Rebirth 1977 Great Era

Chapter 1351 Traditional Chinese Medicine Treatment for Rabies, Lu Donghua's Explosive Remarks (Bonus Chapter for Monthly Tickets)

When it comes to rabies, the first thing that comes to mind is the method of treating rabies recorded by Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in his book "Elbow-Side Emergency Prescriptions": "Kill the dog that bit you, take its brain and apply it to the wound, and it will not recur." He also suggested first sucking out the bad blood, and then using moxibustion sticks to cauterize the wound once a day for 100 days.

The Tang Dynasty's "Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold" and the Ming Dynasty's "Compendium of Materia Medica" both adopted Ge Hong's method, and relevant cure cases were also recorded in late Qing Dynasty documents.

However, it is evident from the dialect that the core logic of ancient Chinese medicine in treating rabies is early detoxification. For example, Ge Hong proposed "killing the dog and taking its brain to apply to the wound" and "sucking out the bad blood and cauterizing the wound." In essence, it is to block the spread of the virus in the early stages after the bite through physical and drug means.

Moreover, these medical cases generally lack follow-up visits over many years, so it's unknown how long the patients lived or whether they relapsed.

Moreover, none of their patients have dragged on for as long as this one.

It's strange, really. He's been sick for so long, yet he's still holding on. If it weren't for the patient's family saying they did an immunofluorescence test, which they did twice, and that he was diagnosed with rabies, Fang Yan would have thought they were wrong.

In that case, maybe there's still hope?
He simply cannot bring himself to say the words "there's no hope" to the patient and their family.

"Dr. Fang?" The patient's family member called out to Fang Yan when they saw him frowning and not speaking.

Fang Yan finally came to his senses, looked around at the crowd still watching, and said to the patient's family:
"Come with me to the examination room first."

"Okay!" The patient's family members immediately agreed when they heard the dialect calling them into the consultation room.

Fang Yan opened his consultation room and then led the patient and his family inside.

At the same time, his mind started racing, frantically searching for medical records about rabies in his head. Although Western medicine has always believed that rabies is 100% fatal, there are indeed cases of cure in traditional Chinese medicine.

For example, in the winter of the 26th year of the Daoguang Emperor's reign (1846), in Shawan, Xiangtan, a worker on a rice transport ship suddenly suffered from severe abdominal pain, became restless and agitated, and scratched and bit indiscriminately. The doctor did not know what was wrong, and various medicines were ineffective.

Coincidentally, there was a man from Liling on the neighboring boat who said that if he was willing to thank him with six thousand coins, he would have a secret remedy that could cure him immediately.

However, since the boat owner could only offer four thousand coins as a reward, he initially stood by and watched. Later, when the crowd grabbed the man from Liling and tied him next to the patient, he was afraid of being scratched or bitten, so he revealed the prescription: use a large dose of ginseng antidote powder, plus one ounce of raw rehmannia root and a handful of purple bamboo root, and decoct them into a strong soup.

The patient regained consciousness quickly after taking one dose of the medicine, and was completely cured after taking two doses.

There is also a rabies treatment formula from Fengtian. Zhang Xichun learned of this local rabies treatment formula when he was in Fengtian. It involves using three qian (approximately 15 grams) of powdered ash (the powdered form of gunpowder), made from sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal, along with three liang (approximately 150 grams) of fresh wolfberry root, decocted in water, and taken with the powder.

The patient will recover after passing a certain amount of foul-smelling urine. After recovery, sexual activity must be avoided for ten days. This medicine should not be taken too early. It should only be taken five or six days after the injury, or seven or eight days after the injury, when the patient feels internal wind stirring and causing restlessness. This medicine is effective only after repeated use.

Another scholar from Wu County, surnamed Lu, said: "All rabid dogs have poisonous insects in their spines. If you scrape off the fatty membrane from their spines, roast it into charcoal, and drink it, they will expel foul-smelling substances through their urine and feces, and they will be cured." He had a grandson suffering from this condition, and he treated him with this prescription, and he was indeed cured.

