Chapter 9 The First Free Clinic

The next morning, when Miaozhen woke up, she saw a round fan given to her by Lin Xiaoxiao on the table. It was a double-sided silk fan with a palm bamboo handle and a begonia design, embroidered with flower and butterfly patterns. She was lost in thought for a moment. She then ordered someone to carefully put it away before going to Madam Mei's place to tell her that she would be accompanying Madam Ru to the free clinic that day.

Madam Mei had a plate of willow-leaf dumplings brought over, saying, "Since that's the case, you should eat more to fill your stomach." After saying that, she also had a bowl of mutton noodles made, along with two eggs.

Miaozhen sighed, "You're going to burst my belly!"

"Eat more to stave off hunger. There are two packets of pastries at home, and I've had them packed for me." Madam Mei wished she could go with her daughter, since it was her daughter's first time dealing with strangers.

After using some food haphazardly and wiping her mouth with a handkerchief, Miaozhen took a maid and went out to the Tao family in a carriage. Ru Shi then took her and Ru Xiniang to the Xuanmiao Temple.

Ru borrowed several rooms here to use as a place for free medical consultations. She even drew curtains inside and instructed Miaozhen, "Light the incense to ward off evil spirits."

In ancient times, there were no modern disinfection products, so they used atractylodes or incense to ward off evil. Also, when you treat someone's illness, you can't let their aura affect you, otherwise you will also get sick. Many doctors in the acupuncture and moxibustion department run and practice Baduanjin in the morning to exercise.

In addition to burning incense, Ru also instructed people to boil water with salt and wash needles and knives in the pot.

"Before healing others, we must first protect ourselves."

Miaozhen and Ruxinian both agreed.

As soon as the gong sounded, the first person to enter was a woman who had been helped in. It was said that she had fainted after a period of hemorrhage. Miaozhen immediately began writing down the medical records.

"Madam Tao, shouldn't we stop the bleeding first?" The one supporting the woman was her sister.

Ru first took the pulse, but shook her head: "Although excessive heat causes bleeding, this heat is not real. If only hemostatic drugs are used, it can be stopped temporarily, but it will probably recur in the future."

The patient might not understand this, but Miaozhen did. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic says, "When Yin is deficient and Yang is excessive, it is called collapse." This woman should have Yin deficiency and fire, which stirred up the blood chamber and caused a hemorrhage. Therefore, it is not enough to just stop the bleeding; we also need to nourish Yin.

The woman's sister asked, "Then may I ask what medicine the doctor will prescribe?"

"Use the Gubenzhi Bengtang decoction: one ounce of Rehmannia glutinosa (processed), steamed nine times; one ounce of Atractylodes macrocephala (processed with soil until charred); three mace of Astragalus membranaceus; five mace of Angelica sinensis (washed with wine); two mace of black ginger; and three mace of ginseng. Decocted in water and taken orally, one dose is usually enough to stop the bleeding, and ten doses will prevent a recurrence," said Madam Ru.

Miaozhen naturally wrote down the prescription and gave it to the woman's sister.

After everyone left, Madam Ru said to them, "Menorrhagia can lead to excessive blood loss and deficiency of both qi and blood, so you must replenish qi first and then blood. You see, black ginger has the effect of guiding blood back to its proper channels."

Miaozhen asked, "What if this person's bleeding doesn't stop and all six pulses disappear, making their condition even more serious than that of the woman from before?"

“Then we can’t use the Gubenzhi Bengtang decoction first. We need to decoct three qian of ginseng (without the root tip) into a medicinal juice, and then take one qian of Guanzhong charcoal powder first. After her breathing has improved a little, we can give her this prescription, still with one qian of Guanzhong charcoal powder added,” said Madam Ru.

"But what if she is still weak and her condition doesn't improve?" Miaozhen asked.

