Chapter 114 - Traditional Chinese Medicine

Liu San met with Dong Weiwei and gave her the medicine. He had prepared some of the simplest remedies, ready-made formulas using locally available herbs. For ease of use, they were all made into powders and pills.

“These are some simple herbal remedies I’ve prepared,” Liu San said, handing Dong Weiwei numerous paper packages and wooden boxes from his basket. “You know a little about traditional Chinese medicine, don’t you?”

“A little,” Dong Weiwei admitted, a touch embarrassed. “Actually, I only learned about acupuncture, cupping, and massage for fitness.”

“Can you take a pulse?”

“Only a little.”

“In that case,” Liu San said, “you should first read this ‘Barefoot Doctor’s Handbook.’ It contains diagnostic and treatment methods for many common ailments. Observation, listening, questioning, and palpation—you don’t have to rely on pulse diagnosis alone. This is the ‘Diagnosis and Treatment of Common Diseases in Hainan,’ compiled by Minister Shi. You should study it as well.”

“Alright. Mastering some medical skills is invaluable for our work.”

“This is the medical alcohol, absorbent cotton, and cotton swabs you requested…” Liu San took out a list. “And this is a list of the medicines I’ve prepared and their applications.” He continued, “There are pest control and prevention medicines, diaphoretics, dampness-dispelling medicines, purgatives, fire-clearing medicines, and sedatives… But the variety of herbs here is limited, so some remedies can’t be prepared. I’ll give you the formulas for those with readily available ingredients.”

Finally, Liu San produced a small wooden box. “A gift from the Ministry of Health—a medicine box.” He winked. “There are also some trial products inside.”

Dong Weiwei opened it curiously. Inside, alongside the usual items, was a rough, homemade gauze mask—a new product—and a box containing a brand-new set of simple surgical instruments.

“This is too important. Isn’t it a waste to give it to a layman like me?” Dong Weiwei knew the value of surgical instruments.

“It’s alright, this is made in Lin’gao!” Liu San was pleased with her reaction. “Take it out and have a look.”

“Is this copper?” Dong Weiwei asked in surprise.

“Bronze, actually,” Liu San said. “To be honest, I didn’t expect the medical equipment factory to be able to make this. I heard Jiang Ye from the machinery factory and a few jewelers recruited from Guangzhou made it together.”

“That’s amazing!” Dong Weiwei’s eyes lit up. Looking at the items on the table, she said, “The Ministry of Health is truly incredible. This is a great help.”

“I’ll be conducting disease control research in this area for the next few days. I can also teach you some simple medical skills along the way.” Liu San, a pharmacologist by training, had received crash courses in simple surgery at the hospital.

And so, Liu San began to practice medicine in the Thirteen Villages. He held clinics in the church and accompanied Dong Weiwei on her village inspection tours, a practice that caused their reputation in the area to soar. Liu San was meticulous in his work, recording everything he saw and heard each day, as he was also responsible for conducting a basic health survey of the region.

During his rounds, Liu San came to understand the true meaning of “lacking doctors and medicine.” The people here knew of a profession called “doctor,” but few had ever been treated by one. They rarely even saw itinerant healers. When they fell ill, they simply waited to recover on their own, sometimes resorting to folk remedies of dubious efficacy. Infectious diseases, chronic illnesses, and parasitic infections were rampant; infant and maternal mortality rates were shockingly high, and women’s diseases were commonplace. Dong Weiwei, being a woman herself, was particularly sympathetic and had repeatedly proposed strengthening the nursing staff in the area.

Liu San, however, was less concerned with this. Bairen had a shortage of medical staff for its own needs, and medicine was scarce. How could they send people here? Besides, practicing medicine was not his primary task. He was more focused on collecting folk remedies. He diligently copied down every formula he encountered, no matter how absurd, and then set about identifying the ingredients. He managed to collect a considerable number of them.

