Regardless of whether it is domestic or foreign, as long as it is separated from the experiments and demonstrations of modern medicine, the selected herbs will be more or less toxic. Even in modern medicine, most of the drugs used are toxic once the dosage is increased, not to mention the products that are mixed with various herbal medicines.
The saying "it's three parts of medicine and poison" certainly has its truth.
In the 19th century and before, when there was no control over drugs, the amount of herbal medicine used was completely based on the doctor's very subjective experience and on-the-spot judgment.
If the disease is serious, give more, and if the disease is mild, give less. Failure to provide is definitely unrealistic, and failure to provide will fail to reflect the role of doctors in the recovery process.
This bottle of herbal medicine was used for pelvic infection. Besim’s original purpose of using it was definitely not the so-called pelvic infection, because he had no concept of pelvic infection at all. Besim only knew that this kind of abdominal pain and bloating came from the uncleanness of the reproductive tract, and these herbs were used to treat uncleanness.
Kawei's previous idea was very simple, which was to verify the efficacy of herbal medicines in two ways.
The first is to create a vole infection model to test the antibacterial ability of the drug. The advantage is that the safety and antibacterial effect of the drug can be intuitively demonstrated at one time. But model making is not easy and requires a lot of labor.
Savarin and Mattick were already spinning their wheels, and without anyone else to help, the production of this model was very low.
The second is to cultivate bacteria with medicinal solution and simple bacteria on self-made simple petri dishes, and compare the bacterial growth rate and colony size. The advantage is that bacterial culture is much simpler and takes up less space, but it cannot be observed whether the drug is safe.
Carvey wanted Savarin to use both methods to prove the usefulness of herbs, and Savarin did so.
Unfortunately, the results were somewhat surprising.
"Elizabeth died like this..." Compared with Savarin when he first helped, he has been able to control his emotions now, and his reluctance can only be seen from some subtle expressions, "I will Buried it as quickly as possible and prepared the next model.”
"How much did you inject?"
"As per your request, about 1ml."
"How much does Elizabeth weigh?"
"600g."
"The lethal dose is so high..." Kawei thought of the various privately prepared medicines he saw in the medicine shop, which contained many inexplicable things. "What about the symptoms before death? Have you observed them? "
"Vomiting, fatigue, irritability, difficulty breathing, and twitching of limbs." Savarin said, looking at the notebook in his hand, "That's about it."
"Sounds like arsenic, but not quite."
Kawei once again read the regular dosage of the drug that Besim left for him: "The patient takes it twice a day, each time around 5ml, and the daily intake is 10ml. The effects include but are not limited to 'promoting the elimination of excessive amounts from the body' Miasma', 'helping to expel dirt from the gastrointestinal tract', 'patients can maintain high spirits and muscle activity for a long time'..."
Originally he thought these were just casual remarks, but now it seems that he respects the facts very much.
Difficulty breathing means lack of oxygen, and the body will naturally compensate by speeding up breathing; vomiting does expel dirt from the body; twitching becomes muscle activity; as for mental state, it is a very subjective thing.
Kavi had a headache.
He thought that the herbal medicine would be toxic, but he never thought that after reducing the dosage, it directly poisoned the voles. This showed that poisoning symptoms must have appeared when applied to patients. In addition, after taking it for such a long time, the person must have been chronically poisoned even if he was not dead.
Symptoms of chronic poisoning... Kawei recalled the medical records of peasant women he had read, and there seemed to be some very common symptoms in them: dizziness, chest tightness and shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.
If I guessed correctly, the peasant woman must have eaten the poison in the herbal medicine, but what about the postoperative infection?
Could poisonous herbs inhibit bacterial growth?
"You first continue to do antibacterial experiments in the culture medium, and then make an infection model and try reducing the dose in half." Kawei had no other good idea, so he could only bite the bullet and continue trying, "I'll wait for two days tomorrow. Come and have a look when you have time.”
"I see."
There are three possibilities before Kawei now.
An experiment was successful and the herbal medicine did have a certain antibacterial effect, but it was also toxic.