"Then use ashless yellow wine to mix three qian of powdered Dryopteris crassirhizoma charcoal. Once she is fully awake, use the Gubenzhitang decoction, but use Codonopsis pilosula instead of Ginseng, and still use one qian of Dryopteris crassirhizoma charcoal." Ru explained in detail.

Miaozhen finally understood that the Guanzhong (贯众) has the effects of clearing heat, detoxifying, cooling blood, and stopping bleeding, and that Guanzhong charcoal is a processed product.

Then another woman arrived, pale-faced and stammering. She seemed hesitant to speak, especially when she saw Miaozhen and Ruxiniang. However, Rushi did not shy away from the topic: "They are both doctors and women, so you don't need to be afraid."

The woman then said, "I was pregnant, but one day I miscarried and suffered a severe hemorrhage."

"Have you finished your postpartum confinement period?" Ru asked.

The woman nodded: "It's still like this even after the postpartum period. No amount of hemostatic medicine has worked."

After Ru Shi took her pulse herself, she asked Miao Zhen to take it. Miao Zhen first noticed that her lower eyelids were sunken, which clearly indicated a deficiency in the uterus. This was her first practical experience. After carefully taking her pulse, she said, "The middle is empty and soft, the two sides are solid, and the pulse is hollow and tight."

The hollow pulse is generally seen in cases of acute blood loss, severe vomiting, and severe diarrhea. After taking the pulse on the left, she took the pulse on the right. The left side corresponds to the heart, liver, and kidneys, while the right side corresponds to the lungs, spleen, and kidneys.

"I only feel that my internal heat is too strong."

Ru said to them, "Miscarriage and hemorrhage are usually caused by sexual intercourse, which is different from the previous one, so you must be careful. The previous one had her blood chamber disturbed by false heat, while this one's blood is caused by qi deficiency and blood loss."

Ru Xiniang, who was somewhat sensible, blushed slightly, while Miaozhen, who was not yet eleven, remained calm and composed, as if she had heard something about eating or drinking.

Seeing this, Ru couldn't help but nod in approval and prescribed a formula for a decoction to strengthen qi and replenish essence.

Seeing that the woman had left, Miaozhen said, "So the reason she hesitated to speak was because she miscarried during intercourse. When a woman is pregnant, the fetus in her womb relies most on kidney essence, so it's not enough to just stop the bleeding; she also needs to replenish her kidney essence. Otherwise, the kidney water will be depleted, and the deficiency fire will become even more excessive."

Then Ru explained to them, "If it is a miscarriage due to a fall, the bleeding will be mostly mixed with dark purple blood, and there will be dizziness. In this case, we need to prescribe Qi-regulating and blood-stasis-dispersing decoction."

Miaozhen wrote down everything Ru Shi said. She thought Ru Shi seemed to be very good at gynecology, for example, she could explain clearly how to treat postpartum hemorrhage and postpartum care, but other aspects were probably more ordinary.

Remembering that Lin Xiaoxiao and her mother both had lung disease, it's no wonder they said that Ru's medical skills were not good enough. This is not Ru's problem.

She still wanted to master gynecology, so she no longer wavered.

Then a few more women arrived, most of them suffering from gynecological diseases. The last one to arrive had a crooked mouth, drooling eyes, and said that she had become like this after being exposed to the wind, and was also experiencing chills.

This is facial paralysis caused by wind and cold. Miaozhen had performed acupuncture on people in her previous life when she was in the hospital, so she was very familiar with it. However, Ru Shi was not comfortable letting her do it completely, so she only taught her which acupoints to needle for facial paralysis, and let her do the needle removal herself.

"Madam, young ladies, the food has arrived." The Taoist nun brought the food over.

Everyone washed their hands and went to the side room to eat. Miaozhen had eaten too much in the morning and wasn't very hungry, so she only ate a few bites.

Ru didn't hold her back, and said, "You can take a walk around here. I need to talk to a real person."

After Miaozhen left, Ru indeed took her niece to see a female Taoist priest. These female Taoist priests often visited wealthy families and associated with powerful people, so they knew a great deal.

