Debate

Amidst this debate, subsequent travelogues were published, this time focusing on the medical system.

In this travelogue, Miss Chris first praises the Anglican Church's charitable act of establishing a hospital. She then contrasts this with the behavior of the France Catholic Church before the France Revolution. She urges the France Catholic Church to learn from past mistakes, to emulate the good practices of other churches, including the Anglican Church, and not to repeat the mistake of being abandoned by God and the France people for worshipping Mammon. (Mammon was a god of wealth in some early Middle Eastern religions; after the Jews massacred Canaan, they condemned this pagan deity as the devil. In the Bible, Jesus said that a servant cannot serve two masters at the same time, nor can one follow both God and Mammon.)

This passage certainly pleased some Britain, but it also greatly displeased Britain, especially after seeing Miss Chris readily hand over five hundred pounds to support the Anglican Church's charitable act. They felt they wanted to reach out through the newspapers and grab Miss Chris's hand. "Kind and naive Miss Chris, how could you know the wickedness of the human heart? When it comes to worshipping Mammon, they are no less fervent than the France Catholicism of yesteryear. Only in one thing do they surpass the France Catholicism: hypocrisy. Giving them this money, perhaps not a single pound will go to the poor; the rest will all be used to support their mistresses. They might as well just give it to me..."

However, what followed completely changed the mood of both groups of people, as Miss Chris began to describe the unbelievable filth of Britain hospitals.

"The ward was damp and dark, almost like a tomb. Even though it was daytime, it took my eyes a long time to adjust when I entered the ward. And once my eyes adjusted, my heart couldn't adjust at all."

This isn't a hospital ward, it's a garbage dump. Sewage is everywhere, and blood-stained gauze is scattered haphazardly on the ground, swarms of greenbottle flies are stuck to it. When a caregiver walks by, the greenbottle flies all fly up with a buzz, like a cloud of smoke.

Besides flies, rats were running around everywhere. One patient—good heavens, it was horrible—had a large piece of his lower lip missing. It was said that a rat had bitten it off at night—it was truly terrifying.

But that wasn't the worst part. What was even worse was that the doctors there had absolutely no concept of hygiene. Their work clothes were covered in blood and other filth, and the coarse cloth clothes, so smeared with dirt, even had a leather-like sheen.

What would happen if a doctor dared to show up in our France hospital dressed so filthy? Well, during our last war with the Austria, I volunteered with some other wonderful women in our military hospital, helping to care for the wounded. There, let alone getting ourselves so dirty, even not washing our hands promptly would get us a severe dressing-down from the doctors; and if a doctor forgot to carefully boil his scalpel, Director Hamel might just kill him with that scalpel.

So I carefully inquired whether there were many cases of infection, fever, and death in the hospital.

Mr. Owen, the hospital's executive vice president, confirmed my suspicions. He told me that most patients sent to the hospital for emergency treatment actually have little hope of returning home healthy. Often, before a patient is even admitted to the hospital, their family has already prepared for their funeral. As for those patients who undergo surgery and bleed in the hospital, not even one in ten will survive.

Furthermore, Deputy Chief Physician Owen told me that this is true for all hospitals in the Britain, and even all hospitals in the world, without exception; Britain hospitals are already among the world's top hospitals.

So I recalled what I knew about the situation in France, and my experience working in the Italian Legion's hospitals, where at least two-thirds of the wounded did not develop serious infections, and of the remaining third, more than half eventually survived. This was vastly different from what Deputy Chief Physician Owen had described.

So I tried asking, "Dear Dean, have you read the article in * the Lancet * about how to avoid infection?"

However, it seems that * the Lancet * has limited influence in Britain, so Dean Owen told me that he hadn't read any of its articles. So I tried to describe the content to him in my own words. However, since I haven't formally studied medicine, there were many parts I couldn't explain clearly. Therefore, I decided to have someone buy a copy of * the Lancet * and send it to Dean Owen later.

