The Year of Rice and Salt

'Your work seems very different to Chinese medicine,' one of the others said. 'We were hoping you might speak to us about the differences between their theory and yours.'

Ismail shook his head, fingering through these vestiges of his former existence. He would not have said he had written so much. Perhaps there were multiple copies even on this shelf.

'I have no theories,' he said. 'I have only noted what I have seen.' His face tightened. 'I will be happy to speak with you about whatever you like, of course.'

The abbess said, 'It would be very good if you would speak to a gathering about these things, there are many who would like to hear you, and to ask questions.'

'My pleasure, of course.'

'Thank you. We will convene tomorrow for that, then.'

A clock somewhere struck the bells that marked every hour and watch.

'What kind of clock do you employ?'

'A version of Bhaskara's mercury wheel,' Bhakta said, and led Ismail by the tall building that housed it. 'It does very well for the astronomical calculations, and the Kerala has decreed a new year using it, more accurate than any before. But to tell the truth, we are now trying horologues with weight driven mechanical escapements. We are also trying clocks with spring drives, which would be useful at sea, where accurate timekeeping is essential for determining longitude.'

'I know nothing of that.'

'No. You have been attending to medicine.'

'Yes.'

The next day they returned to the hospital, and in a large room where surgeries were performed, a great number of monks and nuns in brown and maroon and yellow robes sat on the floor to hear him. Bhakta had assistants bring several thick wide books to the table where Ismail was to speak, all of them filled with anatomical drawings, most Chinese.

They seemed to be waiting for him to speak, so he said, 'I am pleased to tell you what I have observed. Perhaps it will help you, I don't know. I know little of any formal medical system. I studied some of the ancient Greek knowledge as it was translated by Ibn Sina and others, but I never could profit much from it. Very little from Aristotle, somewhat more from Galen. Ottoman medicine itself was no very impressive thing. In truth, nowhere have I found a general explanation that fits what I have seen with my own eyes, and so long ago I gave up on all hypothesis, and decided to try to draw and to write down only what I saw. So you must tell me about these Chinese ideas, if you can express them in Persian, and I will see if I can tell you how my observations match with them.' He shrugged. 'That's all I can do.'

They stared at him, and he continued nervously: 'So useful, Persian. The language that bridges Islam and India.' He waggled a hand. 'Any questions?'

Bhakta herself broke the silence. 'What about the meridian lines that the Chinese speak of, running through the body from the skin inward and back again?'

Ismail looked at the drawings of the body she turned to in one of the books. 'Could they be nerves?' he said. 'Some of these lines follow the paths of major nerves. But then they diverge. I have not seen nerves crisscrossing like this, cheek to neck, down spine to thigh, up into back. Nerves generally branch like an almond tree's branches, while the blood vessels branch like a birch tree. Neither tangle like these are shown to.'

'We don't think meridian lines refer to the nerves.'

'To what, then? Do you see anything there when you do autopsies?'

'We do not do autopsies. When opportunity has allowed us to inspect torn bodies, their parts look as you have described them in your letters to us. But the Chinese understanding is of great antiquity and elaboration, and they get good results by sticking pins in the right meridian points, among other methods. They very often get good results.'

'How do you know?'

'Well – some of us have seen it. Mostly we understand it from what they have said. We wonder if they are finding systems too small to be seen. Can we be sure that the nerves are the only messengers of motion to the musculature?'

'I think so, ' Ismail said. 'Cut the right nerve and the muscles beyond it will not move. Prick a nerve and the appropriate muscle will jump.'

His audience stared at him. One of the older men said, 'Perhaps some other kind of energy transference is happening, not necessarily through the nerves, but through the lines, and this is needed as much as the nerves.'

'Perhaps. But look here,' pointing at one diagram, 'they show no pancreas. No adrenal glands either. These both perform necessary functions.'

Bhakta said, 'For them there are eleven crucial organs – five yin and six yang. Heart, lungs, spleen, liver and kidneys, they are yin.'

'A spleen is not essential.'

'Then the six yang organs are gall bladder, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, bladder and triple burner.'

'Triple burner? What is that?'