Chapter 951: Plague Maiden! Let's See Who the Real Plague Lord Is! |
"What? You want me to become a veterinarian?"
Garrett's first reaction was, "No way."
What a joke. Ever since crossing over to this world, I went from being an emergency surgeon to a radiologist, a public health officer, an obstetrician, an orthopedist, and an interventionalist, pushing for various vaccine and drug developments...
I've crossed so many fields, but no matter what, it's all been about relieving human suffering and saving lives. But to ask me to become a veterinarian?
To treat the plague of wild cattle, or to help a herd resist the Plague Maiden?
Never!
I'd rather work myself to death in the lab, cultivating enough cowpox in bovine epithelial cells!
"Cirilla, let's try again... I'll use the Plague Spell, and you use a healing spell. Let's see if we can get the cowpox to reproduce more! Three! Two! One!"
A white light and a black light flashed simultaneously. The pustules on the wild cattle's skin, which were scattered like stars, slowly...
"This..."
Cirilla pouted, and Garrett scratched his head.
"Maybe the healing spell was too strong... let's try again!"
Another attempt, and the pustules spread a little, but it was nowhere near the intensity of the Plague Spell. It was clear that getting it to naturally propagate in epithelial cells was still a challenge.
Garrett was truly at a loss. Thinking about the trouble of traveling thousands of miles to the wild cattle tribe; thinking about those cattle plagues, what if there was a zoonotic disease? Finally, he made a tough decision:
If it can't propagate on the cattle, then let's propagate it in a petri dish!
"Cirilla, let's do it again! Three! Two! One!"
In the petri dish, a small piece of cowhide... a small, soft piece of skin taken from a cow's abdomen, covered with many pustules, shredded and soaked in culture medium, under the effect of the Accelerate Growth Spell, magnificently...
It rotted.
"Ugh... still no good... It seems only cowhide on live cattle can continue to grow..."
Cirilla covered her face. Garrett silently cast a Cleansing Spell, transferring the mush from the petri dish to the trash can for later incineration. Cirilla hesitated and looked at Garrett.
"Why don't we write to Lynn? Necromancers are more skilled at cultivating diseased flesh?"
They can even keep dead flesh alive... all sorts of abominations, zombies, and decayed cysts, they can slowly cultivate. Although Cirilla always found it disgusting and never looked at that research direction, she had heard a bit!
Fortunately, Lynn wasn't good at this... Lynn had never raised those ugly and disgusting creatures in the Mage Tower; the golden skeleton was always clean, cute, and interesting... But Lynn probably understands, right?
"Well..."
Garrett's eyes darted around. Lynn mostly fiddled with bones and energy, rarely touching flesh research. In Lynn's words, "Most people doing this have an obsession with reviving someone."
For issues related to the Plague Spell, Lynn had already calculated a lot before giving him answers. As for cultivating diseased flesh, without hands-on experience, mere speculation wouldn't work, right?
It's like cultivating bacteria; even with the same standard procedures written down, some can cultivate thriving colonies, some cultivate nothing but contamination...
"I think... let's try again..."
"Or should we go to the cattle and have a look?" Cirilla hesitated.
"Maybe treating the cattle would be more convenient? If it doesn't work, we can always burn and disinfect them... there must be a way?"
Garrett still didn't want to go. But with the bottleneck in cowpox propagation on live cattle, production couldn't be scaled up.
Lab research hit a bottleneck too; whether using bacteria or live cells, cowpox virus couldn't be cultivated.
Using the human smallpox virus to make a live attenuated vaccine... this route clearly wasn't something that could be accomplished overnight. Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be Garrett in the wilderness, with just a few tools, who could manage it...
And the native tribes kept coming to him. First, they sent messages, then the Wild Cattle Tribe's high shaman sent an apprentice, and finally, the high shamans of both the Wild Cattle Tribe and the Black Panther Tribe came personally:
"Please, you must come and see! Respectable Plague Lord, their condition is very dire and can't be delayed any longer! Even if the Plague Maiden can't harm humans, she can kill other creatures and absorb their strength!"
Garrett rubbed his forehead, sighed, rubbed again, and sighed again. Thinking about his experimental progress and the potential cattle plague—
Foot-and-mouth disease, anthrax, brucellosis, and the notorious mad cow disease. Any one of these zoonotic diseases was no joke...
"Have any of those cattle died? How many? What are the symptoms? Any fever? Any bleeding? Diarrhea? Excessive drooling? Besides cattle, any other animals showing similar symptoms?"
A barrage of questions came out, and the Black Panther Tribe's high shaman fell silent, lowered his head, and stood aside. The Wild Cattle Tribe's high shaman, being more familiar with cattle, answered more thoroughly:
"Many have died, especially after direct confrontations with the Plague Maiden. Those that resisted her often died within half a day to a day. Symptoms... fever, red eyes, diarrhea, loss of appetite..."
At least it didn't sound like mad cow disease. If it were mad cow disease, apart from large-scale burning, Garrett wouldn't have any other solutions. After thinking for a while, he asked:
"Can you bring two dead cattle here for me to dissect?"
