Hearing Zhu's words, the woman sat down on the ground in despair. Looking at her daughter, who was still crying incessantly, and then at Zhu, who was about to leave, she could only kneel before him and plead desperately, "Zhu, Zhu, please! Please look at my daughter again! She's my only daughter! If anything happens to her... what will I do!"
The woman spoke with a tearful voice, looking extremely pitiful, but Doctor Zhu could only shake his head helplessly and say to the woman, "Auntie, I'm really sorry, I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell what's wrong with your daughter!"
In the end, Dr. Zhu could only leave Jiang Ling's shampoo factory with his medicine box on his back.
Jiang Ling looked at the girl who was still covering her eyes and crying, and slowly stepped forward to ask, "Little girl, have you been playing outside all day?"
The little girl covered her eyes and nodded.
Judging from the girl's movements, Jiang Ling roughly determined that the girl likely had snow blindness, an inflammation caused by ultraviolet radiation damaging the cornea and conjunctival epithelium. Symptoms include eyelid redness and swelling, conjunctival congestion and edema, severe foreign body sensation and pain, photophobia, tearing, and difficulty opening the eyes; blurred vision may also occur during an attack.
It had been snowing in Lujia Village for almost ten days straight, and the children were practically going crazy from being cooped up indoors. Now that the weather was clear, they were sure to rush out to play in the snow. But people of that era didn't know that the sun and snow could create an extremely dazzling light, and looking at the snow for a long time in this kind of weather could easily cause snow blindness.
Jiang Ling asked again, "Little sister, are your eyes very uncomfortable and painful?"
The little girl nodded again, confirming Jiang Ling's suspicions.
She walked up to the village chief and said, "This little girl probably has a condition called snow blindness, which is mainly caused by staring at the snow for too long. Village chief, you should inform everyone and tell the children not to play in the snow right now!"
Upon hearing Jiang Ling's words, the village chief realized the importance of the matter. He nodded and gathered several fast-moving men to prepare to notify each household.
Jiang Ling approached the woman again and whispered, "It's alright, your girl is fine. She has a condition called snow blindness, and she'll probably recover in a day or two. However, you'll need to disinfect her eyes during this time!"
Upon hearing that there was nothing seriously wrong, the woman breathed a sigh of relief and quickly asked, "Disinfection? What do you mean? What is disinfection?"
"This snow blindness is caused by your daughter looking at the snow for too long, leading to an eye inflammation..."
"What? What do you mean? Watching the snow for too long can cause inflammation? How can that cause a disease? I've never heard of such a thing before!" The woman stared wide-eyed, her expression one of disbelief.
Jiang Ling didn't blame them. Medical conditions weren't advanced at the time. She continued to patiently explain, "Sister-in-law, if you stare at the candlelight for a long time, do your eyes feel uncomfortable when you look elsewhere, or even your vision blurs?"
The woman frowned in thought, then nodded and said, "Okay...it seems there is such a thing!"
Jiang Ling smiled faintly and continued to explain, "Snow blindness is just like seeing a candle flame, except that the power of the sun is far greater than that of a candle flame!"
At this point, the woman nodded as if she understood, and then quickly asked, "Then... is there any hope for my daughter's eyes?"
“If it’s not a long time, one or two days will be enough, but you need to disinfect your daughter every two hours. The disinfectant…” At this point, Jiang Ling glanced at the others in the room and quickly lowered her voice to the woman, saying, “It needs to be fresh human milk, five or six drops at a time, dripped into the girl’s eyes, about a few minutes apart, one drop at a time, for one or two days!”
"Huh? You mean..." The woman blushed immediately upon hearing the words "fresh human milk".
Jiang Ling knew this was a particularly awkward situation, but there was another way: to use cow's milk instead of human breast milk. But where could she find cows in this era? Besides, even if she could get cow's milk, the heavy snow had blocked the mountains, so the milk couldn't be transported over. Thinking of this, Jiang Ling couldn't help but sigh.
She glanced at the men around her and said, "Gentlemen, we need to discuss something here. Could the men in the room please leave for a moment?"
No one objected to Jiang Ling's actions. Upon hearing this, they all left the house on their own initiative. The last man to leave even closed the door for Jiang Ling and the others.
Seeing that only women remained in the room, Jiang Ling slowly said, "This girl's eyes were burned by the sun and need to be disinfected with fresh human breast milk. I'd like to ask if anyone here can provide this!"
Jiang Ling's words caused the women in the room to start whispering. Finally, Yang from Lujia Village slowly opened her mouth and said, "My sister-in-law just gave birth and has breast milk. I'll go and get some!"
After hearing this, the woman grabbed Yang's hand emotionally and kept saying thank you.
Yang was quick; in no time, she came in carrying a bowl with some milky white liquid at the bottom.
The woman thanked her repeatedly and then began to disinfect her daughter's eyes according to Jiang Ling's prescription.
Jiang Ling looked at the woman and instructed her again, "Remember to cover your daughter's eyes with a black cloth, and change it after two days. In the future, be careful not to let her play in the snow in the sun for too long! Otherwise, she might not be so lucky next time!"
Hearing Jiang Ling's instructions, the woman nodded respectfully and said that she would keep an eye on her daughter and prevent any further accidents from happening to her.
Seeing that the matter had been resolved, everyone returned to their homes in twos and threes, or continued to rest at the location set up by the shampoo shop.
The village chief had just finished notifying each household.
After Jiang Ling and the village chief met again, the village chief couldn't help but ask curiously, "Jiang, how do you know about this method that even Doctor Zhu doesn't know?"
She had already prepared her answer: "Yes, my maternal grandfather used to be a barefoot doctor, and he had some unique folk remedies!"
The village chief didn't press further. He pointed helplessly to the village entrance blocked by heavy snow and said, "If we don't clear it soon, the people in our village will go hungry!"
Jiang Ling nodded and said to the village chief, "I know, the weather has cleared up today, let's organize everyone to clear the snow!"
After discussing it for a while, the village chief and Jiang Ling started going door to door to notify everyone to come and clear the snow.
While no one was paying attention to Jiang Ling, she bought a lot of de-icing agent from the mall. The raw material for this de-icing agent was coarse salt. After she took it out of the bucket, everyone stared at the shiny coarse salt in the bucket with some curiosity.
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