99 is a pretty significant number but since I restarted the number after the prologue section, the comic’s actually up to 120-something or something like that, something!
Thanks as usual to Raptie for handling the character coloring and shading on this page!
ERRYBODIES GETTING DEMOTED.
Also, ouch. Poor mr Dalkaryn appendicitis is no joke, though less dangerous than a knife through the gut in the grand scheme of things.
And a poisoned knife at that!
I didn’t get any mention that the knife was poisoned… Now don’t get me wrong, I ABSOLUTELY wouldn’t put it past Brakka to use every single dirty trick in the book (and then some) to get back at the “nyaasty humies”, but let’s be hopeful for Elim yet, ‘K ?
Was it or was it not poisoned on purpose may be of no consequence since one thing that knife surely was not is clean. That wasn’t a secret assassin’s weapon a-la kgbumbrella, or a treasured ancestral daga – just a random shiv to shank someone fast and loose, and forget about it. Rust and dust can be far more dangerous than poison weak enough to not remove Elim’s ability to act in few seconds after being introduced into bloodstream.
Yinglet weapons are usually poisoned. The flora in their native environment is so toxic to everything else that even their soap can necrotize human skin on contact.
I actually had mine out about a year and a half ago, so yeah… I feel bad for this poor guy.
Merrs has the voice of a Snape parody. I cannot hear his voice in my head as anything else.
Ah hell, I hear it too! D’oh!
Dammit now I hear it too
Yaaaaas
YEEEEEEES! He is definitely a Snape.
I’m hearing more an exceptionally serious Stephen Fry, a la Jeeves and Wooster.
I was hearing more of a nasal voice, but yeah, come to think of it, the tone was very Snape.
Huh… I heard it more as the Mayor of Townsville…
That probably says more about me then I would like.
I was hearing more of a Vincent Price pacing and tone.
I’m hearing more of a Billy Zane.
Somehow I trust this guy even less than the quack at the bunkhouse.
I trust him less as a person but more as a doctor.
100% the guy who would stab you in the back to get a better job, but would cut his own arm open if you need a transfusion (just a turn of phrase, dont go gettin all ‘medical-y’ on me)
NO RELAXING TODAY ISHER!
What the heck is your avatar
Mr. Dalkaryn, Elim, everyone’s getting a knife in the guts today.
Even Mr. Dalkaryn got demoted in a sense. And may get demoted from life if his appendix goes.
Elm is lucky Merrs had not started yet, other than the anesthesia tat is. If he had gotten to the cutting part I’m notsure he would have stopped for him. And if he had then Mister Dalkaryn is the lucky one too, I wish the best for poor Elm and Mister Dalkaryn I hope both there surgeries are successful..
Well, he insisted on head surgeon, which sorta implies that there are other surgeons if he is the head one.
Sometimes the only surgeon still wants that extra air of authority.
If there’s anything you can rely on about surgeons, it’s their egos.
“Doc, I can barely walk”
– “Nonsense you don’t need a second revision, it’s all in your head”
*Three years and many missed opportunities later*
-“That took four times as long as I thought it would. What an incredible amount of scar tissue. It must have been moving around in there”
Some great poses and humor on this page! 😀 a new favourite! and always great to see Isher again.
The only part of her design I dont like are the index finger claws. I just imagine it is inconvenient.
Do you mean the thumb claws?
Hahahaha I’ve been that guy
Story time?
When I came back from africa with malaria and a kidney stone and a… something I was in the ER for a bit and my doctor kept getting called off for other stuff.
You have led a far more interesting life than I.
There’s a reason “may you live in interesting times” may be a curse…
We may be laughing, but that’s what makes a good surgeon – a cool head in the face of stressful situations. He’s probably extremely good at his job.
Why do I get the feeling that guy with appendicitis is going to die but will be somewhat important in the future( Like some important noble with lands rich in magic artifacts who would help but the family thereof will prevent our hero’s access)?
I doubt it, unless his appendix bursts while they’re doing surgery on Elim. It usually takes 2 to 3 days after the onset of symptoms, so if Mr. Delkarym sought treatment within 24-36 hours of the first symptoms, he should be fine.
