Chapter 240: The Magic Of Pure Alcohol

She was using a silver-tipped glass dropper—an instrument of Francisco’s own design—to apply a diluted mixture of ninety-five percent alcohol and distilled lavender water directly onto the most inflamed pustules.

Upon seeing the dropper in action, Francisco could not help but exclaim,

“So that’s what that thing was for! I was curious where you got the idea to make it.”

Catalina glanced at him with a smug expression.

“Do you remember when I was traveling across Hanover while working with your industries?” she said.

Francisco nodded faintly.

“One of our partners—the one who deals with perfumes—invited me to visit his factory.”

Catalina continued, a spark of triumph glinting in her eyes as the bright light from Friedrich Gilly’s reflectors outlined her silhouette against the black marble table.

“They had a series of Bohemian glass stills,” she explained, guiding the dropper with the grace of a conductor’s baton. “They were so delicate they looked like lace made from glass. The master perfumer showed me how they extracted the pure essence of jasmine and rose—substances so concentrated and costly that a single extra drop could ruin an entire vial of perfume.”

She lifted the dropper slightly.

“They used long capillary tubes with small leather bulbs to fish the oil from the bottom of the flasks.”

She paused, placing a single drop of alcohol with surgical precision onto one of the pustules on the old man’s arm.

The faint hiss of the spirit evaporating was the only sound in the room.

“I thought of your alcohol, Francisco,” Catalina continued calmly. “Of how we waste it with thick linen cloths that absorb more than they deliver. Pure alcohol is expensive—and in many places people barely have enough grain to survive. I would feel ashamed to waste it without thought.”

She held up the dropper slightly.

“So I spent a long time thinking about the design of this apparatus. With it, I can apply the alcohol exactly where it is needed, using only a fraction of what we once required.”

Only then did Catalina finally notice the group of men standing behind Francisco.

Her eyes paused briefly on Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who was studying her with intense curiosity.

Blumenbach stepped forward with a polite inclination of his head.

“It is a pleasure to meet such a prodigious lady,” he said warmly. “For years I have heard people claim that the New World produces only savages, and that no true intellectual minds could arise there.”

He gestured between Catalina and Francisco.

“But seeing the two of you, I believe those rumors to be utterly baseless.”

His eyes drifted upward, examining Catalina’s forehead with unsettling interest.

The look made her slightly uncomfortable.

Francisco, however, already knew exactly what the professor was thinking—nothing more nor less than how fascinating it would be to examine her skull as well.

He coughed loudly.

“Professor Blumenbach is the head of medicine here,” Francisco explained. “He is very interested in your investigation. If you—and the women working with you—can produce results, I am certain he would be pleased to accept your work into the medical faculty of Göttingen.”

At those words, Blumenbach’s smile widened with unmistakable satisfaction.

“Indeed,” he said. “You may not know this, but I am somewhat different from many of my colleagues. They spend their lives looking backward at the past.”

He tapped his temple lightly.

“I prefer to look toward the future.”

His expression sharpened slightly.

“I do not care whether a mind belongs to a man or a woman. I care only whether it possesses the ability to prove its worth. And with your husband’s support”—he nodded toward Francisco—”who happens to be one of Göttingen’s most important partners, even the most stubborn professors would think twice before rejecting my petition.”

Then his tone became more analytical.

“But first, I must know whether your investigation truly holds value… or whether it is merely another of Francisco’s charming delusions.”

Catalina was pleasantly surprised by Blumenbach’s words.

She herself did not care about the rumors circulating outside the laboratory—but she knew how deeply they hurt the women working beside her.

More than once she had heard quiet sobbing late at night in the dormitories.

Some had been insulted publicly. Others had watched their families suffer humiliation in their towns. A few had even been disowned entirely for bringing “shame” upon their households by working in a scientific laboratory.

Deep down, Catalina despised those families.

They had abandoned brilliant daughters simply because society lacked the wisdom to recognize their minds.

But she also understood something else: society would not change through anger alone.

It required results.

It required proof.

And women would have to work twice as hard as men to earn half the recognition.

Perhaps, she thought, if their discoveries succeeded… the gap might begin to shrink.

Her expression grew serious.

Then she began to explain.

“We cannot kill the sickness once it is already inside the body,” Catalina said, carefully dabbing the old man’s arm with a linen swab. “So a true cure is, for now, impossible. Perhaps in the future someone will discover a way.”

She applied another measured drop from the glass pipette.

“But we can starve it.”

She gestured toward the pustules.

