Rebirth 1977 Great Era

Chapter 1326 Going Mad, Old Hu Arrives with the TV Station People (Bonus Chapter for Monthly Tickets)
At this moment, Meng Jimin and Tao Guangzheng also came over and asked Fang Yan if he needed any help. Fang Yan replied to them:

"Just prepare some throat lozenges for me. If there are too many people later and we don't have enough bezoar, I'll have to drive back to the city."

Meng Jimin said:
"Should I go back to the city first?"

Fang Yan paused, then nodded:

"also."

As he spoke, he was about to hand the key directly to Meng Jimin.

“Master, why don’t we go directly to Uncle’s factory? It’s much closer from here than going back to the city.” Anton, who came over from the side, asked Fang Yan at this moment.

Upon hearing this, Fang Yan was taken aback, then slapped his forehead.

"Yeah, that's right!"

Old Hu's workshop in Chaoyang Dongba isn't far from here, but going back to the city is much farther than this.

Therefore, Fang Yan immediately changed his mind and said to An Dong and Meng Jimin:

“I’ll write a note, and you guys drive over there. They have a lot of stock there, so we can get the goods directly from there. It’s not just bezoar, we need to get other things too.”

The two had no objections to the arrangement, took the note written in dialect, and went out.

After a while, the three children, led by adults, were brought to the isolation shed.

The oldest boy was about seven or eight years old, with an abnormal flush on his face and droopy eyelids. The youngest girl was only four or five years old, held in her father's arms, sobbing weakly with her hand over her throat. There was also a little girl with pigtails who was still in relatively good spirits, but tiny red spots, like pinpricks, were already faintly visible on her neck.

"Stand in line, three steps apart!" Fang Yan quickly put on gloves and adjusted her mask.

This really happened today.

The three parents quickly pulled their children back, and panic and unease filled the air.

He first walked up to the little girl being held by her father.

The girl shrank her neck as if afraid of the light, and Fang Yan pinched the tongue depressor and coaxed her in a low voice: "Don't be afraid, ah... open your mouth and uncle will see your tongue."

The little girl looked at Fang Yan, who was wearing a mask, and turned her head away in fear and resistance, but her father gently held her chin with his palm.

Fang Yan then used a tongue depressor to probe the throat. Under the light, the grayish-white pseudomembrane deep in the throat was shocking, and the tongue was bright red with densely packed purplish-red thorns... The typical syphilis tongue had already appeared!
"Here we go again..." Zhou Dahai, who had just finished announcing the news over the loudspeaker, felt a headache coming on.

"When did it start? What are the symptoms?" Fang asked as he took the girl's pulse. The girl's father was so anxious he was incoherent: "It started the day before yesterday, she's had a fever for a whole day and night, and she's still shivering even wrapped in a quilt..."

Fang Yan felt the pulse; it was slippery and rapid, like boiling water, indicating intense heat and toxicity.

"Confirmed! Take him to isolation shed number two!" Fang Yan waved decisively, and immediately a classmate took the child and guided the father to the shed for disinfection.

When it was the girl's turn to wear pigtails, her symptoms were much milder, with only a red throat and a few scattered red rashes.

After taking the pulse, Fang Yan breathed a slight sigh of relief: "Suspected, treat as a preventative measure!"

Cheng Baogui, who was waiting nearby, quickly came up and led the person away.

Fang Yan also shouted towards Li Hui:

"According to the prescription, I prepared honeysuckle, forsythia, and licorice! I simmered three bowls of water down to one bowl!"

"Okay!" Li Hui replied loudly.

Finally, it was the older boy's turn.

The boy, with his neck stiff, mumbled, "I'm not sick! My throat's just a little itchy!"

But when Fang Yan pressed his fingertips against the swollen lymph nodes behind his ear, he hissed in pain.

Although no false membrane was found after examining the throat, the tonsils were swollen like two red dates, and a rash was beginning to appear under the skin.

"The heat toxicity is superficial and not deep." Fang Yan pondered for a moment, "Prepare a clearing medicine on the spot: three qian of Isatis root and one qian of cicada molting! Decoct it and drink it immediately!"

Then another classmate took the person away.

After a while, a few more people arrived one after another.

These days, families have many children, and the household is thriving.

At this moment, the jar of bezoar powder was more than half empty, and the bottom of the pearl powder box was white.

Holding the nearly empty medicine jar, Li Hui anxiously looked at Fang Yan: "Brother Fang, there's only one part of bezoar left! Another critically ill patient is coming..."

As if in response to her concerns, a piercing cry suddenly rang out from the other end of the grain station:
"Dr. Fang, help me—!"

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound and saw a middle-aged woman with disheveled hair carrying a boy wrapped in a thick cotton-padded coat, stumbling towards them! The boy's eyes were closed, his lips were cyanotic, and a terrible bellows-like sound was coming from his throat, his chest heaving rapidly.

Zhou Dahai felt a chill run down his spine. It would have been better if he hadn't been notified, because once he was, people from all over came one after another, and he didn't know when it would stop.

Fang Yan's pupils suddenly contracted, and almost instinctively she rushed forward, catching the boy's limp body.

The child's face turned bluish-purple, his nostrils flared violently, and each breath was accompanied by a "hoarse" sound, as if a wad of cotton was stuck in his throat. His chest heaved more and more rapidly, and it looked like he was about to run out of breath.

"Stop shaking! Lay it flat!" Fang Yan shouted sternly to stop the woman who was still running around. His voice was as steady as a rock, instantly silencing her cries.

