Chapter 138 Allicin for Dysentery is Really Effective!
The journey to Shanghai for the mother and daughter was not entirely smooth, but they were mostly safe. By the time they arrived in Shanghai, it was already winter. Wei Sijie was worried that the news of their deaths that she had sent from Shandong to Shanghai would reach her daughter before they did. When they arrived in Shanghai, they discovered that they had escaped a major disaster—Shanghai had just emerged from a major epidemic.
Could you elaborate?
Wei Sijie handed a silver coin to the waiter and asked, "When the mother and daughter arrived in Shanghai, they stopped trying to hide their wealth. They took a rickshaw straight to a grand hotel in the concession. As for the cost... money is really not a problem when it's safe. You can just take a jade bracelet out of your suitcase and pawn it for a few hundred silver dollars. You just didn't dare to use it before."
The place they stayed at was called the Grand Hotel, and the rooms were priced in silver dollars. It was said that the owner had a foreign background. From the waiters to the manager, everyone wore suits, vests, and white gloves, and they weren't called by ordinary titles. They were all called waiters, supervisors, managers, and the like. Wei Sijie, who had been through a lot in the outside world, didn't care about these things. Safety was the most important thing.
"This story begins when it's hot..."
The waiter took the five-cent silver coin and started talking. The mother and daughter were dressed in unremarkable clothes, but they were not stingy. They booked a suite for ten days at once, which cost five silver dollars. It seemed that they did not have money to book a more expensive room, but that the two of them only had so much stuff and they could not stay in too many rooms... They must be a wealthy family who came to find relatives.
With that in mind, the waiter spoke even more attentively, not with any intention of currying favor, but simply to get more tips.
The grand hotel, backed by foreigners, also fully embraced the foreign tipping culture. Although the waiters in ordinary suites were provided with food, clothing, and accommodation, their monthly salary was only twelve silver dollars, with the majority of their income coming from tips.
"There's no definitive answer as to where this bout of dysentery originated..."
The waiter lived in a hotel where hygiene was strictly enforced, so it was generally safe during the pandemic. However, his family was just an ordinary household. He had gotten the waiter job by sheer luck. Although he earned a good income, the money was barely enough to cover his children's tuition fees, so they didn't move to a more affluent area.
But every cloud has a silver lining. If it weren't for the storyteller who lived nearby reading the newspaper, and their family, who were illiterate and didn't buy newspapers, might not have survived after hearing Yang Shunxin's story. Even now, he can still earn some money by relying on his understanding of this epidemic.
Sanitation conditions were not good during the Republic of China era, and many people would just endure their illnesses on their own. By the time Shanghai realized what was happening, dysentery had become as severe as the plague of the previous year.
“There was a lazy bum near my house who was very careless about his food. He would have diarrhea several times every few days, almost like he was living in a latrine. But maybe because he was young and had some luck, he lived until this summer. He got this disease but didn’t even know he was sick. He died after lying in bed for a week.”
Even as he died, the man still thought he had gotten a stomachache from eating that half-bowl of stringy rice. When the doctor came to examine him, they realized that the idle man had also unfortunately contracted dysentery.
The doctor said it was dysentery with bloody and white stools. The waiter had no medical training and didn't know much about these things, but he managed to grasp the key words: people with this disease will have diarrhea, go to the toilet about twenty times a day, and it can be fatal.
Although if you can survive for half a month, you'll have a good chance of living, but if you can't, you'll just die!
There were epidemics almost every year during the Republic of China era, but there's no reason to get used to such things. The number of times they experienced them didn't change their fear of epidemics.
“My family still regrets it now. My child said that his classmate was sick and did not want to go to school. The family forced him to go, and at noon we heard the news that he had dysentery.”
Non-medical professionals may not understand the differences between infectious diseases, but the fact that the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled are the most affected remains unchanged. If fate is destined to take the child away, they will accept their fate. But forcing the child to go to the epidemic area... If the child hadn't been safe, the family would never have been able to get over this.
"You're not that old yourself, is your child starting school so early?"
Wei Sijie looked at the waiter curiously. He looked to be no more than eighteen or nineteen years old. Although in many places people can get married at fourteen or fifteen, this is Shanghai. How could he be married so early?
“They are not my children, they are my two older brothers’ children.”
The waiter shook his head and explained that his two older brothers were farmers who struggled to make a living and were already doing their best to support their wives and children. They simply couldn't afford to send their children to school. But the waiter's opportunity was for the whole family, and he couldn't just eat all the food himself. So after discussing it at home, they decided that he should use some of his earnings to support the younger generation's education.
The children aren't treated like royalty when they're studying. Although they can go to school, they can repeat a grade or drop out. If they don't pass the high school entrance exam, the school won't support them. This applies to both boys and girls, and each child only has one chance. Repeating a grade isn't out of the question, but the expenses involved are entirely outside his purview. Any costs incurred after repeating a grade and passing the exam are also his responsibility.
The waiter thought the conditions were acceptable: even if his nephew or niece was the most talented and got into university smoothly, he could only support them until they graduated from middle school. Although it would be a bit of a struggle, it wouldn't break him. If they were lucky enough to go to university, they would have to pay for it themselves, and it wouldn't be his problem.
