Chapter 249: The Whole Village Suffers from Eye Disease
While treating the villagers' injuries, Zhou Mujiao also took a look at their eyes. As she expected, most of the people in this small fishing village suffered from eye diseases, including nearsightedness, farsightedness, amblyopia, and some, like the village head, had cataracts. Since she hadn't yet begun to study the water and soil of the small fishing village or the villagers' daily diet, it was difficult to draw a conclusion immediately about the cause of the villagers' eye diseases.
However, she now has an external advantage, so knowing the cause of the illness won't affect her treatment. But they will be staying here for about half a year, during which time they still need to do some research. In addition, the villagers are much shorter than the people in Nanjiang City.
She knew that people in the Lingnan and Guangdong regions were generally shorter in stature in modern times. At the time, some experts said it was due to climate, soil, and diet. Some towns in Yuezhou Prefecture bordered Lingnan, so it was indeed necessary to study and verify whether what the experts said was true.
Zhou Mujiao personally bandaged the injured villagers. Although everyone was a little reserved, they gladly accepted it, because the small fishing village had no doctor. Usually, the village head was the only one who could treat bruises and sprains. The village head had worked as a medicine boy for a few days and knew a few medicinal herbs, but that was all.
But when it came to treating their eye diseases, the villagers were very resistant, and even the village head looked reluctant.
Zhou Mujiao couldn't help but ask a few more questions: "Li Lizheng, when did you get this eye ailment?"
The villagers could urinate on the shield, but Zhou Mujiao lived in her own house, so where could the village head hide? He could only bite the bullet and briefly recount how he contracted the disease.
Glaucoma and cataracts are common in people over fifty. The village head looks to be over fifty, so there's nothing particularly special about the cause of his eye disease. Zhou Mujiao's question to him was just a way to get the ball rolling and to ask other people about their eye problems.
Besides poor eye hygiene, nearsightedness and farsightedness are also caused by genetic factors. Amblyopia is usually congenital, due to both genetic factors and the possibility of sudden exposure to strong light during birth, which can also damage the eyes.
The village head talked about his eye ailment, somewhat embarrassed: "Dr. Zhou, I'm over fifty years old. What old man has perfectly good eyesight? I'm not blind, so it doesn't matter whether I get treatment or not."
Zhou Mujiao took the opportunity to ask his grandson. She had never examined his grandson, but his eyes were dull and unfocused, making him look blind but actually able to see people. Therefore, she deduced that his grandson was either nearsighted or had a weak constitution.
Speaking of his grandson, Li Lizheng looked sad: "Bao'er had a hard life. On the day he was born, it was pouring rain. When he came out crying, the sky suddenly cleared up. I thought, this must be God taking pity on me and blessing my grandson. But when I took him in my arms, his face was covered in tears. Tell me, who sheds tears right after birth? Even if a newborn baby cries until he stops breathing, he still doesn't have tears."
The villagers were superstitious. Knowing that Li Xiaobao shed tears from birth, they secretly said that he might be the reincarnation of a god of misfortune. They all advised the village head to throw him away, otherwise he would bring bad luck to the Li family. Fortunately, Li Xiaobao lived up to expectations and grew up to be thirteen or fourteen years old. Nothing bad happened to the Li family, and there were no strange things in the small fishing village. Apart from his difficulty in seeing, no one had anything to say about him.
Of course, the villagers didn't talk about him not because he didn't bring disaster to the Li family or the small fishing village, but because after him, eight out of ten children born in the village were in the same situation as him. At first, they could blame Li Xiaobao for harming people, but as the number of people involved increased, everyone shut up. They all thought that the small fishing village must be cursed, or that the ancestors of the small fishing village had committed too many sins in the past, and the retribution was being borne by their descendants.
As the villagers' thoughts wandered, they remembered their elders telling them about how they caught a net full of strange fish that looked like an infant and could even make the sound of an infant crying on a certain day in a certain month of a certain year. At that time, there was a severe drought and no harvest. All the edible fish in the coastal areas had been caught. Their elders went to very, very far seas and even fought with some bandits before they finally caught that net full of fish.
The older generation was extremely hungry and feared that the women in the family would feel pity and not dare to eat the strange fish if they saw their appearance and heard their cries. So they slaughtered, chopped, and divided the fish on the boat and each person took them home. With these strange fish, the older generation finally survived until the government's disaster relief grain arrived. After that, it rained and everyone recovered.
The village head and others believed that the children's eye disease was a punishment from heaven, and that the strange fish were actually divine fish, fairy fish.
Zhou Mujiao listened attentively, then raised her eyebrows to look at the village head: "Does the village head really believe that your grandson's and the other children's eye diseases are a punishment from heaven?"
"...There's never a reason for nothing—"
"Yes, a child doesn't cry for no reason unless he is maliciously provoked."
Li Zheng was a smart man. His mind raced for a moment, and he jumped up: "The midwife is suspicious!"
Before Zhou Mujiao could react, he went to the homes of the dozen or so children with eye diseases to ask them. After asking around, he returned with red eyes. Behind him were the parents of the dozen or so children, all of whom looked bewildered, but they knew that the village head would not have gone to ask the midwife for no reason, especially not a dozen or so children.
When the village head returned and saw Zhou Mujiao, he couldn't hold back his tears, which streamed down his face: "Dr. Zhou, all those children were delivered by the same midwife. The few children in the village who didn't have eye problems were all born outside and weren't delivered by her."
The villagers also sensed something was amiss and pressed the village head, "Village head, are you implying that Grandma Tu deliberately damaged my little boy's eyes?"
"yes."
“Grandma Tu is the only elder in our village. We have always respected and supported her. Every time we come back from the sea, we give her a share. We treat her better than our own elders. Why would she want to harm my little baby?”
The village head shook his head: "I don't know."
The village head may not know, but Granny Tu herself can at least give a reasonable explanation.
Grandma Tu is over seventy years old and lives alone in the most inconspicuous small courtyard in the village.
Her husband died just a few days after she married into the family, and she remained a widow for decades. She was a very upright and conservative person. Grandma Tu had loved children since she was young and would be unable to move when she saw a child. Whenever she had free time, she would help others take care of their children. With her help, the women's pressure was greatly reduced, and seeing that she was an upright person, their wariness of her gradually disappeared.
Later, when Granny Tu's own mother fell ill, she went back to take care of her for a year. During that time, she learned the skill of midwifery, so when someone in the village gave birth, she became a midwife.
Thinking about it carefully, it's not just Li Xiaobao's generation; many of Li Xiaobao's father's generation were brought into the world through Grandma Tu's care. Even if they weren't brought into the world through her care, she almost always took care of them when they were young, and many of them were raised by her alone.
The village head felt colder and colder as he thought about it. If his guess was true, then Granny Tu was not a respected elder, but a demon!
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