2. Well, I might call you Doctor.

[bestsir]

Who: Harry Goodsir and OPEN
What: Doctor's hours
Where: Harry's cabin, around town
When: Anytime during October, early November
Warnings: TBD

It's taken some weeks—including the awful voices and even, ironically, the words of Cornelius Hickey—for Goodsir to finally act on advice he'd given to Edward Little when they'd first arrived.

He starts by placing a notice on the board. Then he starts scavenging the town for all the medical supplies he can find, consolidating a store of them in his cabin. What he does manage to find, in combination with the contents of his surgeon's chest, isn't nearly as much as he would like, but it will do.

He has learned much, these last few weeks. That disease and infection is caused not by miasma, by tiny animalcules that may be spread by various forms of contact, and that wounds must be kept clean—disinfected—thus averting festering and gangrene. That there are compounds in food that keep the body healthy, and that not all foods contain those compounds. He tries not to dwell on the lives he might have saved with that knowledge on the expedition, and to focus on the here and now. As he said to Little: to live, and do what good he can.

And to try not to let his hatred of Cornelius Hickey consume him.

Comments

[rescapee]

If she'd been in her own time, La'an would have gone to sickbay days ago. With slight ailments and injuries, she toughed them out and walked them off, but she'd always been of a firm mind that serious things needed to be treated, if not for your own sake then for the sake of those depending upon you. It's what finally pushes her to seek help here in Milton — she needs to be able to help defend the town if there's another attack or worse, and it's becoming clear that this bout of what seems to be something like pneumonia isn't going to go away on its own.

Bundling up in multiple dark layers with a hat, gloves, and the red scarf she'd been gifted shortly after arriving in this frozen prison, she steadfastly ignores the chills wracking her body as she steps outside. One foot in front of the other, her progress is slow but steady as she makes her way to the Community Hall to examine the message board, and then onward to her next destination. She takes frequent stops, leaning against buildings as fever and exhaustion beg her to lie down in the snow, and frequent coughing bouts steal what breath she manages to pull into her lungs.

By the time she's knocking at the door, she's a pale, shaking mess, and already dreading the walk back to her own cabin. And if there's no one at home...

[bestsir]

Goodsir opens the door and immediately his eyes go wide; she looks awful, and his first fear is consumption. Not that he's seen any signs of it yet, but it has to start somewhere.

"Come in, please." He ushers her to the chair next the the woodstove and gets her to sit.

[rescapee]

Well, if his appearance is anything to go by, he's probably not the most modern doctor she could have hoped for, but these are desperate times and she'll take what she can get. She'll even try not to complain. (Much.)

It's a testament to how terrible she feels that she lets him direct her, her usual independence at odds with the urge to just let someone else take care of her for once. She takes the seat, dropping heavily and sighing audibly at the relief of not having to keep herself upright anymore. But she's not one to beat around the bush, so she gets right to business.

"Do you have any antibiotics?" Her smooth British accent does little to hide how strained the words are, and the question is followed by a deep, wet cough.

[bestsir]

Fortunately for La'an, Goodsir is catching up to at least the late twentieth century—and he's managed to scavenge a couple of bottles of amoxicillin (and identified them with the help of others). And that cough has him worried.

"I do—yes—a moment." As he goes to retrieve the medicine in question from the storage box, he asks, "How long has that cough been troubling you?"

[rescapee]

Oh, thank goodness. If she'd been forced to make do with home remedies from who knows what century, she's not sure she could have taken it. Yes, some of them might have scientific merit, but she's suffering enough as it is without having to deal with poultices and strange broths.

"A few days," she answers, trying to do the mental calculation and finding that some of those days have started to blur together. Not good. "Maybe a week. I was out training with Methuselah—" Another cough. "This started toward the end of the trip."

[bestsir]

He finds the pills he was looking for; someone before them scrawled the dosage information in black marker on the side.

"Has there been any blood? I ask only so that we might rule out consumption."

[rescapee]

She's quiet for a moment, trying to decipher what he's just said and translate the historic reference into a more modern context, but then she shakes her head.

"No, no blood," she confirms. "It wouldn't be likely to be tuberculosis regardless — all Starfleet personnel receive a battery of vaccinations when we enter the Academy."

Despite the relative utopia of 23rd century Earth, there are still some illnesses lingering in the hidden corners of the planet, tucked away and waiting for a resurgence, and so Starfleet thoroughly screens and vaccinates every member from the lowest to the highest ranks. Carrying human illnesses out into the galaxy would be a surefire way to ruin any potential relations with a vulnerable alien species.

[bestsir]

"Vaccination—oh! Inoculation, of course." The only one that Goodsir knows of is, of course, Jenner's famous smallpox experiment, and he immediately latches on to the implications of La'an's words.

"Inoculations against tuberculosis and more. Imagine." He beams for a moment, enthralled by the idea, before remembering that he's got a patient to see to.

"Well—it may be bronchitis, or some manner of pneumonia. With luck those medicines will see to it." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry that—I must seem a terribly primitive practitioner to you and many of the others."

[rescapee]

It's almost as if they're speaking two different dialects, divided by a massive gap in time, but they're managing well enough. Things would be much worse if he were from even earlier in humanity's history.

"I wouldn't say primitive," she corrects, her tone much kinder than she would have expected when she first arrived. There's something about this man that's soothing her irritation even as her chest aches and her body feels as heavy as lead. "You can't help the era you were born into any more than I can."

[bestsir]

Goodsir smiles and ducks his head a little. "That's kind of you to say," he says, "and you are right, of course. I am trying, but sometimes I feel quite overwhelmed." He pauses, remembering something, and goes back to his supplies. "Here—this, I believe, will alleviate the cough and prevent further irritation on top of the infection." He hands her a bottle of cough syrup.