. Others were refused treatment because they had contracted such diseases, and so could not get surgery when they needed it.
Of course, aside from incision and drainage, which could be of some use, most other methods only caused greater suffering.
This left a vast gap in the field. Few were willing to venture into such areas, and adding surgery to the subject made it virtually impossible for anyone else to be conducting overlapping research.
So it was a perfectly reasonable excuse. There was no need to worry that people would keep showing up,