One day, while holding a clinic in the ancestral hall, he had seen a stream of patients. To some, he could offer a few doses of medicine; to others, he could only give a dose of licorice, a mere placebo. Fortunately, the common folk were grateful to have a doctor at all, and since he charged nothing, they did not complain. After a busy morning, he was just taking out a rice ball to eat when a shout came from outside, “Make way, make way, is the doctor here?”

From the urgency in the voice, Liu San knew a critical patient had arrived. “Here, come in quickly!” he shouted.

A few men entered, carrying a patient.

“Put him on the board, let me have a look,” he instructed, walking over.

The patient was a boy of eleven or twelve. The muscles of his face were convulsing, his jaw clenched in a “sardonic smile.” His throat was spasming, and his breathing was rapid and difficult. Liu San was shocked—these were the classic symptoms of tetanus.

“Is there an external wound?”

The man who had carried him in pointed to his foot, which was wrapped in a dirty rag. Liu San tore it off, revealing a deep wound. He questioned the man and learned that the boy had been stabbed by a rake tine. The diagnosis was certain.

“This is tetanus!” Liu San’s expression was grave. The toxins had already begun to take effect. Even in a modern hospital, tetanus was a dangerous condition, and here, he was empty-handed. He had no hydrogen peroxide to clean the wound, let alone tetanus antitoxin.

“Doctor, please have a look at my child,” the middle-aged man pleaded. A group of women and children, presumably his family, knelt before him, weeping.

“Don’t worry,” Liu San said, his mind racing through traditional Chinese medicine formulas. He quickly wrote out a prescription. “Go and get the medicine right away! There should still be time!”

The man who took the prescription looked helpless. Liu San knew that the people here were desperately poor, and buying medicine was often out of the question. He quickly stamped his private seal on the prescription.

“Go to the herbal medicine shop in the county town and give them this!” The shopkeeper was familiar with Liu San, and selling a few doses of medicine on credit would not be a problem.

The middle-aged man was about to kowtow, but Liu San stopped him. “Go quickly! It’ll be too late if you’re late!” Then he shouted to the crowd, “Get out, get out, what are you all crowding around for?” Tetanus patients needed quiet and to be protected from stimulation. He needed to disinfect the wound. Without hydrogen peroxide, he would have to use potassium permanganate, a precious commodity. Just as he was thinking, Dong Weiwei came in.

“Doctor Liu, let’s go eat. I made fried rice noodles today—” She stopped short at the sight of the convulsing child.

“Tetanus!” Liu San explained. “You have to help me.”

“Alright, alright.” Dong Weiwei quickly donned the blue cloth gown on the wall. She didn’t have a white coat, but since Liu San’s arrival, she had followed his advice and worn a gown, mask, and hat when seeing patients.

“Let’s move him to a quiet place first. The patient can’t be stimulated.” The doors and windows here were all open, and the light was too bright.

“Let’s move him to the east wing of the church. No one lives there,” Dong Weiwei said, and immediately found two soldiers to help carry the boy. Liu San then had someone paste more paper on the windows to dim the room.

“Prepare a 1:1000 potassium permanganate solution! Quickly!” Liu San observed the wound, which was covered in dirt. Iron, a rake, and farmland—it was a miracle he hadn’t gotten tetanus sooner.

Dong Weiwei fumbled to get the bottle of potassium permanganate from the medicine box, then found an enamel basin and clean water. “Oh no! There’s no measuring cup or scale!”

“Put one tablet in first, then slowly add water. Pay attention to the color of the solution,” Liu San said. “Light red is about right. Purple is too concentrated.”

After preparing the solution, he debrided the wound and then repeatedly rinsed it with the potassium permanganate solution. The child on the door panel convulsed from time to time, and Dong Weiwei quickly came to help hold him down.

“It’s alright. Look at his tongue coating. Is it yellow and rough?”

Dong Weiwei used a tongue depressor and with great difficulty pried open his clenched teeth.

“No!”

“What about his temperature? Does he have a fever?”

“He has a fever,” Dong Weiwei touched his forehead. “Should I use a thermometer?”

“How’s his sweating?”

“He’s sweating, but not profusely.”

