Greece’s Roman Road

Chapter 18: marriage

Constantine's proposal made Dean Philip unable to refuse. It has to be said that for the doctor, the corpse is really tempting.

Because of professional habits, driven by the thirst for knowledge, before the Renaissance, I don’t know how many doctors were judged by the church in the name of heresy and burned to death because of their “bad habit” of dissecting corpses.

Now Constantine promised to help contact the Athens prison and provide the bodies of prisoners in the Athens City Hospital, which made Philip very moved.

Looking at Philip sitting in the office chair, lost in thought, Constantine was not in a hurry to urge.

After a long time, Philip finally had a reaction.

"Your Excellency, can you tell me the source of your medicine, you said it has the effect of treating malaria, can you tell me how you learned about it," Philip asked.

Seeing that Philip's attitude had loosened, Constantine naturally wanted to strike while the iron was hot.

It's just that Constantine couldn't say that artemisinin was a special medicine for malaria from later generations.

In order to add some persuasion, we can only make up a plausible and possible story.

"It's like this. I heard a sailor who used to be on the Eastern route say that a Chinese doctor once used a herbal medicine to treat malaria, and it was very effective."

This is actually a statement compiled by Constantine, based on the story of the American cinchona bark being seen by missionaries as being able to cure malaria.

However, after Philip heard this statement, he finally did not resist as before.

Thinking of the origin of quinine, Philip also felt that the claim that the green liquid in Constantine's hand could cure malaria was not entirely impossible.

In Philip's eyes, this story finally made Constantine's behavior less absurd.

"I can help you verify the effect of this herb, but you have to help our hospital get the corpses of prisoners in Athens prison."

"I know the warden of the Athens prison, that's no problem," Constantine readily agreed.

Philip took the glass bottle in Constantine's hand, looked at the green liquid in it, opened it and smelled it, the strong alcohol smell made him frown.

"You used ethanol to extract a certain herbal medicine. This glass bottle is a mixture of a drug and ethanol, right?"

As expected of a professional, even though he just glanced at it, Philip had already guessed something.

Immediately afterwards, Constantine stated his operational experience to Philip.

Of course, the key Artemisia annua was replaced with some kind of herb.

Although this Philip was not like a greedy and cunning man, Constantine did not want to experiment with the philosophical question of which money or morality is more reliable.

Seeing this, Philip felt even more confident. Although Constantine's experimental request was a bit abrupt, at least it did not violate scientific common sense.

"In this way, we will heat it. The boiling point of ethanol is low. After heating, it evaporates, and the herbal ingredients in it will be precipitated, and then we can get the medicine you mentioned. Is this idea no problem?" Philip asked.

"No problem, that's the way of thinking," Constantine nodded in agreement.

"Then what are the side effects of a single patient's dosage? Does His Excellency the Duke have any advice on these key issues? What did the Eastern sailor have to say?" Philip asked with a serious face.

"As far as I know, this herb has no serious side effects, and may have mild nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, etc." Constantine recalled the information about artemisinin in his mind and returned.

"As for the dose, I don't know that, otherwise I wouldn't use you to test it."

Based on Constantine's answer, Philip pondered for a long time and said: "If the experiment goes well, the whole process of the experiment will be divided into three steps. In the first step, eight mild malaria patients will be subjected to a control experiment, two taking quinine and two taking quinine. For the experimental drug, four people are used as a control observation, and no drugs are taken for the time being. If there is no effect, the subsequent experiments will not be carried out, how about it?"

The first step of the experiment is to observe whether the drug is effective or not. For the safety of patients, only malaria patients with mild symptoms can be selected.

Constantine agreed to the experimental method, and Dean Philip chose several doctors as assistants to prepare for the experiment.

 

Returning to the Tatoi Palace, Constantine, who was waiting for the news of the experiment, saw Butler Capet coming to report the news.

"Your Excellency, during your absence, Little Costerbloom from Alpha Bank came over and sent a check." With that, Capet handed a check in his hand to Constantine.

Seeing the figure of £500,000 on the cheque, I sighed that the richest person is still a banker.

"Did he make any request?" Constantine asked.

"No, I just said that I would support your African adventure, and then I left, and said I would come back to see His Excellency the Duke another day," Butler Capet said with a puzzled face.

Hearing this, Constantine admired the Costerbloom family's words and deeds, their extraordinary courage, such a huge sum of 500,000 pounds, they were given as much as they were told, not even a request was made, and they were not afraid of being lost.

"I see, is there anything else?"

"His Majesty the King and Queen are waiting for you in the living room now," said Butler Capet.

After hearing the news, Constantine came to the living room in the Tatoi Palace, and saw Queen Olga and King George sitting on the sofa chatting.

"How was the hunt yesterday? Did you catch any prey?" Queen Olga asked Constantine with concern.

"Of course, everyone had a good time when they caught a red fox."

"That's really good news," Olga said after hearing this.

Having said that, he glanced at his husband George and nodded towards him.

"Constantine, you have completed your studies at the Athens Military Academy. I have discussed with your mother and plan to let you study political science at Heidelberg or Leipzig University in Germany, and command the army officers, you know, the Germans' The schools are still very good, especially their army officer education."

George I observed Constantine's reaction, and when he saw that he had no objection, he was relieved.

"And..." Speaking of this, he pondered for a long time.

Seeing her husband's hesitation, she still seemed a little hesitant, but Constantine's mother, Queen Olga, took over and continued: "You are almost of age, Constantine, it's time to think about your marriage. event."

"You should be very clear that the Greek people have high expectations for you. As the crown prince of Greece, you will become the king of the Greeks in the future, not an ordinary person, so your marriage will also receive special attention."

Constantine was very surprised when he heard this. He didn't expect that the queen and the king were already thinking about his marriage.

European royal families have the habit of intermarriage with each other. Almost all royal families are related to each other, and political marriage is prevalent.

The marriage of the royal family is not only a personal matter, it is also closely related to the national interest, which determines that the national interest must be considered behind the marriage of the royal family.

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