If it ruptures, then they’ll have to put in a shunt to drain pus and other fluids, and he’ll have to go through a regimen of antibiotics. (Of course, that does raise the question… yes, they have enough medical knowledge to remove an appendix, but how good are their antibiotics anyway?)
Considering that anaesthesia and modern surgical techniques existed way before penicillin was discovered… probably nonexistent.
Diethyl ether was in fairly common use during the American Civil War, just as an example. And surgical techniques were actually fairly advanced – unlike most people want to believe. The main reason there were so many amputations is that the Minié ball and other soft lead projectiles in common use would tend to completely shatter bones on impact. Even modern, highly-trained trauma surgeons in well-appointed ORs tend to struggle with that kind of damage.
Well since the surgery hasn’t started yet I suppose that means that the new patient is in more life-threatening danger than the former patient who’s simply has to wait before he gets operated on
appendicitis is painful but not immediately life threatening…unless it pops…then its dangerous.
Uh, if there are anesthetics, why the other guy is secured to the table?!
It’s probably not a total-numbness deal, unfortunately. And you really don’t want to shift or flinch when a guy is digging around in your guts with a sharp object.
Holy shit, hey Biomech. Didn’t think to see you here.
I’m impressed. This is a society that has knowledge and practice of appendectomy. I mean, lead cups too, but still.
They also have passenger elevators. What kind of sick society invents convenient transportation and life-saving surgery but not bombs or firearms?
In my opinion gunpowder is one of those “highly random” discoveries. It was a result of a Chinese alchemy which has provided a few curious and useful discoveries but make no progress to the goal most of the alchemists pursued – elixir of health\healing\immortality (depending on who you ask): so it was more like stumbling upon something randomly instead of a steady progress. Gunpowder could be invented in Ancient Greece or could have waited until the Industrial Revolution.
Additionally local civilization (at least in Val Salia) seem to have a little bit of biotech feel (remember carguvherd?) to it which also puts medicine in advance of other sciences.
Pure chance it is, yes. Raw materials are widely available and easely procurable for experimentation, and from that point it all depends purely on dumb chance. To invent gunpowder through theoretic scientific approach to chemistry is rather non-trivial task – unlike just mixing stuff on a whim to see what happens.
That said, pyroxylin is rather simple, and lies on the main expected path of chemistry development. If not for insane alchemists mixing dubious shite to drain down the throats of their benefactors, guncotton would’ve been invented much earlier than the gunpower.
Also, Ancient Greece had working steam engines (rather primitive, they were used as children toys); pre-Hellenic civs are known for inventing not only passenger lifts, but random dumb things like flush toilets, electric batteries, et cetera; and Romans had, essentially, continent-wide instant messaging system – for a certain definition of “instant”, of course – it just was so wasteful, unwieldy, and politically inappropriate that they limited its usage to short distances for military purposes only.
So schizo-tek is pretty much everywhere through human history.
Bloody time-travelers *grumblegrumble*…
Ok, I’d like to know more about Roman “instant messaging”. Because I suppose you are not talking about courier service, which was not politically limited and definitely was not instant, so this is one thing you mentioned where I’m drawing blank.
Semaphore telegraphs? Maybe? They used them in the Punic Wars. It’s the only thing I know of that the Romans had which might qualify as an “instant” messaging system.
Light-based signalling and semaphore towers, yes. But only with military discipline of the Roman legions one could actually allow to implement such a system on a scale they used it, and in the time they used it. Theoretically, the message from a legate in Germany could be delivered to a senator in Rome in a span of a day/night. “For a certain definition of ‘instant'” I did say – but a day for such a distance during that age…
That’s where amount of resources needed for maintenance of such a system comes into play – amount of people you need to employ for a, say, mechanical telegraph system used in Europe in much later times was astounding – and that in relatively peaceful, more or less civilized Europe with international conventions, and laws, and stuff protecting the operators. Now imagine each tower being a keep, manned with a garrison of seasoned soldiers to protect it, with a mobile task force to reinforce a tower which comes under attack from barbarian tribes, and so on… Even a thought about logistical nightmare that it would inevitably become is dreadful.
As political inappropriateness – this is Rome. Such system could be implemented only by dedicating significant part of military resources to the task. Whoever controls the military, controls the flow of information. All hail the king, then. This is too much power for one person to ever wield during the Senatorial period, and during the Imperial – it is the biggest weakness one can create for himself.
