pappabearbooks Chapter 113 Madame Pompadour
Chapter 113 Madame Pompadour
Chapter 113 Madame Pompadour
Less than ten minutes later, an elderly French nobleman in his sixties entered the reception hall with Louis Fabien.
The former's gaze swept over the three men, finally landing on Chen Wenbin. He nodded slightly to him and said in English, "It is an honor to meet you, Dr. Robin. Welcome to Versailles. I am Louis Filippo de Saint-Florentin, the King's chief steward."
"Greetings, Your Excellency Marquis."
Chen Wenbin stood up and bowed slightly to him as a courtesy.
"You can call me Louis, Doctor."
The old Marquis smiled and then immediately explained, "His Majesty is currently at the Petit Trianon Palace. Madame Pompadour is very ill. If you are not so tired, could you treat her now?"
"I'll have someone prepare the tools and medications you need right away!"
Upon hearing this, Chen Wenbin picked up his black leather suitcase and shook his head, saying, "Since the patient's condition is urgent, I'll go there now!"
Oh, by the way, I might need my maid to act as an assistant; that captain just stopped her at the gates of Versailles.
The old marquis immediately said, "I'll send someone to invite her in to help you right away!"
After saying that, he looked at Franklin and John Cander and said, "Gentlemen, this involves royal privacy. Please rest here for the time being. His Majesty the King will meet with you tomorrow morning."
The two looked at each other and both indicated that they had no objections.
So the old marquis turned to Chen Wenbin and nodded, saying, "—Dr. Robin, please come with me. We will take a carriage to Little Trianon Palace, and your maid will be here soon."
Surprisingly, the bedroom of Madame de Pompadour, the powerful Rococo icon of France, was just an unremarkable two-story Neoclassical building.
As Chen Wenbin stepped down from the carriage and saw the house, he was wondering what was going on when a short, old man, dressed in fine clothes but with a haggard face, walked quickly toward him from the doorway.
"—Thank God! You must be Dr. Robin Chen! I can't describe how I feel right now—you've finally come! My Jeanne is saved!"
As soon as they met, the old man spoke a long string of words in French. Chen Wenbin could understand the gist of it and guessed that the short old man was King Louis XV of France.
However, he did not respond immediately. Instead, he waited for the old marquess to translate before speaking to the old man in English: "Your Majesty, I am not a wizard. I cannot guarantee that I can cure Madame Pompadour. At most, I can alleviate her suffering—if you cannot accept this, I may leave."
Chen Wenbin never makes any promises or guarantees to patients or their families. This is a habit he developed in North America. He especially makes sure to issue a disclaimer in advance when dealing with patients of high social status.
"—No! Dr. Robin, you can treat gout and whooping cough, why can't you cure Jeanne?"
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Louis XV looked up, frowning, and said, "I can offer you a generous reward, along with noble titles and lands! If you can save her!"
Sure enough, the higher the position, the more demands one has. Chen Wenbin sighed and said helplessly, "—Your Majesty, this isn't about payment or titles. I can indeed cure some diseases, but I'm not confident I can cure tuberculosis. I can't lie to you!"
This is a demon that has tormented humanity for thousands of years, and I have yet to find a cure.
"But your allicin does have therapeutic effects!"
Louis XV insisted, "Jeanne's health improved somewhat after taking allicin, but her condition has worsened again in the last two weeks—is there really no other way?"
Chen Wenbin thought to himself that it was probably a placebo effect or that allicin had removed some germs from the body and boosted immunity a little. The drugs that could really treat tuberculosis were streptomycin, isoniazid, and rifampin.
But he can only extract small amounts of penicillin and erythromycin at most now. How can he have time to screen for streptomycin strains from the soil?
So he shook his head again, "I can only help patients regulate their bodies and create diets to alleviate their pain—as for completely curing tuberculosis, I don't have that ability for now!"
Upon hearing this, Louis XV's face betrayed his disappointment. He sighed and said weakly to Chen Wenbin, "—Alright! Alright! Doctor, I'm sorry, I'm already very grateful that you could make Jeanne more comfortable—I shouldn't have had so many illusions!"
Chen Wenbin did not answer. After the old king recovered, he followed him to the door of a bedroom on the second floor. Before they even went in, a weak coughing sound came from inside.
He stopped abruptly, then knelt down, opened his suitcase, and took out three white cotton masks. He put one on himself first, and then handed the other two masks to Louis XV and the Marquis de Lafarge.
Seeing the puzzled looks on their faces, he had no choice but to explain: "Your Majesty, Your Excellency Marquis, I believe that tuberculosis can be transmitted through the air, so it is best to wear this to cover your mouth and nose. It is made of six layers of cotton cloth, which can block most dust and sources of infection."
Louis XV, holding the mask, hesitated and asked, "—Doctor, is tuberculosis really contagious? Shouldn't it just weaken the body?"
He was referring to Consumption, a disease that causes rapid weight loss, because tuberculosis patients often experience this. In common parlance, tuberculosis is also called "the..."
The white plague was caused by the fact that patients were generally pale.
In short, none of these are the same as the term Tuberculosis, which was renamed after the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the mid-to-late 19th century—this was the prevailing medical view in Europe at that time, with the academic "miasma theory" and "humoral theory" still dominating.
The former believes that people get sick because their bodies are weak and they come into contact with polluted air, while the latter believes that illness is caused by an imbalance of the four bodily fluids.
A doctor like Chen Wenbin, who neither performs bloodletting nor enemas, would probably have been labeled a wizard by other doctors in Providence if it weren't for the fact that allicin, aspirin, and methifi are indeed effective, and if he had extensive connections and money!
"I trust my judgment."
Chen Wenbin didn't explain much. He stepped forward and knocked on the door. A maid dressed in a court dress opened the door. In the bedroom, on a lavishly decorated bed, lay a frail woman who looked to be in her forties, wearing a light blue silk nightgown.
When she saw Chen Wenbin walk in, she smiled and seemed to want to greet him, but was interrupted by a cough.
Louis XV, standing outside the door, hesitated for a moment but still didn't put on a mask. After handing it to the old Marquis, he went into the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and softly introduced it to his mistress, "My dear Jeanne, look, Dr. Robin is here—I think your illness can be cured!"