Li Xu didn’t rest after he returned.
Instead, he made a few phone calls.
Soon, a few patients began arriving at the clinic one after another.
These were the pediatric anorexia patients Professor Gao had recomnded a few days ago.
So had co from the provincial capital, others from out of province.
There were four patients in total.
The one who had been waiting the longest had been here for four days.
"My apologies. I thought I’d be back the sa day..."
Li Xu apologized to the patients.
The patients’ families had been a little upset, but when Li Xu brought out the special rice, their complaints instantly turned into delighted surprise.
They left one by one, beaming with joy.
But Li Xu didn’t feel much joy.
He knew the truth himself.
His treatnt for pediatric anorexia relied on the special dicinal rice.
Once the dicinal rice was gone, he would be back to square one.
And the next harvest for the dicinal rice was nearly half a year away.
’I still need to improve my own skills.’
Li Xu took out a dical book and began to read it seriously.
The knowledge of Traditional Chinese dicine was as vast as the ocean; it required a lifeti of study.
Take, for instance, the most fundantal Four Diagnostic thods.
The inquiry part of the diagnosis followed the "Ten Questions": first, about chills and fever; second, sweat; third, head and body; fourth, urination and defecation; fifth, diet and appetite; sixth, the chest; seventh, hearing; eighth, thirst; ninth, previous illnesses; and tenth, the cause. Additionally, the effects of any dications had to be taken into account.
Each question was a field of study in itself.
For example, asking about the patient’s suffering—the chief complaint and history of the present illness—was the focus of the inquiry.
One had to understand the location, nature, and changes of the symptoms, as well as the relationships between them. For instance, when a patient coughed, one asked about phlegm. For a fever, one asked about chills and sweating. For abdominal pain, one asked about their bowel movents.
The duration of the symptoms was also important. Generally, a long-term onset indicated a deficiency syndro, while a short-term onset indicated an excess syndro.
The goal was to be thorough without omission and accurate without falsehood.
The most difficult thod was palpation, also known as pulse-taking.
A person could have a normal pulse or a pathological pulse.
A normal pulse should be moderate, even, neither fast nor slow, neither large nor small, neither hard nor soft. Its rate should be "four or five beats per breath," known in sphygmology as a moderate pulse.
There were twenty-nine common pathological pulses and the Seven Strange Veins.
The fifteen most common were the floating pulse, the deep pulse, the slow pulse, the rapid pulse, and so on...
Each pulse type corresponded to a specific ailnt.
And that was before even considering the other symptoms.
Li Xu had to admit he had barely scratched the surface.
Just as he was reading, another patient ca in—a young woman holding a child.
Li Xu found her vaguely familiar; she lived in a nearby residential complex.
But he couldn’t recall her na.
"Doctor Li, you’re finally back! Please take a look at my son. He’s had this cold for a long ti, and it just won’t go away."
Wang Ruiying anxiously sat down in front of Li Xu, clutching her child.
The child didn’t look very old.
"Don’t worry."
Li Xu began his inquiry while comforting Wang Ruiying, "How old is your son?"
"Three and a half."
"Tell what’s been happening."
"Well... here’s what happened. My son usually loves to eat at, and he normally only has a bowel movent once every two days.
Half a month ago, he caught a cold. I thought it was caused by food stagnation, so I gave him a wind-heat cold redy—Honeysuckle Granules. But it didn’t get any better..."
Hearing this, Li Xu shook his head.
A fever caused by food stagnation in children is known in Traditional Chinese dicine as ’accumulation heat’.
This occurs because a child’s spleen and stomach functions are not yet fully developed. If their diet is immoderate and they eat too much, the food stagnates in the middle burner, and the accumulation eventually transforms into heat, causing their body temperature to rise.
However, this is further divided into various syndros, such as internal accumulation of milk and food, or spleen deficiency with accumulation.
Even an experienced old TCM doctor would need to differentiate carefully.
For soone like her, who didn’t understand TCM, to dicate her child haphazardly based on a little experience, it was highly likely she used the wrong treatnt.
Sure enough, Wang Ruiying continued, "When I saw he wasn’t getting better, I gave him loquat paste and also administered a heat-clearing and detoxifying dicine as a suppository. But instead of improving, he got even worse. I realized sothing was wrong, so I stopped all the dicine."
"You’ve really been reckless with his dication."
Li Xu was speechless.
The child was so young. Instead of taking him to a doctor right away, she just randomly gave him dicine. It was simply absurd.