“By using alcohol to dry the eruptions and kill the common filth on the skin, we prevent the blood-poisoning that usually follows. We are giving his own vital force—as you call it, Professor—a clean battlefield.”

Her voice remained calm and methodical.

“If we keep the skin from souring, his heart may still have the strength to cross the finish line.”

She paused briefly before adding,

“We have already treated at least fifty people using this method. Only one of them has died.”

Johann froze.

He knew the numbers all too well. In ordinary outbreaks of smallpox, nearly half of the infected often died. To reduce that mortality to one in fifty was an extraordinary claim.

It was the kind of claim that could overturn half the practices of European medicine.

“You are… desiccating the miasma,” Johann whispered, his eyes widening with realization.

“You are not trying to balance the humors with leeches. You are treating the skin as a mechanical barrier that has failed—and you are sealing the breach with fire.”

He turned back toward the patient.

The old man’s breathing seemed calmer in the cool, alcohol-scented air.

“In the city hospital,” Johann said slowly, addressing the stunned directors—and the equally astonished Francisco beside them—”this man would be wrapped in wool blankets beside a fireplace, stewing in his own corruption.”

His voice hardened.

“He would be dead by morning.”

Johann gestured toward the patient.

“But here… look at the inflammation. It is retreating.”

He leaned closer.

“This is not a cure for smallpox itself. But it is a cure for the suffering it brings. You are increasing his chances not through mystical medicines… but through purity.”

Johann turned toward Francisco, a new respect shining in his eyes.

“Your wife is not merely tinkering, Francisco. She is building a wall to protect the body.”

Catalina gave Francisco a smug look that clearly said, You see? I am clever too.

Francisco only shrugged with an expression that replied just as clearly:

Of course you are clever. You are my wife.

The professors watching the exchange exchanged amused glances. A few quietly smacked their lips in amusement, thinking that the formidable industrialist Francisco had clearly been domesticated at home.

Johann, however, ignored the small moment of marital triumph completely.

His world had shrunk to the diameter of a single pustule on the old man’s forearm.

He leaned so close that the sharp, medicinal sting of the alcohol made his eyes water.

Johann reached for a pair of silver tweezers, his hands trembling slightly—not from age, but from the sheer impossibility of what he was witnessing.

He gently lifted the edge of a linen cloth soaked in high-proof spirits.

“Look here,” Johann murmured, beckoning the directors closer.

“In a normal ward, these pustules would already be suppurating—oozing yellow, foul-smelling fluid that poisons the blood.”

He pointed carefully at several of the sores.

“But these…”

He paused, astonished.

“They are shriveling.”

Johann’s voice dropped almost to a whisper.

“The alcohol has tanned the skin… creating something like an artificial scab.”

He straightened slowly.

“It is as if the fire of the spirit is cauterizing the poison before it can reach the heart.”

“Truly fantastic,” Johann murmured.

Almost without thinking, he reached toward one of the pustules.

Catalina reacted instantly.

She caught his wrist before his fingers could touch the patient.

Her expression hardened.

“Professor, with all due respect,” she said firmly, “if you wish to observe, you must respect our precautions.”

She gestured toward the patient.

“Smallpox is extremely contagious. Following the principles taught by my ancestors, the women here and I have thoroughly cleaned ourselves and wear cloth coverings and leather gloves.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“If you wish to touch anything, you must use the proper instruments. We do not intend to infect the entire city—or your family.”

She paused.

“And I am quite certain your colleagues would prefer the same.”

Johann frowned at first when his hand was stopped. But then he glanced behind him.

The reaction of the others was immediate.

Several professors had instinctively stepped backward, their faces pale with alarm.

Realizing this, Johann awkwardly nodded and took a step back himself.

“You are correct,” he admitted.

Catalina handed him a pair of cloth gloves, and several of the other professors accepted similar coverings just in case.

Johann knew he had been careless.

After all, he had spent half his life examining corpses and diseased bodies. The grotesque no longer shocked him, and in Europe physicians rarely avoided direct contact with infection.

His hand had simply moved by habit.

But this was not his laboratory.

This was Francisco’s domain—and, more precisely, Catalina’s.

As he slowly pulled the gloves over his hands, curiosity returned to his voice.

“So where did these patients come from?”

Catalina answered while examining another lesion on the old man’s arm.

“Some villages around Göttingen have families suffering from this disease,” she explained. “Most of them are terrified of infection. When they heard that we were attempting a treatment, they gathered their sick relatives and sent them here.”

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