Chapter 595: Treating the sick and saving lives and making a fortune (3rd update, please subscribe)
Emperor Napoleon III fell ill, still suffering from an old ailment - bladder stones - on the day he won the legislative election.
On the doctor's advice, he underwent surgery. During the surgery, Queen Eugenie served as regent as usual. This was not a good job for Eugenie, as she preferred to accompany her young son rather than handle government affairs.
However, this does not mean that she did not care about Emperor Napoleon III. She even wrote a letter to Zhu Xianhai, asking if there were any suitable medicines in the Ming Dynasty - after all, the Ming Dynasty's medicines were well-known to be advanced.
Emperor Zhu was of course at a loss about this. Although the Imperial Pharmaceutical Company had long become a world-famous pharmaceutical company relying on drugs such as Liposuction, aspirin, and berberine, those drugs had no effect on bladder stones at all.
"So, we have no medicine to treat bladder stones?"
Emperor Zhu's brows were furrowed.
"Yes, sire,"
Sun Yeli thought for a while and said.
"Perhaps, we can think of some ways to use herbal medicine. For example, Centella asiatica and Chicken's gizzard lining have certain therapeutic effects."
Although Sun Yeli studied chemistry when he studied abroad, it did not prevent him from studying traditional medicine. He was conducting drug extraction experiments in the laboratory of Imperial Pharmaceuticals, and also developed several new drugs based on traditional herbal medicines.
In the present Ming Dynasty, there is no distinction between so-called "Chinese medicine" and "Western medicine". The former can also be transformed into new drugs by chemically extracting effective ingredients.
“They won’t believe that.”
Zhu Xianhai simply waved his hand and asked.
"How is the company's drug development going recently?"
Although Nanhua got its start with medicines, in the past few years, Emperor Zhu did not pay much attention to drug research and development. After all, as an emperor, he could not stay in the laboratory. At most, he could provide some technical support - that is, buying some books on drug synthesis from the Life Mall.
However, even so, Imperial Pharmaceuticals has not launched any "new special medicines" for several years. After all, the technical conditions are here. The so-called Western medicine actually started from the extraction of plant alkaloids and herbal medicines, and then progressed to the semi-synthesis of alkaloids, and then to chemical total synthesis, and finally to design-based drug discovery. This process lasted for a hundred years.
Even if Emperor Zhu could provide some technical or directional information, it would not be of much significance. After all, some technologies require time to accumulate.
"Your Majesty, this year the company has made some attempts based on traditional prescriptions. Currently, we have launched more than 200 new drugs..."
When Sun Yeli mentioned two hundred new medicines, Emperor Zhu was secretly a little shocked. This speed was too fast. According to the standards of later generations, most of those medicines were Chinese patent medicines. Emperor Zhu could not say for sure what the effects of the medicines were, but what was certain was that European and American countries welcomed the Chinese patent medicines of Imperial Pharmaceuticals. After all, in this age of relying on metaphysics to treat diseases, those Chinese patent medicines with indications were simply miracle drugs.
As for adverse reactions, people don't care about them these days. Besides, several generations of European and American people have been used as test subjects, and sooner or later they will figure out what adverse reactions there will be. As for deaths in the process, taking medicine... how can people not die?
The most important thing, of course, is to make money - last year, Daming's drug exports reached an astonishing 37 million yuan!
As for the profits, they are naturally very considerable.
"…these new drugs have a wide range of uses and good therapeutic effects. For example, the licorice tablets launched this year are a drug with good cough, expectorant and asthma-relieving effects. According to feedback from the domestic and European and American markets, in addition to having a certain effect on asthma, it even has a certain therapeutic effect on tuberculosis."
When Sun Yeli mentioned licorice tablets as if he was presenting a treasure, Emperor Zhu simply waved his hand and said.
"It's just temporarily covering up the disease...wait, tuberculosis?"
Emperor Zhu was stunned before he could finish his words.
Tuberculosis!
This disease is a serious disease. In this era, it is not only incurable, but also a contagious disease with a large number of patients.
After the Industrial Revolution, the population explosion and abnormal urbanization brought about by industrialization became a hotbed for the spread of tuberculosis. Due to the poor working environment, pollution caused by industrialization, low immunity caused by malnutrition and the lack of public health resources, the infection rate and mortality rate of tuberculosis increased significantly. In 1799, one in every 3.8 deaths in the UK died of tuberculosis. From 1851 to 1910, tuberculosis caused the deaths of about 4 million people in England and Wales - accounting for 13% of all deaths!
Not to mention that tuberculosis was rampant in Europe, there were also many tuberculosis patients in the Ming Dynasty. Even before immigrants boarded the ship, they needed to undergo a physical examination, but there were still inevitable tuberculosis patients among them, and many immigrants were infected with tuberculosis on the ship.
This disease is a terminal illness!
Not only is it a terminal illness, but it is also a terminal illness with a large number of patients!
"Maybe……"
A drug flashed through Emperor Zhu's mind - isoniazid. The reason why he knew about this drug was because isoniazid had become a "magic drug for poisoning dogs" and caused a sensation in the news. It was through that news that Zhu Xianhai learned that isoniazid was a drug for treating tuberculosis.
Emperor Zhu didn't care whether it was a miracle drug for poisoning dogs. What he cared about was that this drug, invented in 1952, was very effective in treating tuberculosis.
More importantly, Emperor Zhu knew the synthesis route of this medicine!
"It is obtained by condensing isonicotinic acid with hydrazine hydrate. Dissolve isonicotinic acid in hydrazine hydrate, add the crude mother liquor from the previous batch, and distill under reduced pressure..."
Recalling the preparation process he saw on the Internet, Emperor Zhu couldn't help but thank the sensational "dog poisoning incident" in his heart. If it hadn't caused such a big controversy, he wouldn't have paid attention to the news and wouldn't have paid attention to its preparation process.
This process is not complicated!
Not only is it not complicated, but it is also very simple. Once this drug is synthesized, will someone use isoniazid to poison dogs? Emperor Zhu does not know, but this is definitely a blue ocean!
There are tens of millions of tuberculosis patients in countries around the world. With isonicotinic acid, those patients' disease can be cured. Of course, what is more important is money!
A market with tens of millions of people must be at least a market with hundreds of millions, or even billions of people!
For the rapidly developing Ming Dynasty, having such a huge and high-profit industry will surely stimulate the economic and industrial development of Ming Dynasty.
After all, the foundation for developing industry and commerce is money.
In the Nanhua era, Nanhua got its start by making pharmaceuticals!
Now it is Ming Dynasty.
The profits brought by this drug can even support the further industrialization of Ming Dynasty. After all, this is a huge market worth hundreds of millions of yuan every year.
Such a huge market, such huge profits, has been ignored for so long.
Even if you stand on the shoulders of giants, there will be dark days.
"There is no time to waste. We must act quickly."
Suddenly, Emperor Zhu was a little uneasy...
The only prerequisite is that there are still some technical problems that need to be overcome, such as certain raw materials need to be further "invented". After all, some raw materials for synthetic drugs have not yet been invented.
(End of this chapter)
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