![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillysofthevalley posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
findthatbookI have been trying to find a book again and have not had any luck searching for it so maybe y’all can help. It’s about blood and old medical science and disease so I’ll put the summary under a cut.
It’s historical fiction, maybe 18th century? Pre-germ theory at least, at the start of understanding that ‘humors’ are not quite true and that things in our blood can make us sick. Transfusion is a new science.
Main Character is a guy pioneering this science working out of a prison and studying the blood of the prisoners. His thesis is that something in their blood makes them bad. If bad blood = criminal then new blood = good.
A guy hears about this work and brings his daughter to see MC. She is pure and virginal and beautiful but has a fatal flaw. Some curse of her blood is making her blind so would MC please give her new blood to cure her. Obviously, MC agrees because she’s hot and rich, right?
Some trial and error ensues with infusing her with nice, pure animal blood but eventually it gets to the point where she starts to get better and isn’t that wonderful. Emboldened by this success, MC decides to tackle a more ambitious case. He wants to reform one of the prison’s most notorious criminals. This is a seriously bad guy and his blood is equally gross. So MC does what any good scientist would do and TASTES HIS EXPERIMENT.
That’s right, he TASTES this guy’s blood and writes it down (because it’s not science unless you write it down). It tastes bad. Oh, and also it gives him SYPHILIS because the criminal HAS SYPHILIS. So that’s obviously not good for MC and Blind Girl.
I can’t remember exactly how it ended but I’m assuming badly because MC now has syphilis of the throat, his theory has been disproved, Girl isn’t going to marry him, and I think she starts going blind again.
Anyway, I have been looking for this book for eons so if anyone knows it I will be grateful!
It’s historical fiction, maybe 18th century? Pre-germ theory at least, at the start of understanding that ‘humors’ are not quite true and that things in our blood can make us sick. Transfusion is a new science.
Main Character is a guy pioneering this science working out of a prison and studying the blood of the prisoners. His thesis is that something in their blood makes them bad. If bad blood = criminal then new blood = good.
A guy hears about this work and brings his daughter to see MC. She is pure and virginal and beautiful but has a fatal flaw. Some curse of her blood is making her blind so would MC please give her new blood to cure her. Obviously, MC agrees because she’s hot and rich, right?
Some trial and error ensues with infusing her with nice, pure animal blood but eventually it gets to the point where she starts to get better and isn’t that wonderful. Emboldened by this success, MC decides to tackle a more ambitious case. He wants to reform one of the prison’s most notorious criminals. This is a seriously bad guy and his blood is equally gross. So MC does what any good scientist would do and TASTES HIS EXPERIMENT.
That’s right, he TASTES this guy’s blood and writes it down (because it’s not science unless you write it down). It tastes bad. Oh, and also it gives him SYPHILIS because the criminal HAS SYPHILIS. So that’s obviously not good for MC and Blind Girl.
I can’t remember exactly how it ended but I’m assuming badly because MC now has syphilis of the throat, his theory has been disproved, Girl isn’t going to marry him, and I think she starts going blind again.
Anyway, I have been looking for this book for eons so if anyone knows it I will be grateful!