Ru Xiniang was approaching marriageable age. Since both her parents had passed away, Ru treated this niece as her own daughter, taking her with her to visit wealthy families for medical treatment, hoping that her niece could be betrothed to a good family. Unfortunately, people nowadays valued large dowries, and since she was an orphan, most of the suitors who came to propose marriage were not satisfied.

There is a way; if my niece could recommend me to the palace, that would be wonderful.

However, she took the Xu family girl as her apprentice. In less than two years, the girl had learned almost as much as Xiniang had in five years. It is said that the emperor's mother, Empress Dowager Jiang, was suffering from boils and sores. The inner court was filled with recommendations from the local government. She was thinking of using this female Taoist priest's connections to send her niece into the palace.

Of course, she would first need to find a skilled doctor specializing in sores and ulcers, which required connections.

The group talked for an hour. Miaozhen wandered around outside for a while before returning to her room to rest. Only then did she see Ru Shi and her niece return.

Seeing their delighted expressions, Miaozhen didn't ask any further questions. In fact, learning is not about quantity but quality. She had also heard from her father's friends in the government office that the Jiajing Emperor was looking for doctors in the countryside to treat sores for his mother, Empress Dowager Jiang. There were many famous doctors in Suzhou Prefecture, but they were all different types. Now, the emperor was following suit, and the books on sores sold in her family's bookstore were all kept at the bottom of the box, but now there were still a few people buying them.

Just as she studied acupuncture in her previous life because it was her parents' choice, studying gynecology is what she is best at and is what she chose in this life, so she has no intention of changing it.

If a person can do one thing well in their entire life, that's enough.

Therefore, Miaozhen also studied diligently in the afternoon.

The girls' school teacher, Lady Qiu, taught them how to make abalone with bones and specially prepared two boxes to send to Madam Ru. Although Madam Ru favored her niece, she was also a person who cherished talent. Seeing that Miaozhen was young but kind and righteous, she also treated her with extra care.

After the summer solstice, the weather started to get hot. Every time they came back from outside, they were soaked in sweat. When Qiu Niangzi saw this, she let them go for more than a month and told them to come back to school after the beginning of autumn.

In this way, Miaozhen could go directly to Ru's place to learn from morning till night. Her acupuncture skills improved by leaps and bounds. She was already very familiar with acupuncture points, and now that she had adapted to the ancient needles and techniques, she had needled her own legs countless times. In addition, she often practiced moxibustion.

One day, when he returned, his hair was soaked with sweat, and his body and back were covered in sweat. Madam Mei said, "Why don't you rest for a couple of days?"

"Everything is done in one go. Now she only takes her daughter out two or three times a month, which is already very good. Her daughter has already eaten two bowls of ice cream on the way, and feels better."

Madam Mei was worried that Miaozhen would get a stomachache and told her to eat less. Miaozhen thought that if she didn't eat some ice in this weather, she might get heatstroke. Just then, her father had someone bring over a cart of ice. This ice was bought from the ice ship. In the past two years, her family had already paid back two hundred taels of silver, and her father still had two hundred taels in savings, which exceeded the debt. Therefore, they were not as calculating with money as before.

But before the ice was used up, a torrential rain started again. Their house was on a high foundation and wasn't flooded, but the main house and the third house were dripping water everywhere and were half-submerged.

My aunt's family was fine, so we went to ask her uncle to let us stay at their house. But my uncle was unwilling, always feeling that he was inferior to his wife's family. He was the only one who came to ask for lodging. So my aunt had no choice but to bring my sister Miaoyun along. Also, my third uncle and aunt, because the first floor of the house was soaked to the foot of the bed, Xu Laoguan and Xu Laotai could stay upstairs, but Xu Si Niang couldn't stay there, so they were also brought over, looking like drowned rats.

Suddenly, there were four more people in the house. When Miaozhen saw that there were more people, she knew that trouble was coming.