Liu San looked at his complexion. It hadn’t turned the terrifying bluish-purple, which meant the disease had not yet entered the second stage—in traditional Chinese medicine, “wind toxin entering the interior.” The chances of successful treatment with traditional Chinese medicine were still relatively high. He relaxed a little.

“No need,” he said. “The child is in the stage that traditional Chinese medicine calls ‘wind toxin in the exterior,’ the initial stage. Take his pulse. What kind of pulse is it?”

Dong Weiwei knew he was using this as a teaching opportunity. She took his pulse for a moment and said hesitantly, “I’m not very good at this, but it feels like a wiry and rapid pulse.”

“This means his condition is still very serious.” It all depended on how quickly they could get the medicine. “If they hurry, they can probably make a round trip in half a day. This child will most likely survive.”

Dong Weiwei looked at the boy, thin and small, dressed in rags. A wave of pity washed over her. “Actually, doesn’t the Bairen General Hospital have antitoxin? We could just get some and give him a shot.”

“Hehe,” Liu San laughed strangely. “There’s only so much tetanus antitoxin, and a lot has been used since D-Day. We have to save it for our own people.”

“One shot wouldn’t matter, would it?” Dong Weiwei knew how precious the antitoxin was.

“One shot of antitoxin can also save a life. Whose life do you think we should save?”

Dong Weiwei was speechless. The question was too cruel, too realistic.

“That’s why I’m seizing every opportunity to try traditional Chinese medicine therapies,” Liu San said after rinsing the wound. He didn’t cover or suture it, but left it open. “The antitoxin will run out one day, and then we’ll have to rely entirely on herbal medicine.”

Then, under his guidance, Dong Weiwei performed acupuncture on the patient to suppress the convulsions.

Late at night, the medicine was finally brought back. Liu San personally ground the medicine into a fine powder, sifted it, mixed it, and then fed it to the patient with hot wine. Then he applied the medicinal powder to the wound.

“This is a modified version of a traditional formula called ‘Yuzhen San’,” Liu San gave the formula to Dong Weiwei. “You can study it. Tetanus is a disease you’ll encounter often here. It’ll be easier to deal with once you’ve mastered this.”

After several days of taking and applying the medicine, the patient’s condition had greatly improved. The convulsions and stiffness had disappeared. Liu San was greatly encouraged. He had known that tetanus could be treated with traditional Chinese medicine, but he had never seen a case in person. This success gave him a huge boost of confidence. At least one disease that threatened the future health of the transmigrator group had a corresponding treatment. He quickly organized the entire treatment process, including the pulse records, formulas, medications, and various treatment methods, creating a standard case model for future doctors.

Seeing the child getting better day by day, Liu San felt a special affection for him. He often went to the ward to see him and talk to him. He had learned a little of the Lin’gao dialect to facilitate his work, so communication was not too difficult.

Through their chats, he learned that the child’s surname was Fu—a common surname in Lin’gao. He had no given name, not even a nickname. He was the fourth in line, so he was called Fu Sinan.

Although he was the fourth, he was actually the second oldest. He was eleven or twelve years old. Two of his three older brothers had died before the age of fifteen. He now had three living siblings. Fu Sinan’s family was as poor as a church mouse, like most people here. They lived in a house with bamboo walls and a thatched roof, and for half the year, they ate sweet potatoes and taro, and often went hungry. In short, he was a standard specimen of a peasant in the wretched old society.

After talking with him for a few days, Liu San discovered that the child had a talent for gardening—he was in charge of the family’s vegetable garden. He also had a personality that was rare here, a willingness to communicate with people. In Liu San’s experience, the common people of this time were generally taciturn.

Having such a child who was good at expressing himself and communicating made Liu San feel much better. He thought of the Executive Committee’s call for everyone to “take on apprentices,” and his gardening skills would be of great help to his own medicine cultivation. Liu San asked:

“Can you read?”

“No,” Fu Sinan shook his head.

“Do you want to learn to read?”

“I don’t have money to learn…”

“Well, how about you become my apprentice? You can be a doctor in the future too.”