Farmer’s Blessed Girl

Zheng Gu thought for a while and said, "It was too chaotic that day, and the yamen came in at the time of the noon break."

He said helplessly: "I was in the backyard at the time, not in the front medical office, but when I heard that they broke in, they wanted to take someone. At that time, I vaguely heard two doctors going to stop me, and the lower official was going to go forward. But standing at the small door, I heard the yamen shove the patient and the patient's family, saying that I was using fake medicine in the hospital and killed people."

He paused for a moment, leaving time for Master Yu and Master Xia to react, and then continued after a while: "I had a wrong intuition, so I went back and closed the small door, then wrote a letter and put the two This account book is handed over to the servants to take away and send to the capital for Master."

Master Yu glanced at Zhou Man and asked, "Why is the medical office's account book in the backyard?"

Zheng Gu said: "In fact, there were accounts books for the whole year of this year in my backyard study at that time, including every purchase order."

He said: "As the Chinese New Year is approaching, the medical office needs to keep accounts, and the general ledger has to be reported back to the Imperial Medical Office for review. If it's cold today, I hardly have time to do these things during the day, but I do them all at night, so I brought back all the account books. Do it in the backyard study."

The front is empty, and the brazier needs an extra one. Where can I have a comfortable study at home?

And there is a wall in front and back, so Zheng Gu took the things home and made them "regardless of public and private".

Looking back at this time, I don't know if it was fortunate or unfortunate.

"In other words, you didn't know where the ancient medicine was when it happened?"

"Yes." Zheng Gu paused and then said: "The four of us, including the servants, were all arrested that day. The next day I found out that there was no alchemy in the prison. I heard what they meant and ran away."

This is in line with the statement of the magistrate Luo. The magistrate Luo also said that he had run away with an ancient medicine. The ancient medicine was not in the house on the day of the arrest, and it was suspected that Zheng Gu sent him out.

Master Yu came back to his senses and continued to the next question, "Master Xiao Zheng, let's talk about the fake medicine eating dead people."

Zheng Gu sighed and said, "On the third day of the first month of November, I bought another batch of medicinal materials, which were checked and put into storage. Since the beginning of winter, the number of sick people has increased due to the cold weather, and people from other counties have come to ask for medicine. , but such patients are, after all, a minority."

He said: "Although the medical office is located in Luoyang, it is the Luozhou medical office, and you have responsibilities to the other eight counties, so I will take the medicinal materials to other counties every once in a while to voluntarily treat the poor and cold people."

"I remember the five families of patients, three of them were tenants outside Luoyang, and two were long-term workers in the east of the city. They were not wealthy," Zheng Gu said. "Several of their children live in ten They fell ill one after another in the past month, all of them were due to lack of diet, weak body and cold symptoms caused by wind, because they sought medical treatment more often and had a large population, so I remembered it.”

Zheng Gu spoke in great detail, even more detailed than what was recorded in the dossier. At least Master Yu and Master Xia didn't know that he even treated their children.

Zheng Gu continued: "It's about mid-November. The elderly in their family may have contracted the cold because of the cold weather, weak body, and sick people at home. I showed them that they can be pricked with needles. Only the Mu family and the Huang family took the medicine because they were sick and they didn't want to get the needle."

Zheng Gu said this with some regrets and said: "I always prescribed three medicines, one a day. When I prescribed the medicine, I went out to other counties. When I came back, they came to see the doctor again, but the condition did not improve. , but it became more serious. I felt their pulse and felt that the cold symptoms were even worse. At that time, I suspected that their home environment was not good, so they could not keep warm, or other reasons, which made the disease aggravated, and I gave them Three medicines were prescribed."

Zheng Gu paused when he said this, and his voice became low, "But they haven't used up the medicine, and they all came to the door two days later, saying that the old man in the family was too sick to get out of bed, and begged me to take a look. .I just went."

"When they got there, their family was indeed poor, but the old man's bedding was barely warm enough to keep warm. Taking medicine would not make it worse than this. When I checked their pulse, it didn't look like they had taken the right medicine, but they still took it. It looks like cold medicine, so I have to check the dregs and the medicine they caught."

Zheng Gu paused for a while before saying, "Nepeta in the medicine has been replaced with mint, and Poria has been replaced with kudzu."

Master Yu asked if he didn't understand, and asked Zhou Man directly across from him, "Is it serious?"

Zhou Man nodded and said, "Nepeta dispels the exterior and dispels wind, while mint evacuates wind and heat and clears the head. It is a pungent and cool thing."

She said: "Nepeta, Mint, and Su Stem are all similar in appearance. If he replaces it with Su Stem, that's all. If he replaces it with Mint, the medicinal properties are just opposite."

I've never heard of peppermint for colds, but...

Zhou Man frowned slightly, "Although the scents of nepeta and mint are both fragrant, there is a difference in the fragrance. They cover up the taste of mint?"

Otherwise, how could the drug boy who took the medicine couldn't see it?

Zheng Gu nodded, "They have smoked it with sulfur, and the taste is much lighter. If you don't smell it carefully, the taste is similar to that of Nepeta."

As for Poria and Pueraria, it's more like that, the guys in the drugstore who deal with the medicinal materials all the year round, sometimes they will be fooled.

If someone with conscientiousness made them look a little more like them, it would be even harder to tell them apart.

Master Yu asked, "Then what?"

Zheng Gu took a deep breath and said, "Five patients, three survived after I changed the dressings and added acupuncture and moxibustion, and the other two...they were so ill that the medicine stone was ineffective."

He said: "I knew there was a problem with the pharmacy, so I went back to check and found fake medicines. I checked it. If it was really my mistake, it must be the batch of medicinal materials that came in on October 15th."

"Why not the batch on the third day of November?" Isn't the latest batch of medicinal materials on the third day of November?

"Because that batch of medicinal materials was basically used in other counties, I checked and there was no problem with that batch of medicinal materials.

There are not many people who go to other counties with Zheng Gu. Usually, he is both a doctor and a drug boy who prescribes medicines. After passing through the medicinal materials in his hands, he is sure that there will be no fakes.

But this batch in the medical department...

Because there are not only two doctors in the medical office, there are also pharmacists, and there are five apprentices who help with medicine, so he is basically not used for prescribing medicine.

"What did you find out?"

Zheng Gu said with a serious face: "Xiaoguan can be sure that I will never mistake Jingji and Poria, so I didn't buy these fake medicines, but someone must have brought them in and replaced them."

"The amount of counterfeit medicines we found was not very large. It was sealed in the pharmacy at that time. The fake nepeta was only 15 jins and 6 taels, and the fake Poria was only 28 jins and 9 taels."

"Could it be that your pharmacy made the mistake of picking up the medicine, mistakenly taking mint as Nepeta, mistakenly taking Pueraria as Poria?"

See you tomorrow