Chapter 54 Chapter Fifty-Four

Philip had passed an examination before his apprenticeship as an accountant, with which qualification he could enter any medical school.He chose St. Luke's Medical College because that's where his father studied medicine.Before the end of the summer term he took a day trip to London to see the school secretary.He got a list of boarding rooms from the clerk, and found a place in a dimly lit house.One advantage of living here is that it takes less than two minutes to go to the hospital. "You must have an autopsy ready," said the clerk to Philip. "It's best to start by dissecting the human leg. Most students do this. They seem to think that the human leg is easier to dissect."

The first lesson Philip found himself having was anatomy, which began at eleven o'clock.At about half-past ten he limped across the road to the medical school, feeling a little nervous.As soon as I entered the school gate, I saw several notices posted on the bulletin board, including class schedules, football game forecasts, and so on.Philip looked at the notices at ease, trying to look at ease.Some young lads entered the school gate in twos and threes, rummaged and chatted as they rummaged for letters on the letter racks, and then went down the stairs to the basement, where the students' reading room was.Philip saw a few students loitering about, looking around timidly, and thought that these, like himself, had been here for the first time.After he read the notices one by one, he found himself in front of a glass door, which seemed to be an exhibition hall.Anyway, there were still twenty minutes before class, so Philip wandered in.Various pathological specimens are displayed inside.After a while, a young man about eighteen years old came up to him.

"Hey, are you in first grade?" he said. "That's right," Philip answered. "Do you know where the lecture hall is? It's almost eleven o'clock." "Let's go find it." They came out of the gallery and entered a long dark corridor.The walls on either side of the passage were painted in two shades of red.He saw some other young people walking forward, which meant that the lecture hall was ahead.They came to a door marked "Anatomy Lecture Hall", and Philip noticed that many people were already sitting inside.This is a lecture theater.Just as Philip entered the door, a worker came in, brought a cup of tea and put it on the podium in front of the classroom, and then brought a pelvis and two left and right femurs.Some students came in and sat down in their seats.By eleven o'clock, the auditorium was almost full.There were about sixty students, most of them much younger than Philip, hairless eighteen-year-olds, and a few older.He noticed a tall, tall man with a red beard, about thirty years old; another small man with dark hair, about a year or two younger than the former; Has been a little gray.

Mr. Cameron, the lecturer, walked in.He has clear eyebrows, regular facial features, and his hair has been dyed with a layer of frost.He started the roll call, a long list of names from the beginning to the end, and then came an opening speech.He had a melodious voice, and when he spoke, he seemed to be secretly proud of his brevity and conciseness.He mentioned one or two books, suggested that the students buy them and keep them with them, and advised them to each prepare a skeleton.When he talked about anatomy, he spoke enthusiastically: this is a compulsory subject for studying surgery; knowing a little anatomy can also help improve art appreciation.Philip listened attentively.He later heard that Mr Cameron also gave lessons to students at the Royal College of Art.He has lived in Japan for many years and taught at the University of Tokyo. Mr. Cameron thinks he has a unique insight into the beauty and beauty of the world.

"You'll have a lot of dull stuff to learn," he concluded his opening remarks, with a forgiving smile, "and you'll forget all of it as soon as you pass your final exam. Neat. But when it comes to anatomy, it's better to learn it and throw it away than never learn it at all." Mr Cameron picked up his pelvis, which was on the table, and began his lecture.He spoke clearly and eloquently. The young man who had chatted with Philip in the pathological specimen exhibition hall sat next to Philip during the get out of class, and after class, he suggested that they go to the dissection room together.Philip and he walked down the aisle again, and a workmate told them where the dissecting room was. As soon as they entered the dissecting room, Philip immediately understood what was going on with the astringent smell he had just smelled in the aisle.He lit his pipe, and the worker laughed.

"You'll get used to the smell soon. It's been a long time since I've smelled it." He asked Philip's name and looked at the list on the notice-board. "You've got a leg -- number one and four." Philip saw his and another's name written in brackets. "What does that mean?" he asked. "Right now the human body is not enough, so two people have to combine one limb." The dissecting room was spacious, and the paint in the room was the same color as the corridor, bright orange-red on the upper half, and dark russet on the wall paneling on the lower half.Along the longitudinal sides of the room are placed iron plates, all at right angles to the wall, with a certain distance between the iron plates.The iron plates had gaps like meat basins, and inside each was a dead body.Most of them are male corpses.The body was darkened by long-term immersion in embalming agents, and the skin looked almost leather-like.The corpse was disfigured and shriveled.The workmates led Philip to an iron plate.There stood a young man.

"Are you Carey?" he asked. "yes." "Oh, then we'll share this thigh. Luckily for us, it's a guy, eh?" "How do you say that?" asked Philip. "Students generally prefer to dissect male corpses," said the worker, "women often have a thick layer of fat." Philip looked at the corpse in front of him.The limbs were so thin that they lost their original shape, the ribs were all protruding, and the outer skin was stretched tightly.The deceased was about forty-five years old, with a light gray beard on his chin, and a few dull hairs growing sparsely on his skull; his eyes were closed, and his jaw was sunken.Philip could never have imagined that the person lying here had once been a living person. To be honest, the row of corpses lay there like this, and the atmosphere was a bit eerie.

