"We could shave her head for the lice, it'd be quicker."

She's now completely covered in sulfur ointment! And they only have to do this to her two more times.

It would be quicker, but... He has no idea how Cheliax people think about hair. Or how Imelda would feel, specifically. "Imelda, would you prefer lots of combing, or it all getting shaved off."

"Lots of combing! They make you be bald in the orphanage."

"It's hair, it grows back."

"Takes longer to grow back than it does to grow. I'll do it if you promise to sit still."

"Okay!"

"Can you read?" Tanidio asks.

"...no."

"Can't be a doctor without learning to read, I'll send someone to buy you a primer."

...Not the primer he learned from himself, which has rather too many practice sentences about how if you insult a priest of Asmodeus then he is justified in summoning a devil to rip you apart. Maybe they can get one from Absalom and change some of the nouns. 

The sooner he starts combing, the sooner he can stop combing. "Technically I don't know how to read Taldane. We can learn together."

"But you need to learn to read to be a doctor!"

"I know how to read Thai, but right now all the Taldane I know is because of spells."

:O

"Can you cast a spell that makes me know how to read and then I can become a doctor?"

"Technically yes, but you want to be able to do medicine even if you don't have a second-circle wizard on hand. --Bun, you're going to be literate in Taldane if you can speak Taldane, I don't know a spell that just does speech."

"Well, that'll get in the way of learning." Though ideally he would be able to get around without a second circle wizard.

"I guess I could try casting it an hour later each day, for language practice, if there ends up being time for that."

"...we should probably focus on teaching the students first."

Fair enough.

He's going to talk to Tanidio about the antibiotic and ether production process while he combs out Imelda's hair.

What is an antibiotic? What is an ether? Why do bacteria eat agar?

Antibiotics are things that are more poisonous to bacteria than they are to us. Bacteria are tiny little living things, so small you can't see them, but some of them cause infections. Those yellowish scabs on her face are from a bacteria.

Ether is a gas, that if you breathe it, it knocks you out. This is useful if you want to do surgery on them.

Bacteria eat pretty much anything. Agar is good because them eating it isn't too messy, and you can more easily see the colonies they grow.

Is this kid going to be around all the time making it impossible to have a conversation. 

Yes!

But isn't she so charming!

... Also, bad news Tanidio: they're both close contacts of a scabies case. They're going to have to get covered in sulfur too.

It's time that the two annoying people in this house bother each other for a change. "Levrolurment, the gnome that lives here, has a lot of interesting equipment. I bet he'll tell you about it if you ask."