Chapter 13: Allergy Test? Better Mix the Medicine Yourself

Chapter 13: Allergy Test? Better Mix the Medicine Yourself

Since modern medicine was taking over, then naturally, Garrett had to follow the logic of modern diagnostics. He calmed himself, then looked over the child once more. His earlier observations still held true—facial swelling, hives visible on the face and hands. The most likely culprit? Allergic reaction.

He turned to the farmwife who had carried the child in and began asking questions:

“He didn’t eat any strange fruits? Or pick any unfamiliar flowers? Where did he play this afternoon?”

“Play? Nonsense! Little Remy is a good boy. He’s been helping with the chores since he was two!”

Uh… excuse me, ma’am.

Garrett wiped away a cold sweat. His memories of the original body’s childhood were still patchy, but in his previous life, a seven- or eight-year-old was definitely still in elementary school—

Wearing a backpack, going to class every day. Heck, he hadn’t even gotten far enough to start fantasizing about blowing up the school yet!

Still, he knew exactly how wild kids that age could be. Back when he worked in the emergency department, parents ran in every day carrying their injured or sick children, often for the most bizarre reasons—stretching the limits of human imagination. And sometimes, even if the adults had no idea what happened, other children might know.

“Were there any kids working with him? Could you call them over for questioning?”

Garrett asked as gently as he could. Before the farmwife could reply, the farmer holding the child—Uncle Edmund—jumped in:

“There are! Two or three of them!—What are you waiting for? Go call them!”

Someone immediately bolted out the door. Garrett furrowed his brow, continuing to mentally sift through possible causes. Meanwhile, the cleric—having already examined the child’s throat and finding nothing more to do—drifted over curiously:

“Why are you asking all this?”

Garrett: “…”

To identify the allergen, obviously!

He bit his tongue, stopping the words just in time. In his old world, “allergy” was such a common term that even non-doctors generally had some idea what it meant. But here, in this strange new world…?

Garrett was 100% sure that this inquisitive little cleric would start digging for answers. And when he started asking…

How was Garrett supposed to explain?

“Hypersensitivity, also called an allergic reaction, is an abnormal immune response that results in physiological dysfunction or tissue damage in response to certain antigens.”

Sure, that’s the textbook definition, sounds real neat and simple.

Until you actually try explaining it—you might just die trying.

Forget this medieval world. Even back in his previous life, if you asked someone without a medical background to explain what “allergy” means, and handed them all 53 volumes of medical textbooks, they could flip through them for half an hour and still shout:

“WHICH BOOK IS ‘ALLERGY’ EVEN IN?!”

Yep. Thirty minutes just to figure out which volume covered allergies.

Thankfully, Garrett had been the Deputy Chief of the ER. Years of experience had made him a veteran at talking to patients and families. After a quick mental draft, he explained slowly and clearly:

“I’m asking these questions to find out if he ate, drank, or touched something his body couldn’t handle.”

“Poisoned?”

“No, not poisoned…”

Bro… who just cast the detox spell a minute ago? Wasn’t that you?

After what felt like a full-blown TED talk, he finally managed to explain the symptoms of an allergic reaction well enough for them to understand. Meanwhile, the child’s playmates had arrived—three of them, none older than ten, and the youngest looked only about four or five.

Garrett patiently repeated his line of questioning. And sure enough—they gave a different answer:

“It was the salted fish! Hanging from the ceiling beam. I saw Remy break off a piece!”

“Lies! Our Remy is the sweetest! He’d never steal food!”

The farmwife leapt up like a mother beast protecting her cub, flailing with sharp cries and a shrill voice. With the mother shrieking, the children running around, and the men shouting to restore order, the hall descended into chaos once again, volume soaring to 120 decibels.

Garrett was drenched in sweat. Amid the clamoring mess, he shouted with all his strength:

“Everyone shut up!—Someone go bring that salted fish here!”

Even if he strongly suspected the salted fish was the culprit, no doctor practicing modern medicine would ever make a diagnosis without running tests first. Garrett now had a salted fish in one hand and a bowl of clean water in the other. He looked at one, then the other—

“What kind of fish is this?”

Forgive him—in his past life, he only knew how to eat fish. He never bought or cooked it. If you put a cooked fish dish in front of him, maybe he could recognize it. But a raw one…?

Nope. Not a chance. Goodbye.

Fortunately, even if he didn’t recognize it, someone else did. The cleric leaned in with great interest, studied the fish for a while, and confidently concluded:

“It’s cod. —So that’s what caused all this?”

Cod, huh? That made sense. Garrett nodded silently. 

In landlocked regions like this, people rarely ate sea fish, so an allergic reaction from trying some occasionally wasn’t unusual at all. He smiled and nodded at the cleric.

“I think that’s highly likely. But we still need to verify it.”

“How? —Have the kid eat it again?”

“…”

Garrett broke into a cold sweat.

“His throat is that swollen—how’s he supposed to swallow anything?!”

“Then what do we do?”

How to test for it? Well, generations of doctors in his previous world had already paved that road. Physicians didn’t even need to think—suspected allergy? Send them for a skin test.

A simple test, just a few bucks—prick the forearm, apply a drop of the allergen, and check for a reaction in thirty minutes. But here… now…

To run a skin test, you need allergens first!

Sterile, non-toxic, carefully measured for protein content—prepped allergens came boxed and ready in any decent hospital lab. But if there were no prepackaged allergens, and you had to extract it yourself from raw material…

Garrett had been in clinical medicine, not pharmacology. But he’d heard his pharmacy classmates moaning about it: extracting the antigen manually meant cutting up fish meat, grinding it with liquid nitrogen, defatting it with acetone, stirring, letting it settle, centrifuging it...

That process alone took days. You’d be a wreck by the end of it. And that’s not even mentioning the chemicals and instruments needed.

Back in his previous world, those seemingly simple tasks were backed by a powerful national industrial foundation. But in this otherworldly realm, Garrett was painfully aware:

Right now, the only part of antigen preparation he could do... was the very first step of the first stage.

—Cut up the fish meat and soak it in water.

That’s it.

Then... skip everything else, and jump straight to the last step of the skin test.

“Bring me two needles! And another bowl of clean water!”

He placed a drop of plain water on the child’s left forearm and a drop of the fish-infused water on the right. Then, using the two needles, he made a small prick under each droplet—just deep enough to break the skin, but not draw blood.

Garrett pressed a finger to his own wrist and silently counted sixty seconds. Then he wiped the moisture off the boy’s arms and—

“What now?”

“We wait.”

This was a prick test for a Type I hypersensitivity reaction—like shellfish allergies, nut allergies, or paint allergies. The standard observation time was 20 to 30 minutes after the allergen is applied.

The boy was out of immediate danger, and the next step depended on the test results. For now, all they could do was… wait.

Garrett looked left.

He looked right.

He sat back down, with absolutely nothing to do.

Garrett: “…”

Come on, this test takes half an hour… and no one’s going to offer me food?!

If you want to see more chapter of this story and don't mind spending $5 monthly to see till the latest chapter, please go to my Patreon:

Latest Chapter in Patreon: Chapter 116: Performing Surgery while Teaching

Link to the latest chapter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/132233062?collection=1517734

https://www.patreon.com/collection/1517734?view=condensed