Cirilla tugged at him secretly. Garrett shook his head.
"Let's first determine the situation. If it can be solved, we solve it. If not, what's the point of me going?"
Luckily, they seemed desperate. Three days after Garrett made the request, two giant magical cattle, tied to long wooden poles, carried two dead cows and ran over.
Dust rolled, and they came thundering down. The two wild cattle seemed like two heavily loaded trucks...
"Stop! Don't move!"
Garrett saw them from afar and shouted. He led Cirilla over, pointed at the stretcher:
"Cirilla, take the dead cows down... carefully, don't blow up the dust, don't let the dirty stuff get on you... well done!"
It must be said, dragon strength is powerful. A simple Levitation Spell, and she handled it with finesse. Each of those dead cows weighed at least a ton, yet floated and moved lightly, landing without a speck of dust.
Garrett praised her, summoned a small mage hut to hold the dead cows, and brought out two large barrels of disinfectant:
"Stay still! Time for a bath! Carrying dead cows here, be careful of infections!"
Barrel after barrel, bucket after bucket. Fortunately, Nevis' industrialization level was quite decent. Garrett had packed a large amount of bleach powder before setting out, thoroughly soaking the two magical cattle.
Then, donning a full-body rubber protective suit and a gas mask, he crouched in the mage hut to dissect the two dead cows:
"Cirilla, don't come in!"
"Hey!" The Silver Dragon maiden shouted outside, "I'm not afraid of this! Let me in!"
Garrett's response was to completely close the mage hut and set it to not allow anyone inside. No joke, even though dragons have strong resistance, it doesn't mean they can resist all viruses, and Cirilla doesn't like wearing protective gear. What if she gets infected?
Better he handle it himself! With the spell of Cold and Heat Resistance, at least he wouldn't end up soaked inside the suit after two hours like in the past life!
"Internal organs hemorrhage... serous and mucous membranes, lungs, tongue, subcutaneous tissue, and muscles all have hemorrhage..." Under the shadowless lamp, Garrett dissected (autopsied), took samples, and muttered:
"Feces are liquid, mixed with mucus or blood... oral and nasal mucosa and hooves have no special lesions... doesn't look like foot-and-mouth disease..."
As for brucellosis or anthrax?
Garrett was clueless. He was an emergency surgeon, not an internist. Human infectious diseases required colleague consultations, let alone wild cattle. Faced with the two dead cows, he could only resort to his tried and true method:
"Let me culture the bacteria and see..."
Internal organ samples, lung samples, muscle samples, fecal samples.
A row of petri dishes laid out, including cornmeal medium, agar medium, blood agar medium, beef extract medium (what a sin, burning the beanstalk to cook the beans, the beans cry in the pot)…
Then, Garrett focused, steadied himself, and with a strong hand motion:
【Accelerate Bacterial Growth】!
Whoosh, colorful bacterial colonies emerged on the surface of the petri dishes.
Garrett's vision darkened.
Finished, just looking at the colonies, there were at least a dozen possibilities. Each type of bacteria required sampling, staining, microscopic examination...
Another overtime session...
Could he get the little snake to help, could he get the lightning cat to help, could he get Oknjinn to help...?
Wishful thinking, the little snake was still asleep, the lightning cat had no hands, and even Oknjinn couldn't handle such delicate work!
Garrett, dejected, ultimately shouldered it all alone. The good news was that among these bacteria, no bamboo-shaped, large capsule bacilli were found, preliminarily ruling out anthrax;
The
bad news was, Garrett didn't recognize a bunch of the isolated bacteria... unfamiliar... unfamiliar...
"Forget it, I have one last trick." Garrett pocketed the petri dishes and headed straight to the cattle pen:
Possible pathogenic bacteria—infect the cattle with the Plague Spell—rule out the culprit; another possible pathogenic bacteria—infection—this one isn't it either; another—infect! Got it!
This is the one!
High fever, red eyes, diarrhea, wobbling, and collapse!
Garrett quickly cast a 【Remove Disease】. It seemed ineffective; was it because the cow's body weight was too large? This divine spell, like medicine, also calculated dosage by weight? Then cast another one...
Healed!
Alright, still didn't recognize the pathogen. Garrett suddenly turned around to see the high shamans of the Red Hawk Tribe, Black Panther Tribe, and Wild Cattle Tribe standing in a row, blocking Cirilla outside. Their eyes lit up as they looked at the cattle Garrett had just cured:
"Honorable Plague Lord, can you deal with this plague?"
I can treat it on a small scale, but for large-scale resistance, give me more time, more attempts... Garrett was just thinking this when the two magical cattle, drenched in disinfectant, slowly walked over, wagging their tails:
"Moo—"
A wave of sorrow, pain, and indignation hit. Tears, large and round, rolled down from their eyes onto the snow.
Garrett clenched his fists instinctively.
"There will be a way!—I think, I should be able to find a way!"
Epidemic control, prevention, quarantine, treatment... If all else fails, I'll call for backup!
There are so many helpers available!
Plague Maiden!
Let's see who the real Plague Lord is!
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