Wait, please don't call me Emperor Zhaolie

Chapter 476 How to Heal the World

In early August, after Liu Bei had dealt with many affairs in Jizhou, he ordered that the Secretariat, the Chancellery, the Nine Ministers and the Six Ministries in the Yunyang Palace City be gradually moved to Luoyang City before the end of the seventh year of Jianxing.

Before this, Shangshu Ling Xun Yu led the ministers to stay in Guanzhong to deal with the affairs of Yi, Yong and Liang states, as well as the Xianbei in Hexi and the countries in the Western Regions.

Let Xun You and Guo Jia set up the framework of various government offices in Luoyang, so that they can adapt faster after the two capitals are merged in the future.

At this time, Liu Bei received an urgent report from Xun You that Chen Yuanlong's illness had relapsed, leaving the doctors in the Imperial Physician's Office helpless.

As for Hua Tuo and Zhang Zhongjing, one advocated opening the intestines and taking risks to treat the disease, while the other suggested using herbal medicine to remove the abdominal worms first, and then selecting the method of treating the worms from the prescriptions sent by doctors all over the world.

Let the death row prisoners in prison try out the prescription, observe the medicinal properties and then treat the patient accordingly.

Xun You first described in detail the treatment methods of the two famous doctors, and then attached his and Guo Fengxiao's ideas at the end of the memorial.

They were more in favor of Zhang Gong's method. Hua Yuanhua's treatment method was too risky. Even Chen Deng was unwilling to open his stomach to scrape the intestines and wash the stomach. He shook his head like a rattle to refuse.

Chen Deng glanced at Hua Tuo's medical bag, which often contained several small knives and needles, which were used to perform surgery on patients. He did not want to suffer such pain, so he strongly supported Zhang Zhongjing.

"Yuanlong, how can I save you?" Liu Bei couldn't help but shake his head and sigh when he saw the memorial.

He only knew that removing the outer shell of the genus Astragalus and frying it before eating could eliminate roundworms.

When he was in Xuzhou, he sent merchants to the four counties of Jiangdong to look for the fruit of the Quisqualis chinensis to use to expel insects for Chen Deng.

However, the worm in Chen Yuanlong's stomach was not a roundworm. He then asked Chen Deng to stop eating raw fish sashimi while looking for a doctor to find a way to treat him.

Unexpectedly, many years have passed and the insect disease has not been completely cured, and it has now become more serious.

"Yuanzhi, write an imperial edict for me, ordering the governors of all prefectures and counties to pay attention to the counties and give money and millet to any doctor who is good at treating worm diseases and bring him to Luoyang, the capital."

"Send a message to Yongzhou Governor Liu Yu and Dunhuang Governor Zhang Gong. They have many Western Regions merchants. You can ask them if there are any good medicines for curing abdominal worms in the Western Regions, as well as in the more distant Kushan, Parthia, and even the Western Sea countries. Anyone who can provide them will be rewarded handsomely."

"The Luoyang Imperial Medical Office will put the compilation of the Medical Classic on hold for now and start looking for a good medicine to treat abdominal worms near Luoyang. You can also study the prescriptions I gave you before. Those who can cure abdominal worms will be rewarded with a thousand gold coins, and their descendants for three generations will be admitted to the Imperial College."

Liu Bei put down the memorial and spoke solemnly.

This is the only thing we can do now, to mobilize the enthusiasm of doctors all over the world to treat Chen Deng.

It was originally thought that Hua Yuanhua and Zhang Zhongjing, two famous doctors from the Imperial Medical Office, could cure Chen Deng's stubborn stomach disease, but unexpectedly, they were still helpless.

Speaking of insect diseases, Liu Bei suddenly remembered something.

In recent years, he often governed the Hu tribes in the north and dealt with the Chanyu and Khan, and almost forgot about wanting to reclaim arable land in the south.

Waterborne diseases in the Yangtze River are also a hindrance and can be as deadly as the miasma in the south.

