12-th of July 1792, mid-afternoon

In addition to saving lives, doctors had also the obligation of passing on their knowledge, training new doctors and nurses. In Venice, like in other places he had seen, these could belong to monastic orders or not. He knew, however, that there were also cities where one could find nurses only among the nuns of certain orders.

The University courses he taught after having ended a morning shift at the hospital were, some of them, meant specially for doctors and nurses. Others were public conferences, for anyone interested in the basics of the bodily functions or in certain remedies. Besides doctors, nurses and even some of the barber-surgeon guild and midwives', there were apothecaries, herborists, students of humanist majors and other people with a scientific curiousity attending conferences like the one today.

He started, after having thrown a sweeping glance at the attendants:

"The human body is filled with four basic substances, called humours, which are in balance when a person is healthy. The four humours, as discovered by Hippocrat, the father of medicine, and further researched by Galen and Avicenna, and other important doctors and scientists up to present, such as the Frenchman Ambroise Paré one century and a half ago, are: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. These are the basic substances from which all liquids in the body are made. Each person has their own unique humoural composition. Diseases and disabilities result from an excess or deficit of one of these four humours."

A nurse should know this by now already; this was why this conference was meant for the general public. He continued without faltering:

"Blood promotes a feeling of joy, mirth, optimism, enthusiasm, affection and well-being. Phlegm induces passivity, lethargy, subjectivity, devotion, emotionalism, sensitivity and sentimentality. An excess of phlegm causes apathy and lose of strength. Yellow bile provokes, excites and emboldens the passions: irritability, boldness, ambition, envy, jealousy and courage. Being inflammatory, irritating and caustic, an excess of yellow bile produces aggression, and excess anger reciprocally gives rise to liver derangement and imbalances in the humors. Black bile makes one pensive, melancholy and withdrawn. It encourages prudence, caution, realism, pragmatism and pessimism. An excess of black bile causes depression."

The conference hall was half full, but it was to be expected for conferences starting at this hour. Some shops and workshops were still open, and the people working there, albeit potentially interested, couldn't attend the conference.

@Kimmie, open

She felt rather overwhelmed, sitting there as she was, listening intently to the lecture at hand. She had made the choice to become a nurse... It wasn't something she chose lightly, but it had been sudden. It wasn't every day that a girl stumbled upon a gruesome death scene and felt rather helpless from not being able to help or not even knowing how to keep a cool head in an emergency. Part of it was a desire to have some direction in her life; she didn't want to go home just to find a husband and be docile for the rest of her life. Stomping grapes just... had no appeal to her.

Lucrezia peered quietly toward the doctor, a good looking man who didn't quite sound like he was from Venice, but it didn't matter to her. She wasn't sure if she believed in the humors as much as others, she would probably be one to ask questions... She dipped her quill and began to take notes.

She sat somewhere in the middle of the group, neither up in the front or in the back. She glanced around every now and then, wondering how many were interested in becoming a doctor a nurse, how many were actually in vocation already... Hard to tell at that point.

@Elena

Antonia was here, there and everywhere, always searching for a good subject for the Gazzetta. And these could focus on any aspect of Venetian life. Right now, she was attending the conference on the humours theory. She wasn't specially attracted by medicine, as she was quite squeamish. But she hoped to persuade the lecturer, at the end of the conference, to get a collaboration with her Gazzetta for a few articles, as general as possible and educational for the readers. And, as she was between two other appointments, this respite in the cooler hall of the University was more welcome than a glass of lemonade in an inn or coffee house.

She was listening with attention, and only after a while she discovered why the lecturer seemed so familiar to her: he was the same man he had met, about two months ago, at the art exhibition.

She saw people taking notes and she thought that she should do the same: at least the conference was worth mentioning among the smaller local news.

Any new opportunity to learn was welcome to Dijana. She had heard about the conference and, knowing that she had very little work to do for the time being, she had planned to attend.

She spent part of her time helping her new sister-in-law take over the duties of the Kitanovski household, part of her time making a new gown for said sister-in-law, and most of her time assisting Olivier d’Anjou with his ministrations regarding the French Revolution. She had taken on some of the roles previously filled by her brother, including that of Olivier’s personal defense. Adrijan was still involved in strategy and intelligence, but, a husband and father now, he had made it clear that he would no longer place himself in life-threatening situations.

The decision came at a time when there were no real life-threatening positions. The reason for that was Sir Robert Castle: he had opted to take on the most dire of the Revolution-based missions himself. Dijana’s role was to ensure his safe passage into and out of France by monitoring the information streams going back and forth. If she heard any hint that someone on either side knew of Robert’s intentions, the mission would be called off.

It was stressful work. Dijana found respite in her dressmaking and in learning, such as when she visited Professor Blackwood, or when she sat in on lectures. She was glad for the break, and she was very interested in learning about medicine and the human body.

Usually, Dijana was the only woman at such lectures, so she was very pleased to spot quite a few women in the room this time. Perhaps she had only been attending the wrong lectures, missing the circles that these other women walked in. She chose a seat near to two such women, a notepad already in her hand, and listened to the lecturer, jotting down notes on the four humors and their effects as he described them, growing more and more engrossed as the man spoke.

Rose decided to sit in on the lecture, as she was trying to learn all she could about her profession... Part of this included medical knowledge, which she had a little but not enough to talk about. Besides, it gave her a chance to take a much needed break from working... Always working! She was tired, to be honest... Sometimes she wondered what all the work was for... Sure, she was seeing some profit, but not a lot yet, most of what she made went back into growing her business as was the smart thing to do... But sometimes, she wanted to spend the money on her desires and not her needs. Perhaps knowing more about medicine would help her earn more income and maybe she could get out of the ghetto one day.