"I think I'll do it about two o'clock in the afternoon," said the boy who was to partner with Philip in the dissection. "Well, I'll be here then." Philip had bought the indispensable box of dissecting instruments the day before, and now he was assigned a locker. He glanced at the young man who had entered the dissecting room with him, and saw him pale. "Doesn't it taste good?" Philip asked him. "It's the first time I've seen a dead person." The two of them walked along the corridor until they reached the school gate.Philip thought of Fanny Price.The woman who hanged herself was the first dead person he saw.He still remembers the strange feeling that the tragedy gave him at that time.There is an immeasurable distance between the living and the dead, and the two do not seem to belong to the same species.It's strange to think that not so long ago these people were talking, moving, eating, and laughing.There seemed to be something frightening about the deceased, no wonder some people thought that maybe they really had an evil spirit of bewitching.

"Will you have something to eat?" said the new friend to Philip. They come to the basement.There was a room set up as a dining room, but the light was a little dim.The supplies are all available, and students can also eat all kinds of food provided by the dim sum shop outside.At dinner (Philip ordered a butterscotch and a glass of chocolate) he knew the name of his companion was Dunsford.The young man had a good complexion, blue eyes, dark curly hair, black and shining, big hands and feet, and strong growth;He was from Clifton, new to London. "Are you on the joint course?" he asked Philip.

"Yes, I want to qualify as a doctor as soon as possible." "I'm also doing joint courses, but at some point I want to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Surgeons. I'm going to specialize in surgery." Most students take courses prescribed by the Joint Board of Societies of Physicians and Surgeons.However, some ambitious or studious students will continue their studies for a period of time until they obtain a degree for London entry.Shortly before Philip entered St. Luke's there was a change in the school's constitution; the four years which had been in force before the autumn of 1892 were now five years old.Regarding his own study plan, Dunsford had already made up his mind. He told Philip the general arrangement of the school's courses: "The first round of joint courses" exams include three subjects: biology, anatomy and chemistry, but they can take the exams in installments. Most students It is to take the biology test three months after enrollment.This is a newly added compulsory course, but you only need to know a little bit about it.

When Philip returned to the dissecting room, he was a few minutes late because he forgot to buy the dissecting sleeves in advance.He saw a lot of people working hard.His partner got to work just in time and was busy dissecting the skin nerves.Two others were dissecting the other leg.Others were dissecting upper limbs. "I've already done it, you don't mind?" "Proceed with you, where it is," said Philip. Philip picked up the anatomy book. The book had turned to the place where the anatomy of a human leg was drawn, and he carefully looked at the relevant parts that needed to be clarified. "You seem to have a knack for these things," said Philip. "Oh, actually, I did a lot of animal dissection experiments in prep." There was a lot of chatter on the anatomy table, some talking about work, some predicting the prospects of the football league, and some discussing anatomy demonstrations and various lectures.Philip felt that he was many years older than all the people present.They are all furry children.But age does not mean anything, what is more important is the knowledge in your stomach.Newsom, the quick-witted young man with whom he was doing the anatomy experiments, knew the subject well.Perhaps he didn't feel ashamed to be pedantic, and explained to Philip in detail how he did it.Philip, in spite of his knowledge, had to listen.Philip then picked up a scalpel and forceps and began to dissect, with Newsom watching. "What a treat to meet such a skinny monkey," Newsom said, wiping his hands. "The guy hasn't caught a bite in probably a month." "I don't know what he died of," muttered Philip. "Oh, I don't know that. Nine times out of ten, any old guy dies of starvation. . . . Hey, watch out, don't cut that artery." "Don't cut that artery, that's so easy to say," remarked the student sitting across from him dissecting the other leg, "but the old fool's artery is in the wrong place." "The arteries always grow in the wrong place," Newsom said. "The standard is something that can never be found, otherwise why call it a standard." "Don't make such wisecracks," said Philip, "or I'll cut my hands." "If you cut your hand," interjected the well-informed Newsom, "you've got to wash it off with disinfectant. You can't be careless about that. There was a guy last year who just got a little prick, and he didn't take it seriously. One thing, and ended up with sepsis." "Is it okay later?" "Where! He was reimbursed within a week. I went to the morgue to have a look at him." By tea time Philip was aching with fatigue, and having looked forward to it, having had so little lunch.There was a smell on his hands, the same strange smell he had first smelled in the corridor this morning.He thought the muffins in his hand had the same smell. "Oh, you'll get used to it soon enough," Newsom said, "and you'll be pretty lonely if you don't have that lovely dissecting room smell around you." "I don't want to be put off by the smell," said Philip.He had just eaten a muffin, and quickly added another piece of cake.