"I'd love to hear them." She squeezes her hand. "And congratulations, again."

They had wanted to at least let Dr Baika retain the option of staying comparatively low-profile, but that is not the way she chose, thank the gods. It will be far faster this way. 

The Most Excellent College of Physicians is unhappy about an unaffiliated practitioner being in the city. (Look, clerics are busy people, you don't want to bother them unless you have to, and you'll be waiting a while for anything less than immediately life-threatening, whereas a physician will attend you at once.) They aren't allowed to stop her, but they aren't happy. It's worse that she was Chosen, now they look foolish. 

Her half-baked 'theory' of disease has been quite thoroughly exploded, in any case, in a lecture she was not courageous enough to even attend. This proves none of it will work. 

Oh for fuck's sake.

She's been here less than 24 hours. She did not even HEAR of this so-called lecture until after it had occurred, nor the College. They could have sent a messenger. She received no such message, you know? If you can't even bother to give proper notice that just shows even MORE that you're trying to hide or push something through, you know?

Silminet can watch her drop immediately into some kind of cold fury. That's how they want to play, huh? Not only is she insulted, but she's seen this before. It's probably a self-interested ivory tower oligarchy on the top, insulted at her temerity to prove them wrong and kill their golden monopoly. Maybe she's being prejudiced, so she'll watch out for signs that her assumptions are incorrect.

The only correct response to something like this, that might actually threaten the momentum she's trying to build, is escalation. You don't defeat gangs by matching them gun for gun. You see their gun, and bring a rocket launcher.

She pours all her annoyance into, one, research (I.E. talking to people, politely, only insulting them in her head) on who these baboons even think they are and why they think they know better than her. Any redeeming points from her first instinct that they have to be driven out entirely- Say, a degree of actual scholarship? They're good at palliative care at least, or physical therapy, or pediatrics? Anything? 

And, two, putting together a short booklet on her office software. She's going to focus on the proof. Objective things that one can look for and decide whether one theory or another seems most likely. High quality photographs and illustrations. Instructions for building a microscope and taking slide samples. Watch them wriggle. Douse them in alcohol or ask a cleric to purify the slide, and watch them die.

...Probably have to show them to someone before actually printing it. Haste makes waste. Silminet, Naevys, and then some of the locals who seemed amenable to the whole project, maybe. In the morning, since she immediately put off sleep and worked halfway through the night on this.

Between what people can tell her and what she can work out for herself and possibly the assistance of her power - a lot of what they sell is really reassurance. Toothache? Back pain? Drink the elixir, feel better in a few days, what magnificent physic! They have developed extraordinarily sophisticated theories of what the body does and how it functions and may be remedied, far too complex for any mere layman to understand. Their theories are beautiful and coherent and intensely moral. They advocate vigorously for reform and new and fresh ideas, specifically theirs, like doing exactly as they say, and special remedial diets for the poor and novel therapies for the cowardly. They will happily treat, for example, those dangerously eccentric or outspoken or otherwise inconvenient people whom clerics are powerless to sort out. 

(There are, of course, surgeons, ugh, who are one step above butchers - lots of them were barbers, obliged sadly to sully their dextrous hands with blood - who merely do things like set fractures and bind up sprains and drain abscesses and deliver babies and that sort of thing, but who would care about them. They don't even have theories.)

She is now assured that nothing of value will be lost.

Early morning she rants to Naevys about this idiocy over breakfast.

Naevys is an elf! They're all physically about twenty or thirtyish, they don't fall ill often, and clerics are not so rare among them! Physicians help you with emotional problems, they don't... do whatever this is! Also she in fact did go to that lecture while Dr Baika was out with Silminet and this stuff is uncomfortably like Necromancy, is what it is! Or it would be if it made any sense!

"Some of the things they're doing have some degree of actual useful effect." The Placebo Effect is forbidden knowledge, for now. "Some. The impulse to theoretical understanding is perhaps a valid one, but they're chasing imagined beauty over messy reality. A green brush across the page instead of looking at a real tree. I'm going to have to teach them a lesson. Perhaps a literal one, but more likely in the metaphorical sense of making them sorry they clashed with me. If they don't see the sense in logical arguments and practical proof, which they won't, I'll ridicule and denounce them."