Besides, she kind of liked Simon. Not in the romantic sense, but she thought he would be a good friend someday. It seems her thoughts were kind of scattered, for they shifted to wishing she could find some companionship, not necessarily a mate, but someone to confide in... She was feeling kind of alone and it wasn't helping her out of the grip of depression to be alone all the time... Okay, Rose, Mon Dieu... Focus... FOCUS.

She sighed and simply folded her hands in her lap, listening but no longer attempting to take notes.

A few people arrived a bit later, and Simon couldn’t help noticing them, but he continued his presentation undisturbed. He liked a lot the work and principles Ambroise Pare and Richard Wiseman, having studied them extensively.

”Disease could also be the result of the "corruption" of one or more of the humors, which could be caused by environmental circumstances, dietary changes, or many other factors. These deficits were thought to be caused by vapors inhaled or absorbed by the body. Phlebotomy, emetics, purges, sudorifics and diaphoretics are all aimed at the expulsion or effusion of humors which are troublesome, either in quantity or quality, in order to balance the humours in the body for recovering health.”

He looked around and he was somehow surprised to see so many women following his conference. Usually there were only some, even if he trained midwives, nurses and, if he thought well, the herborists were, a great part of them, women too. He was glad that the conference attracted more interest than he had initially hoped. He recognized, among the attendance, the herborist whom he had promised to help. Since that first meeting, he had bought from her more things and he had discussed with her, also offering her a manual of Botanics in French, as she had said she had further studied about the plants in her garden.

”Now everyone knows that phlebotomy is the most common chirurgical operation, and seems the easiest, however it is liable to the most accidents; it is, in truth, the most dangerous operation, and it needs to be done only in specific circumstances, as an answer to specific health problems. It is known that the first cause of all distempers is in the blood, which is composed of a mixture of an infinite number of liquids circulating through the whole body, and are very subject to corruption, as well as to retaining leaven from aliments, and we cannot otherwise reduce them, than by evacuating the blood, and those liquids which occasion the disease we desire to cure. Phlebotomy evacuates the bad blood, giving possibility to the body to balance its humours and make new liquids. However, a doctor must always be careful to be able to stop the bleeding whenever the patient gives signs that he cannot bear it.”

Simon knew that some doctors would bleed patients indiscriminately, abusing the procedure and weakening them. Others would use this procedure as an authomatic answer to any ailment, which again wasn’t good. Sweating and purging of all kinds were also possibilities to remedy the humours, which were less invasive and to be used when the illness required it. There were adversaries of this practice, who were in favour of extensive bleeding, saying that the bleeding can be stopped easier than a once started purge. But Simon was not one of them. He was in favour of using potions and teas for balancing humours as often as possible, then the other procedures, and limited blood letting only where nothing else could function. Even in the case that bad blood was necessary to be evacuated, he promoted the classical cupping for this purpose more than actual phlebotomy.

@Kimmie, @Alecto

Antonia was following the presentation. Corruption of the humours, bad blood - most likely, what had happened to her late husband too. How else could a healthy man to get suddenly sick and die after one week of pain, when the doctors had tried everything for him?

The presentation passed to bloodletting, and Antonia shuddered. Besides the idea of blood flowing freely not sitting well with her, she realized from the doctor's explanations that maybe this was the issue then: a patient weakened by not being able to bear the bloodletting he had been subject to. And instead of diminishing fever, bloodletting had increased it. She wasn't getting to the other side of the matter either - how doctors couldn't stop blood flowing after childbirth in so many cases, including her own mother's.

This was definitely not a thing to take notes on... She looked around, at the other people who assisted at the conference, and at the doctor. Studying people had always been one of her favourite pastimes, because from a person or another she borrowed traits for her stories' characters.

There were two women next to her, one with her hair a shade of rich chestnut, the other, dark hair, who were taking notes. One of them met her gaze for a second, and Antonia smiled her friendly. Maybe at the end of the conference they could talk a little.

The lecture was already in progress when Elvira slipped into the room. She hated being late, but in this case it could not be helped. A backlog along the canals had slowed her passage among the islands.

She had not brought anything with which to take notes, but she thought that maybe she should have when she saw some of the attendees had pads of paper in hand, jotting things down—or not—as the lecturer spoke. That was no matter. Elvira knew she would be able to remember everything of consequence that would be said.

She took one of the few seats still available, next to a woman with dark hair, and after nodding a silent greeting to her, leaned forward to listen to the lecturer, who was discussing the fallacies of phlebotomy.

She listened to the part about blood letting with more than just a sour taste in her mouth. Really, she thought the practice to be outdated and barbaric... Especially when it came to women who were having problems with their pregnancies. She was sure that there was some benefit to bloodletting if there was, say, something wrong with someone's blood and it could, perhaps, promote circulation or something... But a woman who is already weakened or losing blood anyways? What would happen if they took too much, wouldn't she become anemic or even die?

She shook her head and tried to keep listening even though it was hard to bear for the moment. The rest, she took notes intently, making sure to write questions down in the margins and whatnot. She even made herself write about that practice even though she didn't like it. Little did she know that she was not the only one of that mind.

As she was about to take in more of the lecture, she found herself dozing. She didn't mean to, but she was exhausted! Of course, chalk it up to pregnancy. Her eyes started to drift closed and her head started to nod forward some. Rose did not intend to be rude, not in the least bit. Perhaps it was because she was sitting idle, which is something she had not done in several months. Her head dropped the rest of the way forward and she gave up the fight because she had no choice. And suddenly, she was asleep with her chin resting above her collar, her cheeks ruddy as said sleep overtook her. Lucky for her and those around her, she did not snore, she only breathed heavily...

Unless someone woke her, she would remain there for a short time as she was... At least for the next several minutes, which meant that she would, unfortunately, miss some of the lecture!