Mu Huaixi put his mind at ease and returned to his work at the health center.
I don’t know how Fengjuan’s mother promotes it, but now every day there are groups of seven or eight old men and women coming to the hospital to ask about the plaster, and they insist on having it applied here before leaving.
The small stove originally used to boil water for making tea was requisitioned to heat plasters. The health center was filled with the aroma of yellow ochre. In Wang Xiaohua's words, just one breath of it can invigorate blood circulation and remove blood stasis.
The elderly people who had the plasters applied would gasp and pat the arms of those around them, sighing, "Yeah, yeah, that's what Xiang Yuegui said. It feels like an electric shock when I put it on. Oh, my bones are numb! It's just right!"
Xiang Yuegui is Li Fengjuan's mother. After applying the patch for only a few days, she felt her legs and feet were much lighter than before, and her legs no longer ached so much that she couldn't sleep all night. If Fengjuan hadn't asked her to apply it for a few more days, she would have wanted to carry a stool and go to various houses to promote the patch that very day.
The few people who knew her well believed in the effectiveness of the ointment when they saw her at the village entrance. You know, Xiang Yuegui was rarely seen in the winter months. She didn't like to go out because of her leg pain. Even when she had to get out of bed to move around, she would frown and pout. How could she chat with others so excitedly like she does now!
Several of her younger sisters were also among the first group to rush to the health center to apply the plaster. Within two days, they strongly recommended it to their family members, and more and more people came to the health center to apply the plaster.
The price of four dollars and fifty ounces for the plaster is really not cheap, but the effect of this plaster is so good that you can feel a strong numbness almost the moment you apply it, as if the ointment has pried open a crack in your bone, and then the heat and the medicinal power penetrate into the bone cracks, driving out all the coldness entrenched inside.
The mountains are very humid, and people who work in the fields and mountains every day will suffer from rheumatism and bone pain as they get older. It is still relatively comfortable in spring and summer, but when the autumn wind blows and the winter snow falls, the pain is so severe that they cannot get out of bed or straighten their backs. Not to mention working, they can't even take care of themselves.
Mu Huaixi didn't expect that a single application of the plaster would bring out so many chronic back problems and cold legs. Almost none of the uncles and aunts who came to apply the plaster came with a smile. The pain that had lingered in their bodies for years had pressed down the corners of their mouths and locked their brows.
Some grandmas wore baggy cotton trousers, but when they took them off, they found that their calves were not as thick as Mu Huaixi's arms, but their swollen and red knees pushed the cotton trousers up, and the skin that should have been wrinkled was stretched and shiny by the fluid accumulated inside. On weekdays, they could only apply hot compresses to relieve the pain. When they really couldn't bear it anymore, they chewed ground bull, but that thing was poisonous, so she didn't dare to eat too much.
The underground golden bull is the root or branches and leaves of the two-sided needle plant, which has the effect of dispelling wind and unblocking the meridians, but it tastes bitter and is slightly toxic. It is difficult for ordinary people to grasp the dosage. If you eat too little, it will have no effect, and if you eat too much, you will feel dizzy and vomit.
"Yes, yes, oh, I felt numb all over when I chewed that a couple of days ago, and I almost couldn't breathe," the old lady slapped her thigh in fear. She looked at Mu Huaixi slowly burning the golden needle with an alcohol lamp, and nervously grabbed Wang Xiaohua who was disinfecting her knee.
Wang Xiaohua was caught off guard and was almost thrown off balance by her pull. She quickly comforted her, "It's okay, it's okay. This is our Doctor Mu's family tradition. First, give him an injection and then apply the plaster. Otherwise, your knee will be too swollen, and the plaster won't be absorbed, and the medicine will be wasted!"
The old lady was still pulling her arm. The needle in Mu Huaixi's hand was really too long. It was much longer than the inch needle she usually used, and the tail end was divided into three parts, a bit like a three-edged bayonet.
This is another set of needles passed down by the Mu family, specially used for fire acupuncture. It is not complete, but even Grandpa Mu is not very good at this fire acupuncture technique. Mu Huaixi learned it from the phantoms in the medical books these days.
Fire needle, as the name suggests, is a treatment method in which a red-hot needle tip is inserted into the body. It was recorded as early as in "Lingshu·Official Needles". It is especially used to treat arthritis, furuncles, carbuncles and ulcers, and has miraculous effects.
This was also Mu Huaixi's second time using fire needles. She burned the three-headed long needle red, and while the old lady was chatting with Xiaohua, she suddenly inserted it into Yanglingquan. After twisting it slightly, she quickly pulled it out. The old lady didn't even feel any pain.
But the fork in front of the long needle left three small holes on her swollen knee, and pale yellow and bloody fluid slowly seeped out from the holes, eventually flowing out into a large bowl.
The old lady's complexion looked much better after the accumulated fluid was drained. Mu Huaixi picked up the heated ointment again, gathered the accumulated skin on her knees, and pressed it under the ointment. Soon the old lady shivered and broke out in a cold sweat.
Mu Huaixi observed carefully and wrote down the old ladies' reactions. She found that although these elderly people all had rheumatic bone pain, their reactions to the plasters were different due to differences in their physical constitutions.
Generally, people can feel numbness and tingling. Some people feel hot in the bones, while others feel cold flesh and bones next to them. Some people break out in cold sweats, some people get heat toxins, and some people feel unbearable pain in the front abdomen and suffer from diarrhea for several days.
This is actually the body expelling cold and dampness, just through different channels.
With more elderly people in the health center, there is more gossip.
Just by listening to a few things during the treatment, Mu Huaixi knew a lot of gossip, such as the big black sheep from Tang Dashu's family was lost, the couple had a fierce fight, and his wife went back to her parents' home crying; for example, the team leader's son seemed to have a crush on Tang Xiaotang, and went up the mountain to help find Dahei a few days ago, but ended up injuring himself.
For example, Xia Dazhuang died.
The confinement period for a baby is at least one month. Mu Huaixi thought that he would not hear news about Yu Xiuhong until after the New Year. However, he did not expect that when he arrived at the health center this morning, he heard the old lady who came to apply the plaster say that Xia Dazhuang had frozen to death.
It snowed last night. The men who were drinking and bragging with Xia Dazhuang fell down on the road with their arms around each other. They helped each other to get up, but no one noticed that Xia Dazhuang, who was standing next to them, had rolled into the ditch beside the road.
Xia Dazhuang usually stayed at the homes of his friends when he was drunk, and it was common for him not to come home all night. His family had gone out to look for him before, but now Yu Xiuhong was in confinement and Daya was useless, so who would go out to look for him in the cold night?
It was a cold and dark winter night. Xia Dazhuang fell into a roadside ditch and managed to crawl into a pile of fallen leaves and debris. Unfortunately, the fallen leaves were not warm enough to keep him warm through the night.
"Alas, it was he who made such a mess in the ditch that no one found him until this morning. It is said that he was already dead when they found him!" The old lady who was warming herself by the stove shook her head regretfully. "Xia Dazhuang's mother had a really hard life!"
"I heard about it too," said an older woman from another maideping area, handing Mu Huaixi a handful of roasted peanuts. "They carried Dazhuang back home, and his mother stood at the door crying and cursing for the entire morning. She cursed her disappointing son so much that she vomited a pool of blood and passed out. I don't know how he is now."
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