open sea

Chapter 1228 Poison
Fu water.

It is a treatment and preventive measure summed up by wandering Taoist priests based on experience in the helpless wars and epidemics of the Central Plains Dynasty.

It has nothing to do with ancient traditional medicine. There has never been a serious doctor who asked people to drink talisman water, but anyone who made people drink talisman water was an irresponsible wandering warlock.

This is different from the traditional doctor's idea of ​​prescribing the right medicine, but whenever the Central Plains dynasty collapsed due to military and political affairs, Fushui can be popular again, and it is mostly related to demons and peasant uprisings, which proves that it is a dead horse in a desperate situation. medical last resort.

There is actually only one real reason, the material used for the spell, cinnabar.

Cinnabar is mercury sulfide. If the way European nobles dealt with the plague was a macroscopic gamble between the people and the plague, then drinking the water with ashes from the spell was a microscopic gamble between the common people and the virus in their bodies.

However, under the condition that the human body did not develop drug resistance in ancient times and most of the plagues spread were of low intensity, this method accidentally made the displaced hungry, disaster victims, and refugees treat it as a life-saving straw, and finally people survived. Because of Fushui, but because of luck and physique.

Take the great plague at the end of Han Dynasty, which tended to be hemorrhagic fever, as an example. Zhang Jiao, the leader of Taipingdao, has practiced medicine for more than ten years. Fushui is actually just an auxiliary method or just a convincing form of strange power and chaos.

Talismans are painted with cinnabar, yellow paper is burnt into a handful of ashes, carbon-based organisms eat carbon, and the burned mercury sulfide is still mercury sulfide. People drink it and die with useful cells and useless viruses in the body.

This form has lasted for 2000 years. In the 21st century, there are still great dancing gods in the countryside. When the local people have a headache, he draws a talisman to let people go home and drink water. Do you think it is a feudal superstition?
Do not!
Traditional feudal superstition spells are burnt to ashes, because the cinnabar on the talisman paper is heated and emits blue fire, sulfur reacts with air to form sulfur dioxide and floats away, and the remaining mercury and paper ash are melted to drink, killing intestinal bacteria and killing people The chances are not high; but the spells of the new century cannot be burned, just soak them in water, just like tea, because the ink is a powerful veterinary antibiotic, which is different from the inorganic cinnabar, and it will be gone once burned.

Thieves science, that is, ordinary people can't stand the veterinary medicine, so the sequelae are great.

The situation is similar in Plymouth Harbor today.

Plagues have always been rampant in England. Except for the disease of sweating fever, which was found by nobles, most of the plagues caused more deaths among commoners than nobles.

Although the common people have the fear of European doctors and have no money to see a doctor, so they have stronger immunity, but everyone is equal before the plague. Unless you escape, the nobles and commoners are treated equally.

Therefore, the nobles followed the way of preventing the plague in the past, fled the city, blocked the city gate and the harbor.

Only civilians and some monks remained in the city.

The civilians have no choice but the monks stay here because they try their best to do something to save more people. They are not only the best in theology, mathematics, and rhetoric, but also the best in medicine. , but because these things are only taught in their monasteries.

Even if it's taught, it's useless.

It can't be said that it is completely useless.

In essence, talisman water, bloodletting therapy, and the medical methods that Europeans figured out during the Black Death pandemic are similar, and even have very similar effects.

Drinking talisman water has three possibilities: the patient survived, the virus died from mercury poisoning, and the patient was killed by mercury.

There are three possibilities for bloodletting therapy: the patient survived, the patient was rescued by instinct, and the patient lost too much blood and died.

In fact, Cao Daochang in Plymouth is not as relaxed and unrestrained as in the letter Li Yuxi sent to Chen Mu.

He didn't intend to save people, but the magistrate of Plymouth ordered the city to be closed before he escaped. This kind of operation shocked him... The road closure is understandable, and the whole city is on guard. No one is allowed to go out, no one is allowed to enter , this is also a routine operation in Daming when there is a plague, but what about the follow-up measures?

What are the government's Changping warehouses, local charity warehouses, and social warehouses doing? They put grain in!
No.

What are the doctors in the city doing?To save people, if there is really no way to cure the disease, we should tell the common people to lie down at home and not run around, right?Not only the gates of the city must be closed, but the neighborhood must also be sealed.

No.

People prayed for the help of the church, but the monks of the church had no other choice but to pray to the people in torment. They could only watch a large number of corpses being transported into the church cemetery every day.

Then people who were shrouded in poverty, disease and death were surprised to find that the Ming people living in the port were fine.

The news came first from the prostitutes.

The Ming people were unable to leave due to the blockade of the port. More than 20 merchants, captains, and hundreds of sailors lived on the street near the port for two whole streets.

It used to be a barren land. Despite Lord Hawkins' opposition, the members of the parliament who accepted bribes passed the resolution to establish a treaty port in Plymouth. No one could refuse the popular effect and huge profits brought by the pastoral smoke.

Therefore, the Muye Chamber of Commerce of the Ming merchants took over the land close to the urban area and called it the Muye Guild Hall. All Ming merchants who arrived in Hong Kong have the right to bring sailors to live and rest for a short time, and some merchants settled for a long time as the chamber of commerce. .

What many sailors bring is not just a huge amount of daily food consumption. They are all energetic people who have physical needs and money at the same time. When there is news of the plague in the city, there are still bold sailors who ask people to find flowers and ask willows... There is always a reason why people have to take to the streets.

Although the sailors who wanted to eat chicken were finally whipped by the merchants, and the prostitutes were not allowed to enter the Muye Clubhouse, the strict discipline in the clubhouse and the ruddy faces of the people still shocked the city hit by the plague.

Even more impressive are the incantations drawn with cinnabar on the wall of the green brick courtyard of the Muye Club.

At first Cao Changqing was afraid when he heard the news of the plague, so he painted cinnabar on the walls of his private courtyard in the Muye Club, and spread lime on the outside of the courtyard. Finally, he began to carve various gods and Buddhas with wood in the courtyard.

Naturally, other sailors and merchants came to the door and asked Daoist Cao to draw amulets for them. Moreover, Daoist Cao had also received battlefield training in the Eastern Military Mansion, so he knew a lot about the common sense of military camps, and he had done dissection experiments with Chen Shigong. Muye merchants are specially asked to collect lime, mercury, and realgar, and sprinkle the courtyard walls outside the courtyard to block rat holes.

These things are available in England. Realgar is a dye. Cao Changqing thought it was not poisonous enough, so he specially refined it into arsenic.

Immediately after the chaos caused by the disorderly management of the city caused the epidemic to expand, the entire Muye Club was under military control, and nothing was allowed to be eaten except rice, white noodles, and fruits and vegetables grown in the courtyard. People also empty the contents of the sachet and replace it with cinnabar, and if the cinnabar is not enough, put arsenic.

In the eyes of Cao Daochang, a professional surgeon, the plague that happened in Plymouth is tangible. Although he doesn't know what the tangible plague is and what he is afraid of, he has a belief in his heart.

"See who these poisons kill first—me or you."

　Good morning!It's New Year's Eve.

　　Friends in Wuhan pay attention to protection, and friends all over the country pay attention to protection.

　　Don't take the disease lightly, don't go out if you have nothing to do, and you must wear a mask when you go out.

　　Go China!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)