There were a lot of officials in the Department of Natural Disaster Response.
Xiao Ruxun had incorporated a large number of officials into it. Many young officials who had just been selected were put into this official office as a clerk, and then began to run errands all over the country.
This could also fully train an official's ability to handle affairs, broaden his horizons, and let him understand how the country was plagued with disasters, how difficult the people were, how great the responsibility was, and so on. It had far-reaching significance.
In order to better deal with these problems, a large number of professionals would be incorporated into the Department of Natural Disaster Response. Chen Jinglun and Chen Zhenlong, father and son, were assigned to deal with the plague of locusts, and the current schistosomiasis in Jiangnan was no less harmful than the plague of locusts.
This was a national strategic task that required the entire country to mobilize a large number of manpower and material resources to coordinate and plan actions.
This time, Xiao Ruxun sent two teams south to Jiangnan. One team went directly to the garrisons in Jiangxi and Huguang to help the army establish a more complete prevention mechanism against schistosomiasis. The other team went to Southern Zhili, Zhejiang, and Fujian provinces to capture snails and investigate the scope of schistosomiasis.
Xiao Ruxun specifically told the leading doctor, Liu Chuanhai, that once a relevant case was found, he should organize people to fish for snails in the nearby water.
He told Liu Chuanhai that when catching snails, he should not do it personally and should not touch the water. Instead, he should use something like a fishing net to catch them. After fishing them out, do not touch them, and immediately throw them into boiling water to boil them to death.
Cook them for at least an hour, and then immediately send all the snails back to the capital for him to confirm some things.
Liu Chuanhai expressed his understanding and immediately organized people to go south. They quickly took a boat south through the Jinghang Canal and arrived in Nanjing in less than five days. Then they went deep into the people of Jiangnan and began to investigate according to Xiao Ruxun's requirements. The first stop was Taiping Prefecture's Dangtu County.
Because he had received Xiao Ruxun's imperial edict of 'full cooperation', he knew that this was a serious matter. Du Kangyong, the acting governor of Southern Zhili and one of the Five Tiger Generals of the Land Reform, personally led a team to Dangtu County with Liu Chuanhai.
The number one official of Southern Zhili had come, so the magistrate of Taiping Prefecture, Sun Wei, also came with him. With two of his immediate superiors coming together, the Dantu County Magistrate, Zhao Zhili, immediately felt a great deal of pressure.
He invited a local doctor to explain the existence and harm of this disease to Du Kangyong and Sun Wei. When they learned that this disease was widespread in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Du Kangyong and Sun Wei's faces turned pale.
"Back in my hometown, I've occasionally heard of insects invading the human body to cause disease, but I didn't know that the range was so large."
"Yeah, the worm disease also happened in my hometown, but I didn't know it could actually infect so many people."
Liu Chuanhai nodded and asked Zhao Zhili, "How is the former County Magistrate Zhou doing? Have you recovered? "
This was also what Xiao Ruxun asked him to do. He also specially brought some gifts from the central government to the former County Magistrate.
"County Magistrate Zhou has generally recovered. He's much better after taking the medicine. It's estimated that he'll be able to start working again after a period of rest."
Zhao Zhili replied to Liu Chuanhai.
"Okay, I'll tell His Majesty."
Liu Chuanhai said, "County Magistrate Zhao, please take me to Xiangyang Village. I want to see the sick people and the waters where they live. As far as we know, the pathogen of this disease comes from the water. It's spread by a kind of snail."
"Snail?"
Hearing Liu Chuanhai's words, Du Kangyong and Sun Wei also felt strange.
"What kind of snail can spread this disease?"
"Just a snail?"
Liu Chuanhai nodded.
"That's what His Majesty said. It's a kind of snail called Oncomelania that spreads the Big Belly Disease. The Oncomelania is very small, less than an inch long, but the poisonous insects that can cause disease live in the snail.
The snail grows in the water, which can make the poisonous insects grow up slowly and fill the water with poisonous insects, turning it into an epidemic water. Once someone touches the epidemic water, the poisonous insects can invade the human body in an instant. If we want to eradicate this disease, we have to destroy the Oncomelania. "
"I see."