She hands over a display tablet with the draft how-disease-works handbook on it.

"What do you think of this?"

It opens with a carefully polite cover letter about how she ~must have missed~ the messengers they no doubt sent to invite her to where they would discuss this most important and pressing topic. Of course she is willing to participate in scholarship to find the truth, and hopes that together all the people of the city can grow in wisdom and honor by engaging in righteous, logical debate and displays of proof. It's the most angel-faced possible academic thrown gauntlet, but the gauntlet is definitely thrown.

The next page, with a skeuomorphic little curled-paper indicator to tap in the corner, is about how she openly invites people to challenge her for proof on matters of medicine and the body. She is not afraid of the truth; If she is wrong, she wishes to be shown that she is wrong and learn the truth. To her, proof comes slowly. It is things you can see, things that can be explained by one idea but not another, and things that can be counted or measured. Is it not more reassuring to hear 'of 100 people who took this medicine, 3 fell ill, while of 100 of those who did not- 40 fell ill'?

Dr Baika's magic items are so fascinating!

"I like it! It makes a lot of sense actually. I haven't really seen very much of this thing about, how many out of a hundred did this happen to, but I know you think like that a lot and it is useful!" That reminds her, now that she's actually among humans (!) she should see if anyone knows how good her guesses were, that time Dr Baika asked about them! "So, I went to their college - being from Silvermoon gets you in anywhere like that, it turns out! - and they were quite angry. I didn't understand all of it, they talked a lot about sick people's urine for some reason? They said it had no little living things in it and that proved the 'animalculous doctrine' all wrong. I think they think people really get ill from bad smells or lack of discipline, they had a lot of strange ideas about what discipline was! And they wanted there to be a law against talking about medicine without their licence, for public health, which I said sounded like heresy and they shouted me down but they did change the subject!"

"Hah, FUCK no, that's just a blatant economic grab. How can people learn if they can't even talk about a subject? ...There literally are microbes in urine though. It's kinda gross but you need to approach this stuff clinically anyway, it's no less important for being gross. I'll need to bring a decent microscope then. And include the agar plates experiments in my rebuttal- Set it up in a way to disprove the smell thing somehow, the only fix for the discipline idea is collecting objective data from a large number of people of varying levels of discipline..."

"I've only been here a day but I can't imagine them actually getting that to happen! ...I hope. I didn't actually really know people did this stuff, I thought it was maybe just you and your world because there were no clerics! You could... make someone ill inside a flower garden or something?"

"I don't think that passed the ethics board test. It'd be causing deliberate harm to prove a point. Maybe if I were genuinely uncertain, but I'm really not. Maybe if someone enthusiastically volunteers."

"...Could you not just pay someone?"

"You normally have to pay people to participate in medical trials, yes, but the rules for what's okay to test are still there. It's a bad habit. Got to ask myself every time, is this actually worth it? Am I fooling myself? Am I crossing a moral line? Dare I say it, would Pelor approve of this? If doing that exact test seems to be the best way to quickly convince people, a disproportionate longer term benefit, it's probably worth it. I just haven't decided that yet."

"Huh. Interesting! I... don't really think like that but I can really see why Pelor Chose you! Congratulations again, by the way, that's amazing! You don't have to defend it," she does struggle with the clash between her constant urge to argue with people and feeling horrible when it gets stressful, "but... why do you think that's so important? Instead of just offering more money?"

It's funny, people keep congratulating her but it doesn't feel like an accomplishment in itself. Maybe if it's an acknowledgement of all the work so far. 