Therefore, if such system was to be created, it would either be completely bogged down in bureaucratic red tape to a point of absolute uselessness due to political machinations of powers-that-be, or would become a metaphorical One Ring for whoever controls it.
So it more from “wishful thinking” department than a real possibility – but Romans were about the only nation at that period/geographical area who had the know-how and will to actually to do it.
Potentially, mind you.
Maybe it’s simply the type of world that has never needed firearms. A good percentage of invention is driven by need. For example, we landed on the moon (1969) more than two decades before we invented the self-adhesive postage stamp (1993). And the reason we landed on the moon in the first place is because we were in the Cold War with the USSR at that time, and President Kennedy felt that we needed to get there before the USSR did.
Another example is the wheel. In South America, the wheel and axle appear in sculpture and toys but weren’t used for transportation until the mid-19th century. Lacking a suitable beast of burden for North and South Americans poses a limitation on the usefulness of any cart, and even following the introduction of the horse by the Spanish the travois was lighter and easier to assemble for a nomadic people. So the uptake of the cart was surprisingly slow amongst the North Americans, and was deemed utterly unsuitable for the paths used by both Incas and Pueblo Indians.
It’s a little like asking why the Swiss never developed a catamaran or decent sails (because they’re landlocked), or why intensive cultivation of rice never took place outside of Asia. Inventions must fulfil a strong need if they are to gain widespread use. Without both the ingredients and the apparent need for the advantages they may offer, their absence is to be expected.
Mm, but Gwytherin’s explanation makes a lot more sense, because – let’s face it – weapons technology is rarely one of those unneeded categories. We know the people of Val Salia’s world have wars and conscription, so they “need” firearms for the same reason we “needed” them: to kill people cheaply.
Well, keep in mind what I said about “widespread use”. Maybe they have firearms, but they’re not in common use, so we just haven’t seen them yet.
It doesn’t have to be because guns are expensive. In 1776, a musket cost about 3 British pounds, and the average American earned the equivalent of 25 British pounds per year. So firearms were NOT so expensive that “only the rich could have them”. It could be that one of the elements required to make gunpowder, such as the sulfur or the potassium nitrate, is uncommon (and therefore expensive), or takes too long to make in sufficient quantities. The French method took about a year per batch.
OR, it could be that they’ve seen how much damage a bullet can do, and decided “well, if we start using that on them, they might start using it on us.” In real life, an arrow to the arm or even sometimes to the throat or face was survivable. Extracting arrows from those places was routine work for surgeons and barring significant trauma to critical arteries, gangrene and blood poisoning you were sure to survive with a minimum of permanent damage. We see survival rates of arrows to the limbs in excess of 95% during later times and from period sources we know that people wounded by arrows could recover fast enough to be combat ready again in as little as two days.
A musket bullet to the limbs proved to be much more dangerous. The sheer shock was often enough to render soldiers unable to fight even if the wound didn’t prove to be lethal. For a surgeon, bullet wounds could be much harder to handle. If you were lucky only flesh/muscle was torn apart and you could make a good recovery but if an artery was torn violently apart or if the bone was shattered (which it often was… musket balls were usually between .65 caliber and .75 caliber), amputation was the only effective treatment.
So what I’m getting at is, maybe after having seen the horrific injuries, everyone just decided that firearms are too inhumane, much the same way that U.N. treaties forbid the use of hollow point bullets in military actions. Or they’re so inaccurate that firearms are only in use by highly-trained specialists. (At 25 yards, a bullet from a musket drops one inch. At 50 yards it drops more than 4 inches. At 75 yards it drops 10 inches and at 100 yards it drops over 18 inches. So until rifled barrels appeared, muskets were typically fired en masse from not more than 50 yards to ensure maximum damage.)
Gwytherin’s explanation still makes a lot of sense. I’m just pointing out alternative possibilities.
/Broadhead/ arrows against lightly armoured are comparably nasty to lead bullets – they don’t deliver shock or typically break bones, but they cut vast wound channels and when they miss a vital organ the victim still very easily bleeds to death in minutes.
