"Young master, can these horses be treated?"
In the spacious and expansive stables, Wang Yashi slightly covered his mouth and nose, asking Li Ang, who was closely examining the sick horses.
Conjunctivitis, keratitis, corneal ulcers...
Li Ang stepped back half a step, engaged in meditation on the treatment plan for quite some time before finally opening his eyes and nodding. "They can be treated."
"Really be treated?"
By this time, Xun Jiancheng, who had gotten over his state of dejection and sorrow, had also entered the stable, watching Li Ang intently. "How certain are you? What do you need to prepare?"
Li Ang casually said, "The odds, I guess, are about seventy to eighty percent. If the sick horses outside the city also have these conditions, I can cure most of them. However, it will require around twenty strings of coins for the cost of medicinal materials."
"Twenty strings?"
Xun Jiancheng's eyes widened, his mouth agape.
Too much? Li Ang frowned. "If there's no other way, I can pay myself, but after the matter is successfully resolved, you must reimburse me the twenty strings, plus an additional ten strings as interest."
"No, no..."
Xun Jiancheng waved his hands. He had initially thought Li Ang would demand fifty, or even a hundred strings. In this era, many doctors took advantage of the ill to inflate the price of medicines. Unscrupulous practitioners holding life-saving drugs often demanded thousands in extortionate fees.
"Cough, cough, Wang Sanlang, please go to the storehouse and retrieve twenty strings."
Xun Jiancheng sent Wang Yashi to get the money. Changing his prior cold demeanor, he then enthusiastically inquired about the details of the treatment from Li Ang.
Li Ang reiterated his previous diagnosis of "liver fire flaring up, yin deficiency and raging fire." After Wang Yashi had brought the money, he borrowed a horse from Xun Jiancheng, notifying him that he would come every day for the next four days and instructed Xun Jiancheng to gather all the sick horses in one place for easier management.
With that said, Li Ang then led Wang Yashi to the street to buy medicinal materials.
Xun Jiancheng, having given away twenty strings and a horse, paced back and forth in the hall of the Pasture Supervisory Office. Not even half an hour later, Wang Yashi returned to report.
Xun Jiancheng asked in haste, "How did it go? What medicines did that Li Ang take you to buy?"
Wang Yashi's face was a picture of shock and disbelief, his palms even trembling slightly. Since he had participated in the garrison's pursuit of a murderer ten years prior, he thought nothing in the world could shock him like this again.
"He... he first took me to a ceramics shop, then to purchase white salt and saltpeter, followed by placing an order at the blacksmith for something called a needle tube, and then..."
"And then what? Speak up!"
"He took me to, to buy pig eyes!"
「————」
"Young Master, you... do you have, perhaps, some kind of special preference..."
In the Security Hall, Chai Cuiqiao also looked at Li Ang with utter astonishment.
Li Ang cradled a large ceramic flower vase, from which the sound of sloshing water continuously emerged, exuding a pungent, indescribable odd smell.
The ceramic flower vase was brimming full with pig eyeballs, each one veined with remnants of blood, presenting an utterly bizarre sight.
Well... actually, 'special preference' was a rather mild way to put it. If the Yizhou Town Governor's Office, or those fanatics from the Haotian Taoist Sect in the south of Zhou Kingdom were to see Li Ang returning with a vase full of pig eyes, they'd likely suspect him of being a demon of the human world.
"What nonsense are you talking about, special preference."
Li Ang gently placed the vase on the floor. "Go and find some firewood, and bring out the pure wine from the storehouse."
"Oh."
Chai Cuiqiao obediently went to boil hot water, while Li Ang wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at the vase of bizarre items.
These fresh pig eyes, soaked in cold water, were obtained by him and Wang Yashi from the largest slaughterhouse in Yizhou City, for three cents each. Li Ang himself meticulously extracted them with a knife, and not a single one was damaged or had knife wounds.
Thinking about the dumbfounded expressions of Wang Yashi and the butchers, a slight smile couldn't help but appear on the corners of Li Ang's mouth.
It seems that my surgical skills haven't regressed.
He nodded proudly. The profession of a surgeon was tied to modern science and modern industrial systems. Without drugs, advanced surgical tools, or reliable methods of hemostasis, analgesia, and disinfection, a surgeon's skills would be hard to utilize.
But, as long as one's thinking is broad and flexible, there are always more solutions than difficulties.
Li Ang mumbled to himself, moving all the fresh pig eyes to the courtyard and using pure wine (a high-concentration alcohol invented by the Academic Palace using distillation technology, usually diluted with water before drinking) to disinfect his hands. "The cornea of mammals is located at the front of the eyeball, directly in contact with the environment, and is susceptible to inflammation due to damage from microbes, physical trauma, and physicochemical stimuli. It can be treated with 0.25% to 2% Atropine solution or ointment, applied or instilled daily, thus dilating the pupil, reducing iris irritation, and promoting ulcer healing. Or antibiotics could be injected subconjunctivally, with the use of corticosteroid hormones, and the intake of vitamins C, vitamin B2, and Fish Liver Oil Pills, among others. Now that I have none of these, I must... adapt to local conditions, and use pig eyeballs."
In fact, the most efficient alcohol concentration for disinfection is around 75%. Anything lower may not completely kill bacteria. Conversely, too high a concentration can cause bacterial proteins to coagulate, forming a protective film that actually prevents their thorough elimination.
But under these circumstances, having high-concentration alcohol was already good enough.
After Li Ang had disinfected his hands with pure wine, he then carefully washed the pig eyeballs with cold water to remove blood stains and impurities.
During this process, he asked Chai Cuiqiao to find an iron pot, pour clean water into it, and then place a heat-resistant ceramic bowl inside. The ceramic bowl was left empty.
As the iron pot heated up and generated steam, droplets would condense on the iron lid and eventually fall into the ceramic bowl, producing crudely distilled water.
Crude as it might be, it was usable.
Li Ang took the distilled water and washed the pig eyeballs once more, then used a clean cloth that had been boiled in distilled water to wipe off any surface moisture from the eyeballs.
Afterward, Li Ang disinfected his hands again and used a small iron knife to make a one-centimeter incision in the center of each pig eyeball's pupil. He then squeezed the eyeball over a sterilized ceramic bottle, allowing the aqueous humor, vitreous body, lens, and iris to flow into the container together.
Lastly, he sealed the entire ceramic bottle and placed it into an ice box made of saltpeter for refrigeration.
The whole procedure was tedious and complex, and at least Chai Cuiqiao didn't understand at all what Li Ang was doing.
"Young Master..."
Chai Cuiqiao watched Li Ang, who was washing his hands with expensive pure wine, and hesitated to speak.
"What is it?"
Li Ang wiped the droplets of water off his hands with a cloth and then brought his hand close to his nose to sniff, relieved that no strange odor remained.
Chai Cuiqiao hesitated for a moment but still asked, "Aren't the pig eyes... disgusting? Dug out from a pig's head..."
"What's disgusting or not disgusting about it? They're just organs. No different from pig ears, pig skin, or pig meat."
Li Ang furrowed his brow and thought for a moment. "But now that you mention it, yes, coming from a pig's head, they are indeed quite dirty. Hmm... for dinner, let's make stir-fried pig intestines then."