Du Kangyong and Sun Wei were both from the south of the Yangtze River. Obviously, they also knew the harm of parasitic insects in the human body.
At the end of the Han Dynasty, Chen Deng, the provincial governor of Xuzhou, liked to eat raw fish. Later, he got sick with huge abdominal distension and a red face. The famous doctor Hua Tuo gave him a prescription, but he vomited several live insects. Hua Tuo forbade him to continue eating raw fish, but Chen Deng couldn't control himself and continued to eat raw fish.
Du Kangyong told the story.
The story of Chen Deng dying of worm disease was quite widespread. It was a famous example of a person dying because of insects invading the body, which attracted a lot of attention from intellectuals.
"How to treat the sick people with worms in their abdomens?"
Liu Chuanhai shook his head to show that he didn't know. "The doctors in the Imperial Hospital haven't reached a consensus. Our primary purpose is to find out how to prevent the disease from spreading, not to treat it. This disease is very harmful, and we can't let healthy people continue to be infected."
Zhao Zhili said, "An official who went to Xiangyang Village with me to investigate got sick when he came back. The doctor gave him a Ferulic Pill. After he took it, he expelled a lot of worms. The swelling in his abdomen gradually disappeared, and the high fever also stopped. Now he is recovering."
Liu Chuanhai immediately asked the doctor, and the doctor said that there was such a thing, but he also said that this method sometimes worked, and sometimes it was not so effective, because some people who took the pill were cured at that time, but soon after, similar symptoms appeared again.
"Is it possible that the worms were not expelled cleanly, and some eggs were left in the body?"
Liu Chuanhai asked.
"Many people think so, so they continue to take similar worm medicine. The effect is also good."
The doctor gave such an answer.
Liu Chuanhai nodded and asked again, "Since it can be cured, why are there still so many dead people and sick people who can't be cured until they die?"
The doctor looked ashamed and didn't know how to answer.
In the end, it was Zhao Zhili who explained.
This problem led to an even bigger problem.
"The price of the medicine is not cheap, and there are not many of them. Those who can afford it are mostly the families of officials and tyrants. These families are rich, but most of the sick people are poor farmers. They don't even have enough money to eat, so how can they afford to treat the disease?
Although doctors have the heart to treat their patients, and some doctors do have the heart to save them, the medicine they have is limited, and they can't cure that many people. Furthermore, the number of doctors and doctors in the medical center are too few, and there are so many patients that most of them can't afford to pay. Doctors also need to eat, and they can't do business at a loss.
That's why doctors have the heart to save them, but the patients can't afford the medicinal herbs. Some big medical centers are willing to be kind enough to treat them, but there aren't enough medicinal herbs, so the number of people who can be treated is one in a hundred, and those who can be cured are even rarer. To put it bluntly, there are few doctors, few medicinal herbs, many patients, and many poor people. "
Hearing this, Liu Chuanhai's face showed anger. Du Kangyong and Sun Wei were both officials of the land reform, and they were clearly reminded of their situation years ago.
"The previous dynasty set up Huimin Pharmacy to manage the local medicine, and to treat the people. What about Huimin Pharmacy? Is there no medicine in a county or a state? "
Liu Chuanhai asked again.
Zhao Zhili shook his head.
"Huimin Pharmacy was fine in the beginning, but as time went on, it became more and more like a guise. There were often no medicine, and even if there were, they were just common herbs that could be found everywhere. They couldn't be used to make insect repellent, and they couldn't save people. Many Huimin Pharmacy were empty shells, and they had long been eaten up by the previous dynasty's officials.
When the people were sick, they could only grit their teeth and endure it, or boil some ginger in water. The rest was up to the will of the heavens. In the past two years, His Majesty has focused on Huimin Pharmacy, but Rome wasn't built in a day. Even if we start all over again, we won't be able to get many of the medicine. "
Zhao Zhili couldn't help but shake his head.
The doctor sighed: "My teacher once said that there are many difficult diseases in the world, but there are medicines that can cure them. Only the diseases of poverty can't be cured …"
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