CHAPTER 4 #3
"They dissect monkeys," Da Vinci said, seemingly unaware of any issue. "Isn’t the structure of humans and monkeys different?"
Hedy took a deep breath and carefully cleaned the fat off the blade.
"Come, let me show you the heart."
The heart was indeed small, about the size of a fist.
It was located in the center of the chest, slightly to the left, and its surface appeared smooth.
Thanks to the good natural ventilation in the basement, otherwise, the smell alone would have been enough to make them faint.
The coffin itself was sealed well, with no insects or pests creeping inside.
Hedy, though nervous, was brave enough to undertake these tasks. As she explained to Da Vinci what the lungs were and their function, she carefully removed the heart, making sure it stayed intact.
Da Vinci wasn’t very familiar with this, and as he sketched, he asked, “Then what? Why are there four chambers?”
They both knew that without the heart, a person would die. But what the heart actually did, how it worked—there was a blank space in their minds.
“Here’s the thing,” Hedy explained, carefully preserving the major blood vessels as she poured water into a cup and poured it into the heart in front of him.
The left and right atria were not connected, and the left and right ventricles could not communicate.
The water flowed from the atrium into the ventricle, but it couldn’t flow back.
“Why is that?”
“Because of the valves.”
Hedy had originally thought she was coming to the Doge’s Palace to work as an alchemist, but here she was, in a basement with candles, giving Da Vinci a lesson in anatomy.
The lecture stretched from the afternoon into the night, with servants coming by to drop off food.
The servants just placed the food from a distance and quickly left, but only Da Vinci had an appetite to eat.
After explaining the general function of the heart, she went on to explain the sternocleidomastoid muscles, where the main veins and the spine were. Although the things she was describing were common knowledge by modern standards, Da Vinci filled an entire notebook with notes.
Hedy exhausted all the knowledge she had learned in her studies, and by the end, she was both fatigued and hungry.
She had lived through wars, the power games of politics, and had spent far too long in the fame and fortune of Hollywood.
Compared to a dead body, it was the living that truly frightened her.
“You continue your research, I’m going to rest in my room.”
She washed her hands beside him, but then suddenly remembered something. Turning to him, she said, “When you send the body back to the grave, make sure to wash your hands first when you come back.”
“Why?”
Hedy paused for a moment, instinctively responding, “You don’t know why you should wash your hands?”
Da Vinci looked just as confused. “If there’s dirt, just wipe it off, right?”
A generational gap.
This was the "generation gap" her granddaughter had mentioned before.
Hedy had intended to brush off the topic, but something in her felt off.
“I remember… there was a case of a Caesarean section in Florence, wasn’t there?”
At Christmas, she had attended a banquet and overheard some women chatting, and at the time, she had felt a sense of relief.
But now, thinking back on it, the thought made her shudder.
Da Vinci, waiting for her explanation, was surprised when she suddenly brought up a different subject. “Really? What’s wrong?”
When she was cutting open the heart earlier, she hadn’t felt fear or panic.
But hearing this, a cold chill ran down her spine.
“Those doctors—don’t they wash their hands when delivering babies?”
“So why wash hands?”
“Is the mortality rate high?”
“...Very high. Right now, they still mostly use traditional methods for delivery, and only when it’s really necessary will they choose to perform a C-section.”
Da Vinci had been studying how muscles change when the hand opens and closes, but now he stopped his work and turned to look at her. “What’s going on?”
Hedy, almost without realizing it, had washed her hands four or five times. She took a deep breath and instructed, “Don’t tell anyone about this for now. I’ll explain it to you in a couple of days.”
Penicillin could wait, and other matters could be set aside for the time being.
She needed to focus on making a microscope first.
Only when people understood the concept of microorganisms could they begin to understand viruses and bacteria and further their knowledge in other areas.
Having already been paid for a month's salary and finally free to leave the palace, Hedy took the blueprint with her and headed to the optician's shop on West Street of the square the following morning.
Italy’s glassmaking technology was renowned, and for centuries to come, it would be famous worldwide.
With the advancement of craftsmanship, churches began to install more and more mosaic glass, allowing sunlight to cast different patterns of light and shadow.
People of this era favored wearing single-lens spectacles, considering them a symbol of status and refinement.
With the right lens and a sufficiently flexible frame, it was possible to assemble something resembling a microscope.
“What’s this?”
The craftsman appeared surprised as he took the blueprint.
The design depicted a cylindrical, strange-looking object, with adjustable wooden strips in the center and two lenses placed at the upper and middle sections.
“This is for Lord Medici,” Hedy said briefly, handing over the deposit. After giving the specifics for delivery and requirements, she quickly left.
The less said, the better—there was no need to explain further.
Taking advantage of her time outside, she wandered around with her maid.
Florence was immense, and its buildings were all laid out in square blocks, making it difficult to navigate.