It is basically a variation of Ge Hong's prescription.

However, none of the cases that Fang Yan remembered had any follow-up.

In other words, he might have recovered at the time, but he didn't know whether anything happened afterward.

This problem is critical.

Should we just treat it using those methods?

Although Fang Yan was somewhat conflicted, he remained calm on the surface. If he panicked now, the patient's family would surely be on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"Come on, sit down!" Fang Yan gestured for the patient to sit down opposite the examination table.

The patient trembled slightly upon hearing the dialect accent, as if startled. The dialect accent tried to soften its tone and spoke gently to the patient:
"Give me your left hand, I want to take your pulse."

The patient then obediently extended his hand.

Fang Yan looked at his scratched hand and asked him:
"What's your name? How old are you?"

He needed to make sure the patient still had a clear sense of self at that moment.

The patient said in a weak voice:

"My name is Zhang Fu, and I am thirty-eight years old."

Very good, and you also have a clear sense of self.

Fang Yan nodded, then began to take his pulse, asking him in the same way:
"Besides being afraid of water, sound, and wind, what other symptoms do you have?"

The patient spoke in dialect:

"I have a faint, crawling sensation on my hands and feet, and I also have a headache, can't eat, can't sleep well, and have a fever, a low-grade fever, especially after sunset."

The logic is sound.

Fang Yan continued to ask him:
"What kind of dog bit you? Is that dog dead now?"

Upon hearing the word "dog," Zhang Fu visibly flinched. After a pause, he regained his composure and said in a trembling voice, "It was... a stray dog ​​from the entrance of my wife's village. It was black and looked extremely thin. I was picking vegetables on the edge of the field when it suddenly rushed at me and bit my calf. The bite was quite deep, and I bled a lot. I wrapped it with a strip of cloth, thinking it would be fine... Later, I heard that less than half a month later, the dog was beaten to death by the villagers. They said it would attack anyone it saw, and its eyes were red..."

As he finished speaking, Zhang Fu's voice grew softer and softer, and his head drooped even lower. He later learned that the red-eyed, wild dog that lunged at people was a rabid dog. But by the time he realized this and wanted to get vaccinated, the optimal period for prevention had already passed.

Unfortunately, there's no going back.

Just then, there was a knock on the door of Fang Yan's clinic. "Come in!" Fang Yan replied.

The door was opened, and surprisingly, it was Master Lu Donghua who walked in.

"Anton said you received a rabies test?"

Fang Yan glanced at Anton, who had entered behind his master, and said:
"Yes, I'm looking at it now."

After Fang Yan agreed, he noticed that the patient looked unwell, probably because he was frightened by their voices.

The dialect voice lowered again as it addressed him:
"Come on, stick your tongue out so I can see it."

Zhang Fu nodded and stuck out his tongue.

When Fang Yan and Lu Donghua looked at it together, they saw that the tongue was dry and cracked, like parched land, with a thick, yellow, greasy coating and a few dark purple ecchymoses on the tip.

Fang Yan asked him:
"Does the wound on your calf still hurt? Is it red, swollen, or oozing anything?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Fu said:

"The wound has healed long ago, but it occasionally feels numb, like being pricked by needles, especially when it's windy or the weather changes, the numbness is even worse..."

Zhang Fu, who was standing nearby, quickly added, "A while ago he said his legs were numb, and we even put some plaster on them for him, but it didn't help at all. Later, he started to be afraid of wind and water, and we found out it was because he was bitten by a rabid dog... Dr. Fang, you just took his pulse, is there anything you can do for my brother's condition?"

Fang Yan didn't answer immediately, but instead said to Anton:

"Open the window a crack."

Upon hearing this, Anton walked to the window, opened it a crack, and a little breeze blew in from outside.

Fang Yan noticed Zhang Fu and shrank back abruptly, instinctively hugging his arms with both hands. His eyes were filled with panic, and the scabbed scratches on the back of his bare hands were broken again, oozing blood.

