The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [271]
I could only hope that my memory wasn’t faulty—and that the strains of mold I had here were among those species that produced a large quantity of penicillin, that I had not inadvertently introduced any virulent bacteria into the meat-broth mixture, and that—well, I could hope for a lot of things, but there came a point when one abandoned hope for faith, and trusted fate for charity.
A line of broth-filled bowls sat at the back of the countertop, each covered with a square of muslin to prevent things—insects, airborne particles, and mouse droppings, to say nothing of mice—from falling in. I had strained the broth and boiled it, then rinsed each bowl with boiling water before filling it with the steaming brown liquid. That was as close as I could come to a sterile medium.
I had then taken scrapings from each of my best mold samples, and swished the knife blade gently through the cooled broth, dissipating the clumps of soft blue as best I could before covering the bowl with its cloth and leaving it to incubate for several days.
Some of the cultures had thrived; others had died. A couple of bowls showed hairy dark green clumps that floated beneath the surface like submerged sea beasts, dark and sinister. Some intruder—mold, bacterium, or perhaps a colonial alga—but not the precious Penicillium.
Some anonymous child had spilled one bowl; Adso had knocked another onto the floor, maddened by the scent of goose broth, and had lapped up the contents, mold and all, with every evidence of enjoyment. There obviously hadn’t been anything toxic in that one; I glanced down at the little cat, curled up in a pool of sunshine on the floor, the picture of somnolent well-being.
In three of the remaining bowls, though, spongy velvet mats of mottled blue covered the surface, and my examination of a sample taken from one of them had just confirmed that I did indeed have what I sought. It wasn’t the mold itself that was antibiotic—it was a clear substance secreted by the mold, as a means of protecting itself from attack by bacteria. That substance was penicillin, and that was what I wanted.
I had explained as much to Jamie, who sat on a stool watching me as I poured the broth from each live culture through another bit of gauze to strain it.
“So what ye’ve got there is broth that the mold has pissed in, is that right?”
“Well, if you insist on putting it that way, yes.” I gave him an austere glance, then took up the strained solution and began distributing it into several small stoneware jars.
He nodded, pleased to have got it right.
“And the mold piss is what cures sickness, aye? That’s sensible.”
“It is?”
“Well, ye use other sorts of piss for medicine, so why not that?”
He lifted the big black casebook in illustration. I had left it open on the counter after recording the latest batch of experiments, and he had been amusing himself by reading some of the earlier pages, those recorded by the book’s previous owner, Dr. Daniel Rawlings.
“Possibly Daniel Rawlings did—I don’t.” Hands busy, I lifted my chin at the entry on the open page. “What was he using it for?”
“Electuary for the Treatment of Scurvy,” he read, finger following the neat small lines of Rawlings’s script. “Two Heads of Garlic, crushed with six Radishes, to which are added Peru Balsam and ten drops of Myrrh, this Compound mixed with the Water of a Man-child so as to be conveniently drunk.”
“Bar the last, it sounds like a rather exotic condiment,” I said, amused. “What would it go with best, do you think? Jugged hare? Ragout of veal?”
“Nay, veal’s too mild-flavored for radish. Hodgepodge of mutton, maybe,” he replied. “Mutton will stand anything.” His tongue flicked absentmindedly across his upper lip in contemplation.
“Why a man-child, d’ye think, Sassenach? I’ve seen the mention of it in such receipts before—Aristotle has it so, and so have some of the other ancient philosophers.”
I gave him a look, as I began tidying up my slides.
“Well, it’s certainly easier to collect urine from a male child than from a little girl; just try