Kawei is not good at doing experiments, his job is not chemical research, and he has little interest in chemistry. Considering the complicated processes such as refining and purification, all he could do without the help of a chemical researcher was further dilution.
Whether it can be truly used in clinical practice will require a few more attempts.
The second experiment failed. Besides being toxic, the herbal medicine had no antibacterial effect at all. Kawei had to go back to Graz Hospital to find the patient for further details. It's not difficult, it's just troublesome.
The third experiment failed. The herbal medicine had no antibacterial effect, and the patient's incision still became infected. All the previous experiments were all false.
If it is really the third type, it will be all joy in vain...
(Don’t do the third type, don’t!)
"Dr. Carvey, what were you talking about just now?"
Kawei looked at Koch not far away and said with a smile: "Well, it's nothing, I just encountered some problems in the experiment and I was just talking to myself."
"Your experiment is very interesting." Koch was not actually interested in the results of the experiment. What really aroused his curiosity were the round glass vessels on the table. "These are the petri dishes you mentioned in "On Microorganisms" Bar."
"Yes, there is a layer of culture medium underneath, which is the nutrients needed by microorganisms." Kawei said, "You should have seen the inoculation method just now."
"Yes, yes, Mr. Savarin has already told me that the inoculating loop needs to be burned with a flame. This is an application of Mr. Pasteur's high-temperature sterilization method. It is really clever."
Koch, unlike others, didn't care why Carvey knew so much. There is only knowledge in his eyes, like a dry sponge, constantly absorbing the moisture around him.
Kawei likes this kind of people the most. Considering that Koch will return to China in two months, if he wants to retain people, he needs to show his expertise in microorganisms: "Since you are willing to help here, I I can tell you how to make the culture medium."
"real?"
"Of course." Kawei smiled, "(Because this is what you will invent in the future)"
The method of making culture medium is not difficult. There are many simple preparation and coagulation methods in modern times. In the 19th century, if there was no agar, you had to make peptone from meat paste yourself. The method is similar to making meat jelly, that is, after the meat is cooked for a long time, the protein-rich soup is placed in a glass dish to cool and solidify.
This culture medium is certainly not as nutritious as modern ones, and the growth rate of microorganisms will be slower, but it is better than nothing.
The most important thing is to ensure sterility during vaccination.
...
Time soon came to May 2, which was the day of Fernand’s surgery.
The operation was scheduled for one o'clock in the afternoon, and Kawei ran the laboratory again in the morning. The result made him very disappointed, and the experiment failed.
After reducing the amount of herbal medicine, the newly created infection model did not die, but it also had no inhibitory effect on bacteria. Within a day and a half, three voles in the experimental group and three in the control group all developed the same symptoms of infection.
The situation was the same in the petri dishes. Some bacterial colonies appeared in both groups of petri dishes, and the growth rates were roughly the same.
No matter how you look at it, herbs have no antibacterial ability.
"What should we do now?" Savarin had a mess in front of him and could only look at Kawei, hoping he could come up with a plan. "Get rid of all of this?"
Experiments are always accompanied by a large number of failures, which are the consequences that experimenters must bear. Kawei is also aware of the difficulties involved. At least he is financially wealthy now: "If you wait one more day, if the results don't change, you can just throw them all away and try again with the potion you selected from the previous medicine shop."
"Alas..." Savarin looked at the large amount of experimental materials, his heart bleeding, "What a waste."
"These are all things that can't be helped," Kawei said. "If you have time to think about this, you might as well help me think about where the problem lies."
"Didn't you go to Graz Hospital just now? Did you ask how the patient was doing?"
"There are no other things that may inhibit the growth of bacteria in the patient's daily life and diagnosis and treatment process." Kawei took out his notebook and looked through it. "Everything he eats is ordinary food, and he wears ordinary clothes. In terms of medicine, Only this bottle of herbs..."
"Then what?" Koch asked.
"Then she got pregnant. During the pregnancy, her life was as usual, that is, she took some herbal medicines. But because her body reacted too much, she secretly reduced the dosage." Kawei recalled, "Dr. Besim just heard about this. Still blaming patients for being disobedient.”