After leaving the Mercy Hospital, I immediately asked Mr. Pierre to buy me the Lancet to give to Associate Dean Owen. Mr. Pierre reminded me to buy several copies, because the situation at Mercy Hospital might not be an isolated case, and the Lancet clearly doesn't have the same influence in the Britain medical community as it does in the France medical community. Therefore, most of the doctors and deans at those hospitals probably hadn't seen the paper I mentioned.

As it turned out, Mr. Pierre's concerns were quite valid. In the following days, I visited several other hospitals in Britain and found that the situation at each hospital was no different from that at Mercy Hospital —including the fact that none of them had seen the Lancet.

After running around, I think Dean Owen should have finished reading the paper in * the Lancet *. One of my senior scientists wrote the preface to this paper. He said that although the paper lacks theoretical evidence and is only a reasonable conjecture, it still has great value for promotion and discussion because it achieved very good results in practice, even though the principle is still not entirely clear. I think Vice Dean Owen would agree with this view and will make some improvements to the hospital based on the experience gained.

However, when I returned to Mercy Hospital, I found it exactly the same as it had been a few days prior, without any change. Being an impatient person, I went to see Owen President Owen. He told me that he had read the article in * the Lancet *, and although the foreword was written by the renowned Lavoisier, the author of the paper was an unknown figure, and the entire paper was based on conjecture, lacking theoretical evidence; therefore, he did not believe it.

I argued with him for a bit, and then Deputy Director Owen told me that the decision wasn't in his hands, but in the hands of Director Dr. James. Furthermore, Dr. James was a member of the British Medical Guild. If I wanted to change the rules of hospitals throughout Britain, I'd better try to persuade Dr. James.

Then I went to see Dr. James again. But Dr. James was very stubborn. He insisted that the article in * the Lancet * lacked evidence, that the data our hospital had obtained was completely unreliable, and even questioned the qualifications of Mr. Lavoisier, who had given the paper high praise. He seemed to suspect that we were putting forward such "heretical" ideas to damage the reputation of the Britain medical community...

In short, I had a huge argument with Dr. James and was eventually kicked out by him. Of course, I must admit that some of my words may have been a bit harsh. But Dr. James was indeed too stubborn; he even disagreed with conducting a small-scale controlled experiment based on the France experience. Many people have told me before that the Britain very stubborn, and I didn't quite believe it, but today it seems that this statement may really be true..."

This travelogue, once published, sparked a debate far exceeding that of any previous travelogue.

Those who supported Miss Chris naturally attacked the Anglican Church and the Doctors' Guild of Britain, accusing them of only caring about making money and having no regard for people's lives. Those who opposed Chris, on the other hand, launched attacks on Chris and * the Lancet * from various angles.

Some accused Chris of bragging, saying that a young girl like her was boasting about serving in an army hospital and knowing Lavoisier— "Will she next brag about frequently dining with Napoleon?"

Some satirized the Lancet for believing in barbarian witchcraft.

Basically, the newspapers of the England News Alliance sided against Chris and upheld the "dignity of medicine" in Britain; while the England Free Press Alliance sided with Chris. However, they didn't seem to care much about whether the Lancet's claims were correct. They were more concerned about the Britain system that consistently disadvantaged ordinary people.

Then the Sun joined in. In response to The Times Review of "Miss Chris's " identity, the Sun began to use its expertise in digging into private matters to give the Britain a comprehensive introduction to who this "Miss Chris" really was.

Not many people in Britain knew the identity of "Miss Chris," but in France, at least within artistic circles, many were quite familiar with it. Therefore, the Sun quickly revealed the full story of "Miss Chris's " identity.

Then the Britain discovered that the France third-rate novelist "Chris," whom they had satirized for her infidelity and who was considered a "braggart," was actually even more legendary than she claimed. She was the sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of France, and Joseph Bonaparte, France's greatest scientist. She had personally planted the victory flag on the newly recaptured fortress at the Battle of Toulon, and as General Bonaparte's sister, she had participated in the care of wounded soldiers, thus earning the title "Toulon Saintess" among them. As for her acquaintance with Lavoisier, given the relationship between her elder brother and Monsieur Lavoisier, wasn't that quite normal? And: "Miss Chris did indeed dine with the First Consul quite often."