He knelt down and quickly unbuttoned the boy's cotton-padded jacket, revealing a dense rash of red rashes on his neck, more abundant than on any other child, with an unnatural flush even behind his ears. The woman, intimidated by his imposing manner, trembled as she placed the child on the makeshift straw mat, her hands clutching the hem of her clothes tightly, tears mingling with sweat streaming down her face.

"Dr. Fang! The child was able to groan a couple of times just now, but suddenly he can't breathe! Please save him!"

"Don't get agitated, let me check first, and don't cry!" Fang Yan didn't even raise his head before he had already put his hand on the child's carotid artery. At this moment, the pulse was fast and weak, like a candle flickering in the wind.

He quickly pried open the child's lips, used a tongue depressor to pry them open, and, by the light of the day, saw what was inside the throat:
The tonsils were so swollen they were almost touching each other. A small piece of the grayish-white pseudomembrane covering them had fallen off and was blocking the glottis. It trembled slightly with each breath. If it moved any further forward, it would completely block the trachea!

"It's a detached pseudomembrane blocking the airway!" Fang Yan's heart sank, and he roared at Li Hui, who was not far away:

"Li Hui! Throat medicine! And the last bit of bezoar powder! Quickly!"

Li Hui dared not delay. She staggered over, clutching the medicine jar, her hands trembling so much that she could barely pour out the powder.

Fang Yan snatched the agate mortar and scraped away the last bit of bezoar powder at the bottom of the jar. He then grabbed the borneol and pearl powder base from the table, quickly added some indigo based on his sense of touch, and spun the pestle rapidly in the mortar, the "shh" sound as urgent as a death knell.

"Dr. Fang! Is the baby... is the baby dying?" The woman saw that the child's lips were turning increasingly purple and the crying had resumed. She reached out to hug the child.

"Hey, can't you see they're treating someone? Don't make things worse!!!" Zhou Dahai grabbed her and pulled her behind him tightly. Although he didn't know anything about medicine, he could tell that they couldn't afford to make a scene at this moment.

In just over ten seconds, Fang Yan had poured the finely ground medicine into the cow horn blowpipe, and gently pinched the boy's nose with his fingertip. The boy winced in pain and instinctively opened his mouth wide, making the choking sound in his throat even clearer.

Fang Yan seized the opportunity, held the child's chin with his left hand to stabilize the head, pinched the blowpipe with his right hand, and blew hard at the false membrane at the glottis!
The bluish-black powder was precisely applied to the fake membrane, and the child coughed violently, waving his hands wildly and his chest heaving.

Fang Yan didn't dare to stop, and took advantage of the gaps when he coughed and opened his mouth, she blew twice more until the powder in the blowpipe was gone.

"Hold his chest! Don't let him move!"

According to the dialect, place your palm on the upper edge of the child's sternum and press gently upwards. This is the most primitive airway percussion method, which can help loosen the obstructing pseudomembrane.

One, two, three presses. With each press, the child suddenly let out a sharp cough, and a mouthful of grayish-white fake membrane streaked with blood spurted from his throat and landed on the straw mat.

"He coughed it up!" the students watching couldn't help but exclaim.

Almost simultaneously, the child's breathing suddenly became easier, his bluish-purple lips slowly turned a pale pink, and the "booming" sound in his throat subsided, though he was still panting heavily, tears streaming down his face.

Fang Yan breathed a sigh of relief, sat down on the ground, and said to the woman:

"It's alright... the fake membrane fell off."

The woman then realized what had happened, rushed to her child's side, and carefully touched his face. Her cries changed from piercing to sobbing: "Thank you, Dr. Fang! Thank you, Dr. Fang! You are truly a living Bodhisattva!"

Fang Yan's back was already drenched in cold sweat, but he dared not relax for a moment: "Song Jianzhong, take her to shed number one! Give her the last bit of bezoar water to rinse her mouth!"

"Hey! They're here!" Song Jianzhong hurriedly ran over and took the person away.

Then, Fang Yan suddenly stood up and said to Zhou Dahai:
"Secretary Zhou! Immediately seal off the road leading to the well. Use as much mugwort and quicklime as you have! Bring all ten households that fetch well water from the epidemic area here for tongue examination! This disease is spreading too fast."

Zhou Dahai nodded emphatically: "Yes! I'll go tell them right away!"

"Beep beep—" Just then, the sound of a car came from afar in the commune.

Upon seeing this, Li Ping exclaimed in surprise:
"Hey, you're back so soon?"

Fang Yan looked closely and said:

"No, it's my friend who's here."

The person who arrived was Lao Hu, who drove the same car as Fang Yan.

The car arrived soon.

As soon as he got out of the car, Lao Hu saw Fang Yan and said with a smile:

"Haha, it's really lively! I've asked someone to call over a reporter from the TV station so we can take some pictures and spread the word."

After saying that, he pointed to the middle-aged man who had come with him:

"Look! This is Comrade Shi Min, the director of the Capital Television Station."

Fang Yan paused slightly upon hearing the words "TV reporter".

He quickly went up to Lao Hu, grabbed his arm, and pulled him two steps away from the isolation shed.

"Old Hu! Today is the wrong time! This place is an epidemic hotspot!"

Old Hu's smile froze; he clearly hadn't expected this reaction.
"An epidemic site? Wasn't it supposed to be a free clinic? I was thinking that since you did a good deed in the countryside, it would be good for you and our company to have reporters take pictures and publicize it."

Fang Yan shook his head and said:
"Now is not the time for publicity!"

"The place is full of scarlet fever patients. It's highly contagious. It's not a big deal for adults, but it's deadly if it gets to children. You should take everyone and leave right now!"

At this moment, Shi Min arrived. He also noticed something was wrong, so he asked Fang Yan:

"Director Fang, what's going on?"

P.S.: Please come early tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)