"I don't mind explaining. Explaining things can clarify them in your own head too. Human societies can get so fucked up about money. It's incredibly intertwined with maladaptive mental patterns and bad incentive structures. I don't know the official doctrine, of course, to say what exactly is heresy or not but- 'I can just pay them more money to endure this bad thing', okay, maybe that's true. But it's a very easy path from there to 'why am I paying so much money for this, it's too expensive, I'll cheat them out of part of it', which would be, I suppose, Heresy. Ordinary people should be able to trust doctors almost like they trust the Church, so that they can confidently take advice and treatments, and feel safe in their own body. You have to be scrupulous, more than careful enough, if you want to even approach that."

(It's a direct result of all the tireless work for the common good she's doing, and her admirable conviction, and remaining a mostly reasonable person in Night City, which He can dimly perceive now and does not approve of, but He isn't going to speak just to say so.)

"...Wow. I see. I... didn't know that about humans, I think, possibly they take money more seriously than elves! Possibly they have to! ...But not as seriously as dwarves, who I don't think would have that problem somehow." Naturally. "Because - yes, that's just theft, I think. I... really didn't understand, before, how important doctors were, I'm sorry!"

"You don't have doctors here yet, not proper ones. Barbers and surgeons are close and I'll want to get as many of them on board as I can, sell it as admiring the work they do and wanting to help them do it better... Clerics can't be everywhere, after all. I should probably find time to heal people between everything else I'm doing to set up..."

"I asked about that! Clerics do a lot of things besides healing people, often humans have to wait for them to be available! And surgery can make things a lot easier to heal! But mostly the Most Excellent Physicians just looked at me in horror when I asked."

"I really don't like them. I'm just not sure yet on the scale of my response. I want to print a few hundred copies of this, once I have a good version, and plaster them about..."

"I have to say I don't really understand why they exist at all! They seemed sort of important? But I have no idea why!"

Naevys, as it happens, has lived her life among the elves and then at Silvermoon, with their precious hoards of books and ancient powers, and does not in fact quite understand the importance of printing. 

"You can just... do that? That's really impressive! I don't think they'll be able to respond to that the same way."

"Is it not common here? I would have thought Mansur, if anywhere, would have printing presses... But anyway, there's more. I want it to be informative and convincing, probably include this address so people can come talk to me about it- Need to start hiring today..."

"I've... never really thought about it! You can't print books of magic, obviously. We could... ask someone, maybe? I know books here aren't all manuscript but... hmm. It's convincing to me but I know you. We could just go and ask people!"

"I'm sure I won't lack for more curious visitors. A Chosen and a wizard looming over them might color what they choose to say, but there's no way around that."

She will go out and find a curious passer-by, or if one does not present themselves soonish, go find a barber or surgeon.

The whole little booklet is maybe 10 pages long, including the illustrations. Callout of the Physicians, one page about evidence and proof, 3 pages on the microbes theory and how it explains some but not all ailments and WASH YOUR HANDS, and then 5 pages on experiments you can do to check, and arguments about which explanation is more likely given the results of said experiments, with a little bonus snideness about changing your mind when you see new information, is that not literally what learning and wisdom IS, admitting you were wrong and becoming correct?

Can foul stench be present without causing disease? Can disease be caused in a location without foul stench? Consider testing it yourself with the following simple experiments. For example, take vessels of glass and broth. Seal the vessels and boil one, or mix the other with strong spirits. Watch the growth of foul molds only occur in the untreated vessel.

(She does also have a couple of microscopes, but she'll save that for a follow-up blow after this first one lands.)

Dr Baika is visibly foreign even if you don't notice anything odd about her eyes. Mansur is enormous and wealthy and splendid and cosmopolitan, and gets a huge fraction of everyone everywhere who can Teleport for tourism at all, but that is not absolutely speaking a huge number of people, and Dr Baika looks different from all of them. She gets a little interest before she even opens her mouth. 

This man is a servant and market porter! He can read, a little bit. ...More importantly, that's an elf, wow, he has seen elves before but they don't normally come up to you in the street! Is that where this 'microbes' idea comes from? (He sounds wary but not outright afraid). ...Is that... why you have to do ablutions and things before you eat, he just thought you were supposed to be clean and pure like the gods. 

What does mould have to do with disease?