Fang Yan narrowed his eyes, then said to Anton:

"Pour me another glass of water!"

"Dr. Fang!" Zhang Fu called out to Fang Yan.

Zhang Fu's brother's voice was full of anxiety. He subconsciously took half a step forward, afraid that Fang Yan would make Zhang Fu touch the water. These days, Zhang Fu would tremble even at the sight of a water cup, let alone drink water.

"Don't panic, just pour a glass of warm water and put it here." Fang Yan raised her hand to comfort him, but her eyes remained fixed on Zhang Fu's reaction. An Dong quickly brought over a glass of warm water, with a thin layer of steam condensing on the glass. As soon as it was placed on the examination table, Zhang Fu's breathing became noticeably rapid. His fingers gripped the hem of his clothes tightly, his eyes darting away, not daring to look at the glass of water, and even his shoulders became stiff.

"Afraid of water, afraid of wind, even feeling panicked at the sight of water, the evil poison has penetrated deep into the meridians, even affecting the body's fluids." Lu Donghua spoke in a low voice from the side, his tone somewhat solemn.

Fang Yan had already started examining the right hand, and continued to ask:
"Have you undergone any other treatments before?"

Zhang Fu's brother sighed, his face full of regret: "At first, we thought it was just a common cold and fever. We got some antipyretics from the clinic at my workplace, but they didn't work. Instead, the fever got worse. Then he started to be afraid of wind and water, and we panicked. We took him to a hospital near our home. The doctor said it might be rabies and told us to go to the epidemic prevention station for testing. The immunofluorescence test came back positive twice. The hospital said it was incurable."

“We changed hospitals again and stayed there for half a month, getting IV drips every day, but we didn’t get better. In fact, we became even more afraid of water, and we even had to avoid the nurses when they changed the IV.” He paused, his eyes reddening. “The doctors talked to us several times, saying that this disease was incurable and that we should take it home and eat whatever we wanted… We were unwilling to give up. We heard that you could treat difficult and complicated diseases, even diseases that foreigners couldn’t cure, so we came here with a try-it-and-see attitude.”

Zhang Fu lowered his head, his fingers digging into the edge of the examination table, and added in a weak voice, "When I was in the hospital, the doctor prescribed sedatives. I could sleep for a while after taking them, but I was still scared when I woke up, and my body was still itchy... So I didn't want to take them anymore. They were useless, so I might as well save the money."

Fang Yan nodded and said nothing more. After finishing taking Zhang Fu's pulse, he stood up and went to Zhang Fu's feet to examine the bitten foot.

Zhang Fu's trousers were wrapped tightly around his waist. Fang Yan deliberately slowed down his movements when he reached out and said softly, "Let me check the area around the wound. I won't hurt you, so don't be nervous." Zhang Fu's brother quickly stepped forward to help and carefully rolled up his trousers. The skin on his exposed calf was dark in color. About three inches below his knee, there was a shallow scar, about two fingers wide, which was the mark left after he was bitten by a rabid dog.

The skin around the scar felt cooler than other areas. Fang Yan pressed it gently with his fingertips, and Zhang Fu's body trembled almost imperceptibly. His voice trembled as he said, "It's...it's right here. It sometimes feels numb, like there are little bugs crawling inside. It's most noticeable when the wind blows."

Fang Yan stood up, and just then, his master Lu Donghua said to him:

"I've thought of a prescription."

"Huh?" Fang Yan was taken aback and looked at his master.

Lu Donghua pointed at Zhang Fu and said:
"It's a treatment for this."

Fang Yan seemed incredulous and hurriedly asked:

"Folk remedies?"

The old man shook his head:

"No, it's a prescription from Zhang Zhongjing, which cured more than forty cases."

Fang Yan glared at him: "???"

More than forty cases? That would be worthy of a Nobel Prize!

P.S.: It's almost the end of the month, please vote for me! Let's go, brothers!
I currently owe everyone 63,000 words, please vote for them!!!
(End of this chapter)