"Kong Ming, immediately find me the reports from the governors and county magistrates of Jingzhou and Yangzhou regarding waterborne diseases... I want to see the statistics of the number of patients reported by local officials, and where the diseases occurred."

Liu Bei turned around and gave the order. "I obey your command!" Zhuge Liang bowed and responded.

Not long after, the clerks of the Zhongshutai carried three baskets of memorials on their shoulders. Liu Bei opened them and took a closer look. As expected, he saw a lot of descriptions of this disease.

In Wangxiang, Quanling County, Lingling Prefecture, there was a peasant woman who often drank river water. When she was one or two years old, her whole body became edematous. Soon after, her belly became as hard as a rock. Her husband thought she was pregnant, but unexpectedly she died suddenly half a month later. After her death, worms came out of her mouth and nose, which terrified the neighbors nearby.

After investigation, doctors in Jingzhou learned that this disease often occurs in June and July every year, with the most cases in Wuling County, Lingling County, and Guiyang County, while there are fewer patients in Nan County, Jiangxia County, Changsha County, and Nanyang County.

No matter if they were rich or common people, their bodies would swell after they fell ill, and then they would become extremely thin and could not gain weight even if they ate. After a few years or as short as half a year, they would die from poisonous insects eating their internal organs. Men, women, young and old would all have stomachs swollen like basins, and after death, poisonous insects would crawl out of their anus, mouth and nose.

Because officials in the northern part of Jingzhou followed the imperial edict, in order to prevent diseases and plagues and to reclaim arable land, they ordered the common people to take the initiative to cut firewood for making fire and boiling water.

Doctors from various counties inferred that perhaps for this reason, the number of people suffering from insect diseases in the counties north of Changsha County gradually decreased compared to the three counties in southern Jingzhou.

But even so, there is no way to treat this disease, and no one knows how to prevent it.

When Liu Bei saw this, his brows furrowed. This was the schistosomiasis described by later generations, and the waters in southern Jingzhou were in an area where schistosomiasis frequently occurred.

"Reclaiming the farmland in the south is indeed more difficult than I thought!" Liu Bei said with inner emotion.

It's a good thing he knew about it, otherwise countless lives would have been lost in the process of reclaiming the land.

I remember hearing that schistosomiasis lives in snails that are shaped like nails. Not only is there a risk of infection from drinking raw water, but even touching the water with your skin also poses a risk of illness.

"Yuanzhi, write me another edict, ordering the governors and county magistrates of all counties in Jingzhou to inform the people not to drink raw water anymore. When the dry season comes, conscript laborers to search for snails that are shaped like nails in various places, and burn them into ashes to prevent waterborne diseases."

Liu Bei gave another order.

It was inevitable that the people would come into contact with water, so we could only order the eradication of snails to minimize the risk of infection. Otherwise, when the people of Qianshou were migrated to Jingzhou and moved south to reclaim farmland in the future, many people would die of disease.

Even if you cultivate fields near Yunmengze, it is difficult to avoid contact with river water. With the current medical methods, once you are infected with this disease, it is equivalent to a terminal illness.

That's much more troublesome than Chen Yuanlong's gastrointestinal worm disease!

"Even without the calamity of war, there will still be plagues and diseases, which will give people endless headaches..."

Liu Bei shook his head and frowned as he thought about training more doctors. In addition to setting up official offices in various places, he also needed to provide an additional path for the children of local nobles and soldiers.

"It seems that in addition to agricultural official schools, medical official schools should be added in each county first to increase the number of doctors in the world. It will take decades or even hundreds of years before there will be some results."

Studying medicine is not like studying farming. Whether it is full-time calligraphy, studying medical books, or actually diagnosing and treating patients, the energy required will be far greater than studying farming. Once the wrong prescription is prescribed, it may cost a life.

Ordinary people simply do not have the financial resources and energy to learn, so they can only be trained from families with surplus.

(End of this chapter)