Savarin has been staying with Kavi, and his way of thinking has gradually moved closer to him. He always feels that heavy metals, bloodletting, enemas and some random additives are not of much benefit to patients: "Don't he know that herbal medicine is poisonous?"
"Of course he knew, but he also knew that small amounts of poisonous herbs could be good for sick people."
"What happens next?"
"Then again? No more...During the pregnancy, I took less herbal medicine, so my health was actually pretty good." Kawei blinked and said, "Then I went to the operating table for a cesarean section."
"Then what happened during the operation?"
"Surgery is traumatic and provides a channel for microorganisms to enter the human body, so it has always been an important factor in increasing infection." Kawei explained, "Moreover, there was heavy bleeding during the operation, and the uterus was also removed, which took a very long time. So. After the major surgery, there wasn’t even a trace of leakage from the patient’s incision, so I found it strange.”
Kawei has been very reserved about this matter.
Even for modern surgical patients, there is still a certain infection rate after surgery. Considering the physical condition of the peasant woman, it is a miracle that there is no infection after such an operation.
"No infection in the incision today?"
"No, there is no ulceration or any leakage. It is a very clean incision." Kawei explained, "I am sure that her pelvic cavity must have been infected, otherwise the surrounding tissues would never have such severe adhesions."
"This is very strange..."
Koch is doing research on incision ulcers. Although he has never been on the operating table, he understands the infection risk factors caused by huge surgical trauma: "Is there anything else that can be used as a reference?"
"No, I've asked all the questions I need to ask."
"What if we go further?" Mattick asked on the side, "What treatments has the patient received before? Or what changes have been made in his living habits?"
"It was a year ago." Kawei shook his head. "How could the experience a year ago affect the current surgical incision? Even if it is really useful, the patient's pelvic infection should have been cured long ago."
Kawei did not want to mention the patient's previous experience because she also underwent an abortion like the previous mothers. In order to achieve the goal of successful abortion, the surgeon's methods must be rough. At the same time, serious infections occurred because the instruments used were not strictly sterilized.
This is a dark history, and Kawei really wants to find out who caused the abortion through the peasant woman’s mouth.
It's a pity that the other party is willing to say anything to Kawei as his savior, but he remains tight-lipped about this matter.
Of course, Kawei couldn't force it, so he had to go back to the laboratory first: "Think about other things. With the patient's weight and pelvic infection, there must be a problem if the incision is not infected."
Carvey sat at the table and stared at the record book in his hand, Koch was playing with the petri dish and microscope, Savarin squatted by the vole cage and fed the feed, and Mattick was still flipping through the book hoping to find the answer.
The four people were all thinking about the same question. Time passed by minute by second, but the result was still 0.
Is it really a miracle?
Kawei still has a negative attitude towards this, but now the situation is wavering. This negative attitude is like a bamboo raft floating in the vast sea, not knowing whether the direction of travel is really correct.
What if it really is a miracle?
Maybe the patient's body is really special and can resist the invasion of microorganisms during surgery. If that's the case, it might not be too late to let go now.
Kawei deeply understood how difficult it is to break through from 0 to 1. After only one month of setbacks, he had already lost a lot of confidence.
He is now like walking into a maze, which is full of passages. No one knows what is at the end of the passage, and no one knows when he will reach the end. It was already very difficult to find the correct passage. After entering the passage, he had to run forward in the dark without hesitation...
If I had known earlier that I should have learned more about medical history and biochemistry and pharmaceutical technology, it wouldn't have been so troublesome.
"It's almost too late for the operation. I have to go to the surgery theater first." Kawei stood up, took his coat and walked out the door. "I don't know if Mr. Fernand is here."
"Can I come along?" Koch was also interested in surgery. "I want to see Mr. Carvey's disinfection techniques with my own eyes."
"The tickets should all be sold out." Kawei thought for a while, "If you don't mind it, why don't you stand in the surgery preparation area as an assistant? It's just free work, and I can't pay you!"
"no problem."
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