From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 60: The Ship's Doctor's Medicine
Chen Zhou forced himself to get up from the bed, but he still felt a little dizzy. He didn't know if it was because of a cold or the alcohol.

The oil lamp on the bedside had been burned for more than half, and the light was dim.

Still feeling cold, he put on the seal skin, put on his slippers, and walked slowly to the platform to urinate.

Chen Zhou lowered his head slightly and looked at the dark yellow liquid, muttering.

"It may be due to a high fever..."

After taking care of his physiological needs, he returned to the house and took a look at the firewood in the kitchen.

The wood had long been burned out, leaving only some charcoal blocks containing fire, glowing faintly.

The big iron kettle was covered with a lid, and the boiling water in the early morning turned into warm water.

His mouth felt dry and bitter, so he scooped up a large cup of warm water and drank it. When he returned to the bedroom, Chen Zhou stuck out his tongue and looked in the mirror.

The tongue coating is white or blue, and it is very greasy when scraped with the upper teeth. This is a typical symptom of a cold.

The good news is that cold symptoms are currently relatively mild.

Symptoms such as chills, fatigue, and loss of appetite have little impact on the body, and there is no risk of worsening. There is still hope that you can get through it relying on your own immunity.

After lying in bed for a while, Chen Zhou thought about it and felt that just waiting was not a solution.

If he had a high fever at night and had no medicine or treatment, he might have been burned to death.

It would be better to go down the mountain and get some medicine while I still have the energy and strength. In case the condition worsens, I can try it out and see if it works.

Chen Zhou got up, put on two layers of underwear, a thick coat, a new brim hat, and as usual, took the long-handled axe and prepared to set off.

Before leaving the cave, he added some twigs to the embers of the stove and campfire, hoping that the fire would be lit when he returned home so that he could boil water and cook.

When people catch a cold, the body consumes a lot of water and energy. They must drink more water and eat more to recover quickly.

When Chen Zhou was sick as a child, his grandparents or mother would often persuade him like this, watching him take medicine and drink water, fearing that he would recover slowly.

Now, he can only take care of himself.

Putting the long-handled axe on his waist and finding a long wooden stick to support his body, Chen Zhou, accompanied by Lai Fu, left the cave and slowly walked down the mountain.

The island is extremely humid during the rainy season, and there is almost no dry land.

The rabbit flag in front of the field had lost its fur due to the rain, and even moss and wood ears had grown on the wooden sticks. The scarecrow was also green, with vines wrapped around its feet.

The wind was a little weaker than in the early morning. It came in through the collar and wide cuffs, dispersing the heat from Chen Zhou's body.

However, this pure coolness was better than the alternating hot and cold. At least it made him feel more awake.

As I walked, perhaps my blood circulation improved, the coolness subsided, and my body surface gradually warmed up.

When he arrived at the camp, Chen Zhou even felt that his cold had improved a lot.

But as he stopped moving and rummaged through the shack, the feeling of weakness returned, along with the chill in his body.

Find the tobacco boxes where the organized supplies are stored.

Chen Zhou took out the high-grade tobacco left by Robinson, the captain and the first mate from the box, and took two pipes, wrapped them in his clothes, put the tobacco box back in place, and opened the ship's doctor's medicine box.

The bottles and jars with labels in the box have not seen the light of day for a long time, and the glue used to stick the labels has mostly dried up, causing the labels to fall into the box.

The medicines that were originally clearly described no longer have labels and have become bottles of "unknown medicines" with unknown ingredients and uses.

Carefully pick up the labels, decipher the scribbled words on them, and then look for the corresponding medicine bottles one by one.

Chen Zhou wanted to find some useful medicine to bring back to the cave, but he was not feeling well and was afraid that he could not carry the whole box of medicine.

"This bottle looks like a hemostatic drug. Open it and take a look."

Matching the label with the glue marks on the bottle to confirm that it was indeed hemostatic medicine, Chen Zhou opened the bottle cap.

The glass jar contained a large mass of black unidentified object that had solidified and emitted a strong stench mixed with the pungent smell of some spice, which made his entire face wrinkle.

Chen Zhou quickly put the cap on the bottle. He felt that either animal blood or body tissue was added to the medicine.

Similar to the primitive witch doctors in European and American fantasy films, they use lizard tails and bat eyeballs to make a pot of porridge to treat diseases.

Or maybe the medicine was not stored properly and has expired.

But whether it is added with animal blood or expired, this bottle of medicine will definitely not play a role in stopping bleeding, and may even cause wound infection. It is best to pour it out and free up a useful glass jar.

"Let's deal with it together later. Take a look at this bottle... uh... it looks like an emetic."

After seeing the words on the label, Chen Zhou hesitated whether to open the bottle of medicine.

Vomiting is usually induced by using highly irritating, unpleasant-tasting liquids or feces and urine.

For example, when he was a child, he often drank Huoxiang Zhengqi Liquid or Shidi Shui when he had heatstroke. The taste of these liquids is unforgettable once you have tasted them.

This Western emetic probably doesn't smell very good, so it's better not to open it.

"Let's find some medicine to treat the cold first..."

After taking out all the medicine bottles in the box and checking them one by one, Chen Zhou found that there was no medicine for treating colds.

Of course, this was because he only recognized a few of the words on the label, and the rest were either too illegible to read or completely unknown to him.

It is certainly not possible that 17th century English and modern English are exactly the same, and this is normal.

Some of these glass jars are completely transparent, while others have black inner walls, making it impossible to see what's inside.

After searching, Chen Zhou did not find any cold medicine, but he found several bottles of medicine that looked useful through the glass wall.

The medicine bottles were filled with dense, grass-seed-like stuff that felt like the seeds of some plant.

When we think about the time when Western medicine was not well developed, there were also folk remedies similar to traditional Chinese medicine that used plant seeds and rhizomes to treat diseases.

Chen Zhou suspected that these seeds might be several medicinal herbs popular in Europe.

If they are not like Chinese herbs, they may well grow into plants if pickled or stir-fried.

Although these plants may not necessarily be able to cure diseases, they can play a role in other areas, such as the catering industry.

Chen Zhou remembered that he had learned from a popular science video that herbal tea was once very popular in Europe, and people believed that long-term drinking and consumption of different herbs could cure diseases and enhance physical fitness and sexual ability.

He had forgotten most of the herbs introduced in that video, and the few that he remembered were nettle, fennel and mint.

Nettle can treat arthritis, and nettle tea is a diuretic, suitable for patients with kidney stones.

Fennel is delicious when used to make dumplings. Mint is a condiment that, even if it cannot be used as a medicine, can enrich the diet.

After carefully looking at the labels on the glass bottles containing seeds, he found that he didn't recognize any of them.

"I still suffer from my lack of education."

Chen Zhou picked out the bottles of medicine with a gloomy face and put them together with the tobacco. He planned to open them one by one after returning to the cave to identify what they were.

(End of this chapter)