Chapter 489: Magic Version of a Sphygmomanometer!
Catching a spy was a huge success!
Having eliminated a thorn in his side, Garrett could happily continue exploring the booths. He pulled out a large amount of gold coins, purchased what amounted to half a ton of rubber balls (and arranged for a ton more for the following year), and bought a whole cartload of various plants and animals:
Small clusters of white flowers, soft-leaved branches, and the gray bark peeled from the trees, which, according to locals, was used to treat swamp fever;
Brightly colored frogs, from which extracts could be taken to cause paralysis or numbness;
Fist-sized brown fruits, hard as wood, filled with a bunch of bean-shaped seeds;
And the so-called "god flowers," capable of revolving around the sun, which had brown flower discs...
Of course, in the end, Garrett asked the Archmage to inquire about the owner of a long skirt, wondering if Seraina could try it on—if it fit, buying it would be ideal.
When he asked what adorned the skirt, the seller readily answered:
"Jewel beetles! Oh, they’re a local type of insect, very beautiful, known as ’the eyes of the rainbow.’ This skirt is embellished with their elytra, said to be a princess’s bridal gown, made by three hundred women over an entire year..."
"Ah! Take it away! Take it away!"
Miss Silver Dragon instinctively jumped back. Such beautiful decorations, made from insect carapaces! Those small, dirty things!
Imagining wearing the skirt felt like having insects crawling all over her body—she was disgusted!
Although she wasn’t afraid of these creatures—they could hardly harm her, at most they would face her dragon’s breath—she found it quite repulsive!
She moved too quickly, even knocking over a tea tray in front of her, spilling tea all over the table. Seraina didn’t care and turned to run away. Garrett apologized with a smile, his palms open. The seller, understanding, chuckled:
"Ah, normal for a young lady—"
After shaking hands and exchanging contact details, promising to keep in touch, the exhibition visit ended. Instead of returning to the hospital, Garrett hurried to the Mage Tower:
"Mr. Norwood! Mr. Norwood! I need your help!"
Mr. Norwood popped his head out from the lab. This transmutation wizard had prospered under Garrett’s guidance, successfully advancing to a fifth-level mage and was now ambitiously working toward the sixth level.
Having spent nearly a year in the Mage Tower, his hair had lessened its graying, his back was straighter, his walk was brisker, and his voice louder. He looked at Garrett with bright, enthusiastic eyes:
"Mr. Nordmark? What do you need?"
His boss had called!
A new project!
Time to publish another paper!
Mr. Nordmark was very generous; the topics he threw out were major, and he usually only listed himself as a corresponding author, sometimes not even that...
"Look at these rubbers!" Garrett summoned two enhanced, oversized Mage Hands, clapping them together. He slapped his spatial bag, spilling out a handful of rubber balls:
"Please help, treat these with sulfur to make airbags—about the size one can hold in a hand, connected to a tube, then to a long, thin air pouch..."
Garrett described the basic structure of the traditional mercury sphygmomanometer’s inflating part to Mr. Norwood. Mr. Norwood pinched a rubber ball and nodded:
"I know, treated with sulfur, there was a paper on it in ’The Philosopher’s Stone.’ Unfortunately, the results are bulky, and the long tubes and thin sheets are troublesome. We need to study more about what you need. When do you need it?"
"The sooner, the better...uh..."
Garrett’s voice trailed off. Though not a materials scientist, he knew the four great pitfalls of biochemical environmental materials—it wasn’t something that could be achieved so easily. Researchers had to strive, and as the boss, he needed to be patient.
Depending on a transmutation wizard with two apprentices to provide results the day after a request was made was expecting too much.
"It’s okay, I’ll do more tests myself." Mr. Norwood kindly took on the task:
"Boss, is sulfur enough? Do we need anything else? How much sulfur should be added? How did you see the Archmages handle it? Does it require heating?"
Garrett nearly ran away. When he was in the Dwarf Kingdom, he was the one who suggested ideas, and the transmutation Archmage handled them. He had observed the process—it involved sulfur flying around, rubber balls flying around, being kneaded, fused, stretched by an invisible hand...
And that was it. Then, all the spacers, seals, and
various items Garrett needed were made. No concerns about temperature control or material proportions.
Garrett had to figure it out himself. He counted off on his fingers:
"Not just sulfur, all kinds of sulfur compounds are worth trying;"
"The amount of sulfur...you can try anything from 1% to 40%, it seems like the rubber comes out different at different amounts;"
"Temperature...you can soak it in a solution of sulfide at room temperature, or do hot vulcanization... I’m not sure about the specific temperatures, but try in hot water, steam, hot air;"
"You could also try adding something else, like the nitrocellulose I was working on recently..."
Got it, the boss has ideas, unsure how to achieve them, and speaking of operational capability, that’s even more out of the question. Mr. Norwood nodded, taking the sack of rubber, and unfolding a large sheet of drafting paper:
"Let’s check the papers first!" he called to his apprentices:
"Angela, you check the papers! Barry, you go buy every rubber product on the market! Hurry!"
The two apprentices responded. One dashed out of the Mage Tower, summoned a magical horse, and charged toward the trade hall of the White Tower; the other hurried to the Mage Tower’s information hub to find Mr. MOSS and flip through the list of papers.
Meanwhile, Mr. Norwood himself, his palms rough and calloused but no longer cracking, began to scratch his head:
Oh, the combinations of different compounds, amounts, proportions, temperatures... how many could there be? At least a thousand?
He wondered if the boss would agree to hiring more apprentices...
millimeters of mercury is equivalent to 1767 millimeters of water column, or about 1.7 meters. If unfortunately, this patient’s blood pressure went up to 230 millimeters of mercury, then the glass tube would need to be over 3 meters high.
Such a tall glass tube, let alone the hassle—too narrow, and just the capillary action might suck the blood up; too wide, like a tube 1 square centimeter in diameter, and a single surge could mean 170 to 300 milliliters of blood. All that blood shooting out, how would you stuff it back into the blood vessels?
...Speaking of which, that doctor who first measured animal blood pressure, he drew blood 270 centimeters high from a horse’s carotid artery, did he ever get it back in?
"If you don’t want such a high glass tube, you’d use a U-shaped tube, put mercury on the other end. But mercury is troublesome, highly toxic, it’s best not to use invasive methods..."
"Why not use magic then?"
Garrett was taken aback. Seraina pointed at the pulsating blood vessel, her pale fingertip gently pressing down as if touching the gushing column of blood, feeling its pressure:
"Can’t you just insert a tube directly into the blood vessel, connect the other end to a magic array—displaying the pressure directly through the magic array?"
Garrett: ???
Well done, girl, you’ve spontaneously come up with invasive blood pressure monitoring?
That’s not a bad idea, I’ll ask around later if there’s a magic array that directly displays pressure...
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