When she was Da Vinci’s maid, she only dared to explore a few streets nearby and spent a long time finding the road to the outskirts.
Now, with Dechio by her side, acting as Medici’s eyes to monitor her, it was actually a good thing. After all, every condition could be used to her advantage.
The Church of the Holy Cross and Florence Cathedral were to the east and north, while the Arno River stretched wide and long to the south, and the Doge’s Palace stood at the far northern end.
Heading north from the Doge's Palace, about four or five hundred meters away, was the historic Florence Academy.
Dechio clearly didn’t understand why she wanted to come to a place like this and pointed to the guards at the door.
Women weren’t allowed in places like this, let alone study there.
Hedy only stood across the street, looking at the university from a distance. After a long pause, she asked, “What are they teaching at the university now?”
“I’ve heard from the palace servants that they have civil law, religion, literature, and even pharmacy,” Dechio said uncertainly. “If you really want to see, I can ask the lord for permission.”
“No need,” Hedy replied.
She might just be the smartest person in all of Florence right now.
They lingered on the street for a while, then turned back to the palace.
She heard from a servant that Da Vinci had sent the body back overnight, even erecting a new cross and placing flowers for the poor soul.
Hedy had originally planned to visit him for a chat, but when she turned, she saw that Dechio had brought back the cleaned glass vessels.
Ah, that’s right—the unfinished experiment!
The ones that had molded and grown moldy were all scraped off and thrown away. She had explained for a long time before the others understood that this wasn’t some evil witchcraft.
Now, with help at hand, many things were much easier to do.
The moldy orange peels, a spoonful of diluted beef broth, and pus scraped from the inflamed wounds of patients at the hospital—
With just a command, everything was gathered.
Dechio stood by, looking doubtful, obviously still not fully trusting the process.
Hedy mixed the agar powder into the beef broth in front of her, stirring it until it was evenly combined, then waiting for it to solidify into a jelly.
The experiment now was to grow Penicillium and Staphylococcus aureus and confirm the dissolving effect of penicillin on this bacterium.
If the Penicillium colony expanded continuously in the petri dish and the Staphylococcus aureus decreased, it would confirm that the colony in the dish was the life-saving medicine she needed.
—But it seemed like this alone wouldn’t be enough.
After preparing two or three petri dishes, Hedy suddenly realized a problem.
How would she first eliminate the other bacterial colonies in the dishes?
What if she spent all that time cultivating, only to have the glass vessels filled with unrelated colonies, making all her efforts useless?
The culture medium needed to be sterilized and sealed first, but clearly, boiling water wasn’t the solution.
Alcohol?
But there wasn’t any alcohol, was there? Wine didn’t seem to work either.
Dechio watched as Hedy froze in the middle of her work, and he thought she might have been possessed. Cautiously, he reached out and poked her.
Hedy snapped out of her thoughts, instinctively asking, “Do you have a steamer?”
Boiling water wouldn’t work, but steaming with high-temperature steam should do the trick.
The maid followed her to the kitchen.
The three servings of beef broth had solidified into jelly and were placed into the steamer, steamed over high heat for twenty minutes. Afterward, they were immediately sealed.
Three petri dishes: one with mold from the orange peel, another with the pus, and the third was set aside in a cool, clean place to be preserved until the first two bacterial colonies had developed.
Once she had finished with all that, Hedy found some time to visit Da Vinci.
Her residence was quite far from his, and though she had spent seventy or eighty euros in the past to visit, now that she actually lived in the Palazzo Vecchio, she still couldn’t navigate the streets properly.
During this break, she spotted many beautiful paintings and faintly heard the sound of a violin playing.
Da Vinci was sitting in a wicker chair in the backyard, flipping through a contract.
The moment he heard her footsteps, he knew it was Hedy and waved his hand, saying, “I washed my hands, three times.”
Hedy raised an eyebrow and nodded, acknowledging his efforts.
“What are you working on?”
“The monastery contract,” Da Vinci said, stroking his chin. “This one really tests my math skills.”
Although he was sponsored by the Medici family as a painter, this title only provided him with a fixed residence and investment.
Like Botticelli, he could still independently run his own workshop, taking on various sculpture, portrait, and even bronze statue commissions.
Today, Piero da Vinci had come to see him, holding two chickens as a bribe for this contract.
Once he signed it, he would have to decorate the monastery’s clock face and paint an entire Adoration of the Magi.
“This contract sounds pretty good,” Da Vinci said, raising an eyebrow, ready to sign.
“Wait—” Hedy reached out and took the contract away, her expression showing clear concern. “I’ll read it first.”
Her former employer seemed a bit dissatisfied: “I understand things very well.”
Hedy silently read through all the terms, frowning as she looked at him.
“How did you decide this was ‘pretty good’ from what’s written here?”