But I’m not really trying to pick an argument. As you say, anything which upsets that equation that made easily-trained gunmen more economically efficient than skilled archers might do it – lack of knowledge, lack of material, lack of manufacturing (probably not peace and goodwill between nations, I suspect.) Do these people even have cavalry? I don’t think we’ve seen any horse-equivalent creatures, just draft beetles, so that’s a big strike against primitive firearms right there.
Fair point about broadhead arrows, which I agree with. When I wrote that wall-of-text, I was obviously NOT thinking about all the different types of arrowheads. In my defense, it was past midnight and way past my bedtime. ;->
Don’t worry, I didn’t take it as “trying to pick an argument”… just a passionate debate about military technology, which is sort of a hobby of mine. And now that you mention it, I’m 99% sure we haven’t seen any horse equivalents. They may have an equivalent, but if so, Valsalia hasn’t revealed it yet. Unless he has something up his sleeve, I’d lay odds that this world doesn’t have cavalry, though I can definitely imagine some of the larger insect species being used to tow massive siege engines behind a wall of defending infantry.
There’s nothing wrong with picking an argument, per se. If it’s a good argument everyone benefits. If I think of any worthwhile viewpoint to champion I’ll come back and argue with you.
It’s not really that the bullet dropped, even a bullet from a rifled gun would drop the same amount at the same velocity. It was more that a spherical object drifts side to side a hell of a lot more than something that is spin stabilized.
Hey, don’t knock lead cups. They’re amazing. They hardly ever tip over!
Happy 120-somethingish pages, Valsalia! Here’s to 120-somethingish more!
That dude better be the otherly world equivalence of doctor strange. Elim needs the very best.
surgeon simulator time!!!!
I’m surprised no one has commented on the surgery table having the recessed groove around the edge, leading into that drain on the corner of the bed, and the red stains from the groove to the drain. As usual, it’s the little details that makes me love this webcomic.
The same facility might be used for, uh, “enhanced interrogation” of captured enemies and the like. The other nice touch about the operating table is the assorted fixing holes for the straps, one size fits all basically. I don’t think it would fit a scav though, or even Isher.
I get the impression they don’t have “knock out” anaesthesia as such, just “dull the pain” drugs hence the requirement to prevent the patient moving around while the surgeon digs around looking for “stuff”.
Local anaesthasia is a more advanced technology, in fact. Simplest “knockout” would be just a lot of alcohol and\or poppy exctract and that was available for thousands of years. Ether also may have been produced as early as 8th century CE but local anaesthesia appeared in the 19th century.
Real anaesthesia requires a gas-passer to sit at the patient’s head and adjust the ether/chloroform/exotic gas mixture dosage and keep the victim, uh “patient” alive and breathing. No sign of that in the theatre, not even nurse assistant(s) which is also odd.
I’m actually rather certain that the table is inclined. Looking at both top corners, they look higher than the rest of the table. That makes me think that it’s a shadow more than a blood trough drain thingy. I’m not saying you’re wrong, only that I’m seeing a shadow instead.
Oof, never mind, I see the drain. It still looks a bit inclined though.
There’s also the bottle of alcohol in the background of the first panel with rags, presumably for cleaning the skin where the surgery is happening.
I wonder what they’re using as anesthetic.
As for the anesthetic: As there are some creatures here that are not exactly like that of Earth. So there well may be some toad/arachnid/plant/semi evolved rock/other creature who has a very specific nerve deadening toxin that when carefully dosed and administered into the muscle works similar to our locals today.
Look, Aizawa’s a surgeon
I love that doctor.
Looks like John Astin.
Oh, good job they caught that appendix before it ruptured. My friend has his burst and they rushed him to surgery. Apparently there’s an incredibly high fatality rate if they don’t get it out before that happens.
Random shoutout to Leonid Rogozov, the Man who did a successful self appendectomy. Balls of Steel on that Russian!
He received a medal for it, too. “The Order of the Red Banner of Labour”, the civilian equivalent of a military medal, if I remember correctly.
He also lived..that’s a reward in itself.
I would have loved the image of Isher slowly walking towards the camera, carrying Elim’s limp body in her arms. Maybe throw in a livid Kass by her side.
It’s so good to see Isher again!