Wang Ruiying was on the verge of tears, continuing her story with a choked voice, "...After stopping the dicine for two days, my son’s hands and feet went from warm to ice-cold... Then he suddenly developed a high fever. It started at 38.5°C and quickly rose to 40°C. He was averse to cold and also had diarrhea...
I rushed him to the Hospital of Traditional Chinese dicine. The doctor there said that because my son had a fever but was also averse to cold, it was a case of ’alternating chills and fever’... sothing about a ’classic Minor Chaihu Decoction syndro’... I didn’t understand any of it...
The doctor prescribed Minor Bupleurum Granules.
My son broke out in a sweat, and his fever dropped a little, to around 38°C. After two days, the fever broke completely.
But for the half-month since then, my son has been frequently coughing and wheezing. It’s most noticeable when he lies down to sleep at night and right after he wakes up in the morning.
So I changed his diet, and he’s been eating only vegetarian food for two weeks. But he’s still constipated, with dry, difficult stools, only going once every two days... and now he’s running a slight fever again...
Doctor Li, please take a look. What on earth is going on?"
After listening, Li Xu didn’t speak right away.
At this mont, he was under imnse pressure.
Sweat even began to bead on his forehead.
He had built his reputation recently by being able to treat the flu.
However, his flu treatnts relied mainly on the miraculous Daqing Leaf.
His own skill level wasn’t high enough.
The pediatric patient before him didn’t have the flu.
The Daqing Leaf couldn’t be used.
And today’s "information" hadn’t provided a solution either.
This ti, he could only rely on himself.
If he couldn’t cure this patient, all his recent efforts might go to waste.
Li Xu took a deep breath.
He encouraged himself inwardly: ’I can do this!’
’I studied hard in school, and Dad taught hands-on during winter and sumr breaks.’
’Can I really not even treat a patient suffering from the after-effects of a cold?’
Li Xu cald his mind and began the diagnosis.
First, he observed the patient’s condition.
The patient’s face was flushed, and his lips were dry and peeling;
His tongue was reddish, with a thin coat and scattered red points;
His eyelids were slightly swollen, and his nostrils flared faintly;
Next was auscultation and olfaction.
His breathing was coarse and heavy, accompanied by a slight wheezing sound;
His cough was muffled, with no obvious sound of phlegm;
A faint, sour, putrid odor emanated from his mouth;
Finally, he took the pulse.
Li Xu didn’t dare to be careless, palpating for a full five minutes before he stopped.
The pulse was floating and rapid, especially prominent in the right cun position.
The palms were hot, but the backs of the hands were a normal temperature.
Abdominal palpation revealed slight epigastric distension, and a cord-like induration could be felt in the lower left abdon.
...
Li Xu fell silent, analyzing the cause.
The patient originally had a Taiyang stage illness, with the pathogen on the exterior. The parent’s mistaken use of cold and cooling heat-clearing dicines damaged the child’s Yang Qi, which was supposed to be expelling the pathogen outwards. This caused the external pathogen to penetrate deeper, step by step, which is why the cold never resolved.
After the dication was stopped, the cold hands and feet were because the body’s Yang Qi had been driven inward by the cold-natured drugs, leaving insufficient Yang Qi on the surface.
However, the internal Yang Qi then had a chance to rest and recover. After gathering its strength, it beca capable of resisting the pathogen and mounted a counterattack. This is why the body developed a fever—to force the cold pathogen out.
At the sa ti, because the cold pathogen had already entered the stomach and intestines, the body induced diarrhea to expel it.
This was the patient’s self-healing system at work.
Unfortunately, the parent then encountered an incompetent doctor who actually diagnosed the patient with ’alternating chills and fever’ and a ’Minor Chaihu Decoction syndro’.
Li Xu found one of his father’s notebooks.
A passage was recorded inside:
"From birth until three or four years of age, a child’s Yang Qi is very abundant. Barring special circumstances (like a major congenital disease, or frequent IV drips, injections, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, or even surgery from a young age), they can self-heal from most external pathogens. Most ailnts will be Taiyang or Yangming syndros; Shaoyang syndros are rare."
...
P.S. I want to apologize to everyone. Because this book’s performance has been average and there are no further recomndations scheduled, it will be going up for sale tomorrow.
Thank you all for your votes during this ti. Without your support, the author wouldn’t have been able to write this far.
It’s embarrassing to ask, but I still have to.
Please support the first paid Chapter tomorrow.
Thank you.
I wish everyone a happy and safe May Day holiday.
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