Chapter 115 - The First Debate on Traditional Chinese Medicine

Upon hearing this, Fu Sinan immediately slid off the bed and kowtowed to Liu San. Liu San quickly pulled him up.

“None of that, we don’t kowtow here.” He then added, “But if you are to be my apprentice, you will have to leave your home. Are you willing?”

Fu Sinan immediately expressed his willingness. Liu San recalled a guidance document compiled by Wu De, “On Handling Relations with the Natives,” which advised that for matters involving personal relationships, such as taking on an apprentice, a written agreement was best to avoid future disputes.

After a few more days of recuperation, Liu San, seeing that the boy had fully recovered, asked the liaison to summon Fu Sinan’s parents to discuss the apprenticeship. For such a capable doctor to take their son as an apprentice was a godsend for the impoverished family. Though they would lose a semi-able-bodied worker, they would have one less mouth to feed. Both parties signed an agreement, stipulating that Fu Sinan would voluntarily become the apprentice of Liu San of Bairen Village for a period of seven years, during which time life and death were a matter of fate.

With the written agreement, Fu Sinan was now legally Liu San’s apprentice in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty. Liu San could treat him as he pleased, short of beating him to death.

Having taken on an apprentice, Liu San’s thoughts turned to “purifying” him and teaching him to read and write, so that he would be able to read basic medical texts. He no longer had the heart to remain in Daolu Village. After giving some instructions to Dong Weiwei, he took his new apprentice back to Bairen.

Fu Sinan rushed to carry Liu San’s basket. Liu San smiled. “I’d better carry it myself.”

“When there is work to be done, the disciple should do it,” Fu Sinan said respectfully.

“Oh, you’re illiterate, yet you speak so elegantly,” Liu San said, though he still carried the basket himself.

“The village schoolteacher said it,” Fu Sinan said seriously. “In the past, when apprentices passed by the school, the schoolteacher would ask the students to do work and always say this.”

“It seems you enjoy studying,” Liu San said, pleased. If the boy had no interest in learning, his plan to cultivate him would be for naught. It seemed he not only enjoyed studying but also had a good memory.

“Yes, Master,” Fu Sinan said.

Liu San brought Fu Sinan to Bairen. The sights and sounds of the place amazed and confused the boy, who had never even been to the county town. He had heard tales of the prosperous East Gate Market outside the county town, a place filled with novelties never before seen. Now, standing in the market, his eyes couldn’t take it all in.

“Stop looking, you silly boy,” Liu San patted his head. “You’ll have plenty of time to look later.”

He then led the boy to a group of buildings surrounded by a wire fence outside Bairen City—a quarantine camp, established to accommodate the growing number of local recruits. The Ministry of Health had also set up a quarantine camp here.

The person in charge was Bai Yu from the Ministry of Education. When this man, a towering figure of one-meter-eighty, appeared before them, Fu Sinan gasped. The legends of the tall and sturdy Australians were no exaggeration.

“Call him Teacher Bai,” Liu San instructed.

Fu Sinan was about to kowtow again, but Bai Yu stopped him. “We don’t kneel to people!”

Lifted by the big man, the thin and small Fu Sinan was helpless to resist.

“Teacher Bai,” he said obediently.

“Bai Yu, this child is in your hands.”

“Where did this child come from?” Bai Yu sized him up. “He looks a bit weak.”

“From the Thirteen Villages. He was sick and has just recovered.”

“There have been a lot of children sent from this place recently,” Bai Yu said, flipping through a registration book. “This child is not in the transfer plan.”

“He’s my apprentice. Just sign him up for a literacy class, I’ll teach him the rest myself.”

“You’ve taken on an apprentice too?” Bai Yu smiled. “Nanhai took on a female disciple, raising a loli from a young age. Why did you choose a male apprentice, to raise a shota?”

“Don’t joke,” Liu San said. “An apprentice is also a helper. This child is in your hands.”

“Alright, I’ll teach him well,” Bai Yu promised. He said to Fu Sinan, “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up first.”

Fu Sinan underwent the full purification process. When he emerged, he was a bald-headed boy in a standard blue student uniform, seemingly bewildered by his new appearance.

“Alright,” Liu San said, looking with satisfaction at the boy, who now smelled of plant-based soap. “You will live here for a few dozen days. You must listen to the teachers and study hard. Otherwise, he will whip your bottom until you can’t sit down. I’ll come to pick you up in a few days.”

Fu Sinan said he was prepared to be beaten—what apprentice wasn’t beaten by their master, mistress, and senior brothers?

Bai Yu pulled over a notebook. “What’s his name, how old is he?”

“Fu Sinan. Eleven years old.”

“The name needs to be changed,” Bai Yu frowned. “They all have this kind of name, who can tell them apart!”

“Let’s call him Fu Wuben,” Liu San said.

