“It is in my blood. That’s what it says here,” Capiam cried in triumph. ” The clear serum which rises to the top of the vessel after the blood has clotted produces the essential globulins which will inhibit the disease. Injected intravenously, the blood serum gives protection for at least fourteen days, which is ordinarily sufficient time for an epidemic disease to run its course.’” Capiam read on avidly. He could separate the blood components by centrifugal force. Master Gallardy had said that the Ancients had special apparatus to achieve separation, but he could suggest a homely expedient. ” The serum introduces the disease into the body in such a weakened state as to awaken the body’s own defenses and thus prevent such a disease in its more virulent form.’”
Capiam lay back on his pillows, closing his eyes against a momentary weakness that was compounded of relief as well as triumph. He even recalled how he had rebelled against the tedious jotting down of a technique that might now save thousands of people. And the dragonriders!
Desdra regarded him with a curious expression on her face. “But that’s homeopathic! Except for injecting directly into the vein.”
“Quickly absorbed by the body, thus more effective. And we need an effective treatment. Desdra, how many dragonriders are sick?”
“We don’t know, Capiam. They stopped reporting numbers. The drums did say that twelve wings flew Thread at Igen, but the last report I had, from K’lon actually, was that one hundred and sev-
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enty-five riders were ill, including one of the queen riders. L’bol lost two sons in the first deaths.”
“A hundred and seventy-five ill? Any secondary infections?”
“They haven’t said. But then we haven’t asked. . , .”
“At Telgar? Fort Weyr?”
“We have been thinking more of the thousands dying than the dragonriders,” Desdra admitted in a bleak voice, her hands locked so tightly the knuckles were white.
“Yes, well, we depend on those two-thousand-odd dragonriders. So nag me no more and get what I need to make the serum. And when K’lon comes, I’ll want to see him immediately. Is there anyone else here in the Halls or the Hold who has recovered from this
disease?”
“Not recovered.”
“Never mind. K’lon will be here soon?”
“We expect him. He’s been conveying medicines and healers.”
“Good. Now, I’ll need a lot of sterile, two liter glass containers with screw tops, stout cord, fresh reeds span-lengthI’ve got needlethomsredwort and oh, boil me that syringe the cooks use to baste meats. I do have some glass ones Master Clargesh had blown for me. but I can’t think where I stored them. Now, away with you. Oh, and Desdra, I’ll want some double-destilled spirits and more of that restorative soup of yours.”
“I can understand the need for spirits,” she said at the door, hei expression sardonic, “but more of the soup you dislike so?”
He flourished a pillow and she laughed as she closed the dooi
behind her. Capiam turned the pages to the beginning of Master Gallardy’;
lecture.
In the event of an outbreak of a communicable disease, the use of a serum prepared from the blood of a recovered victim of the same disease has proved efficacious. Where the populace is healthy, an injection of the blood serum prevents the disease. Administered to a sufferer, the Mood serum mitigates the virulence. Long before the Crossings, such plagues as varicella, diphtheria, influenza, rubella, epidemic roseola, morbilli, scarlatina, variola, typhoid, typhus, poliomyelitis, tuberculosis,
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hepatitis, cytomegalovirus herpes, and gonococcal were eliminated by vaccination …
Typhus and typhoid were familiar to Capiam, for there had been outbreaks of each as the result of ineffective hygiene. He and the other healers had feared they would result from the current overcrowding. Diphtheria and scarlatina had flared up occasionally over the past several hundred Turns, at least often enough so that the symptoms and the treatment were part of his training. The other diseases he didn’t know except from the root words, which were very very old. He would have to look them up in the Harper Hall’s ety-mological dictionary.
He read on farther in Master Gallardy’s advice. A liter and a half of blood could be taken from each recovered victim of the disease and that, separated, would give fifty mils of serum for immunization. The injectable amount varied from one mil to ten, according to Gallardy, but he wasn’t very specific as to which amount for which disease. Capiam thought ruefully of the impassioned words he had poured at Tirone concerning the loss of techniques. Was he himself at fault for not attending more closely to Master Gallardy’s full lecture?