These rules and regulations were all clearly established at home. His smartest second niece was admitted to a girls' middle school this year. Although he has not yet found a university in Shanghai that women can attend, he firmly believes that universities will be open to women in the future and has already planned out his future.
If the university is still not open to women after she graduates, she plans to find a job and earn money while she is still young; if the university admits women before she graduates and she is lucky enough to become one of them, she will use marriage as a bargaining chip, use the bride price to pay tuition, get engaged when school starts, and get married after graduation.
At that time, there were no student loans or university subsidies, and she hadn't even considered working to save money for school: the shopkeeper earned at most seven or eight silver dollars a month, and even if a female worker worked herself to the bone, she could only earn a dozen or so. University tuition was at least forty dollars a semester, plus various miscellaneous fees and living expenses. Unless she went to places like the Paramount Ballroom, she simply couldn't save up the money in a short time.
But if she's willing to go all out in this line of work, then it doesn't matter who she sells to; selling to one is worse than selling to a hundred!
The waiter couldn't accept his second niece's views and was speechless when he was refuted: It was not uncommon for scholars in ancient times to rely on their wives' dowries to study. After they made a name for themselves, they could even gain a good reputation. She was using marriage as a bargaining chip, she was just a different gender, what was shameful about that?
As for no one being willing to pay that money... how could that be!
Many of the underlying codes of the Chinese people are conflicting. For example, they agree that a woman's virtue lies in her lack of talent, but they also believe that all other professions are inferior except for studying. The latter often prevails over the former. When it comes to marrying their sons to daughters from educated families, they are often willing to pay more money. This is still when a woman's educational ability cannot be quantified.
But things are different now. Girls can enter primary and secondary schools and still take exams and get results. These report cards and teachers' comments are the scholarly families that the girls themselves have built.
With the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the abolition of the imperial examination system, a college student was equivalent to a Juren or Jinshi in the eyes of many people. If she passed the exam, she would be a promising scholar and a potential top scholar. She could not get thousands of gold pieces, but it would not be difficult to find a kind and wealthy family that wanted a college student as a wife.
"Your niece has thought things through quite clearly."
Wei Sijie had a thought in her mind, but she didn't say it out loud. She just continued to listen to the waiter talk about dysentery.
"Those who have this disease stay indoors, and those who don't dare to go out. If you had come a while earlier, this street would have been very desolate."
The waiter sighed as he spoke. His family was always plagued by illness. His second brother was thinking about his wife's upcoming birthday and wanted to celebrate by eating only an egg for the next ten years. So he decided to save up some money to buy his wife a silver incense stick. He took the plunge and went to work for someone. When he came back, he started shivering, vomiting and having diarrhea.
They rushed off to find a doctor, but couldn't find one at one place, or even two. Finally, when they managed to find one, the doctor refused to go with them—many dying patients were waiting.
After finally getting the doctor to take his pulse and diagnose him with dysentery, they couldn't buy any medicine. As their second brother's condition worsened day by day, the family was on the verge of despair when they heard loud cries from the side. When they went over to take a look, they found that the old lady who had been sick had recovered.
The old lady's family runs their own liquor business. To save on rent, they sell liquor in the front and brew liquor and live in the back. With so many people coming and going, they contracted the disease early. They even went to see her a couple of days ago. The old lady was only breathing and not exhaling, but she recovered today.
The second brother's wife was so anxious that she knelt down and kowtowed to the old lady, wanting to know what kind of magic medicine they had used. Since it was a matter of life and death, the old lady did not hide anything and said that she had used garlic extract extracted by her granddaughter. [1]
The waiter, who didn't read newspapers much at the time, was a bit confused. But his family members immediately widened their eyes, exclaiming that Yang Shunxin was actually real. They rushed home and searched the kitchen, only to find that they had also bought a lot of garlic at some point.
"My sister-in-law and the others said it was an impulsive act, but it was thanks to the money they spent that my second brother's life was saved."
The waiter's expression relaxed considerably when he got to this point. The mother and daughter didn't interrupt, but silently memorized Yang Shunxin's name and continued listening to the waiter.
What happened next was quite ordinary. They didn't have the tools to extract allicin at home, so they paid a winemaker to make it for them. After the second brother recovered, the news about allicin could no longer be kept secret, and the price of garlic skyrocketed. Families with purification and distillation equipment became highly sought after, and everyone rushed to buy newspapers that reported on allicin. For a time, paper was in high demand in Luoyang.
"Newspapers that used to cost two copper coins are now so expensive that they're hard to find even with silver coins."
The waiter sighed as he spoke. His family had been reluctant to spend money on newspapers before, but now they wanted to collect all of Yang Shunxin's stories, which would cost a lot of money. But they still had to buy them, because these were life-saving books!
"Yang Shunxin is..."
After listening to the whole story, Wei Sijie finally started asking questions.
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Author's Note: Do you want to see the events in Shanghai from Wei Sijie's perspective, or from Xiaoyu's? Replies are due by 3 PM on the 16th; late submissions will not be accepted.
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[1] Allicin is effective against amoebic dysentery in cases of dysentery with bloody and white stools. The symptoms described are based on acute fulminant amoebic enteropathy.
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