And so, Fu Sinan’s name was changed to Fu Wuben. He received a sturdy cloth bag with two wide straps and a small bamboo tag with his name and serial number carved on it, which he hung around his neck. Thus, the Lin’gao native Fu Sinan officially entered the system of the transmigrator group and became Fu Wuben.

After finishing the procedures, Liu San went to the Bairen General Hospital to report on his trip.

He excitedly handed the medical record of the tetanus treatment to Shi Niaoren. “This is great! We don’t have to worry about running out of tetanus antitoxin anymore!”

Shi Niaoren, however, was not as excited. He sullenly flipped through the materials and said, “The clinical trials are not enough.”

Though from a pharmacology background, Liu San didn’t think this was wrong. After all, since the availability of tetanus antitoxin, there had been very few cases of tetanus patients being treated purely with traditional Chinese medicine.

“But Yuzhen San is a proven formula for treating tetanus.”

“First, it’s hard to say that what you cured was tetanus,” Shi Niaoren said bluntly. “There’s no bacterial culture, no pathology report, not even a temperature record. We can’t confirm that he had tetanus. This violates the rigor of modern medicine.”

“Second, so-called proven formulas, many of which have been proven by modern medicine and pharmacology to be completely ineffective, or even harmful—there are also proven formulas for rabies, and there seem to be several. But what’s the reality?” Shi Niaoren said, “Once rabies develops, there is no cure, whether it’s traditional Chinese medicine or modern medicine! Without the antitoxin, it’s a dead end.”

“Then what do we do when the antitoxin runs out?” Liu San grew agitated at the criticism of his beloved traditional Chinese pharmacology. “Even if we save it, the antitoxin will expire one day!”

“We need to conduct large-scale clinical trials. But conducting such trials now is risky.”

The risk was that, not to mention the transmigrators themselves, even if the native laborers and soldiers they recruited and trained died because of such unsuccessful attempts, it would be a great loss.

“Can’t we use animal experiments?”

“Let’s put it this way,” Shi Niaoren said painfully. “The people here have thought of everything, but no one thought to bring a pair of white mice.”

“Aren’t there rabbits on the farm?” With Liu San’s limited knowledge of zoology, he knew that the reproduction rate of rabbits was comparable to that of mice.

“According to Nanhai, the rabbits have been unwilling to have sex recently. It’s too hot here. There are only a few rabbits now, and a group of people are eagerly waiting to eat them. Do you expect to use them for experiments?”

“Since we can’t do animal experiments, we’ll have to do human experiments!” someone said at the door. It was the psychologist, Jiang Qiuyan, who had been out at sea with the island survey team.

“It’s you, the survey team is back?!” Shi Niaoren was surprised.

“We’re back, safe and sound!” Jiang Qiuyan looked tanned but clean, carrying a cattail bag.

“When did you get back? Wasn’t there any news in the Times?”

“We docked early this morning. I’ve already showered, changed, and had a meal. The others are still busy at the pier. One of the benefits of being a doctor.” He continued, “Actually, why don’t we just do clinical trials directly? Minister Shi, if you’re not willing to try it on the native laborers, you can just do it as part of the medical outreach to the countryside.”

This meant using the non-system population as clinical trial subjects. In fact, this was also Shi Niaoren’s true intention, though his time in America had taught him to be more tactful.

“Hmm, hmm,” Shi Niaoren was noncommittal. “Liu San, organize this treatment plan first.”

This was a tacit approval. Liu San’s anger subsided. He asked Jiang Qiuyan about the results of the survey.

“The results are great!” Jiang Qiuyan said, pouring out a few coconuts from his bag. “Come, let’s drink coconut water. We got several thousand of them, plenty to drink!”

“Good, good.” Shi Niaoren immediately called everyone over and got some ice from the refrigerator. A group of doctors began to drink iced coconut juice.

“Delicious! So refreshing!” He Ma, who had just finished a clinical lesson with the intern female doctors, was sweating profusely. A glass of the cool drink went down, and he felt as if he could fly. Ai Beibei, however, refused to drink and carefully wrapped up a coconut to take home for her child.

“Sister-in-law, just drink up. This is off-plan,” Jiang Qiuyan said with a smile.

“There’s an on-plan one?” Shi Niaoren asked.

“The on-plan one is one for each person, regardless of gender, age, or type of work,” Jiang Qiuyan said. “In addition, heavy manual laborers and military officers have extra rations. The native workers can also get some, but not one for each person. By the way, the coconuts have to be handed over to the cafeteria after drinking the water.”

“Are they planning to make curry? Wu Nanhai recently transferred the Indian from the labor reform team to his farm—he doesn’t even mind the smell.”

PS: The following content is over 3000 words and is not charged.

There is a debate about whether traditional Chinese medicine can treat tetanus. Some say it can and cite many cases, while others say it cannot. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it can.