In the time it took to perform a chest piercing, all the ingredients in the prescription were sorted out by the apprentice and delivered to the table.
Kraft saw in it the familiar and the unfamiliar—the familiar parts mostly found in the kitchen and on the table, as part of the condiments.
The unfamiliar part is really completely indistinguishable. Kraft can occasionally match it with a name he heard accidentally in David's explanation, but he can't distinguish them well.
.
After all, plant mummies are similar to human mummies. They are both shriveled and it is difficult to see what they looked like before birth.
Sliced roots, segmented stems, rolled leaves, and ground substances.
David took out a small amount of each sample with rare precision, weighed it on a smooth birch board, estimated the proportion, and then used a tool that might be an animal bone to scrape away the powder completely, striving to use an accurate amount.
His movements were a little stiff, and he was stuck for half a beat from time to time. He might be deliberately performing some standard operation method that he hadn't used in a long time.
There are reasons to question the point of doing this. The difference in the content of active ingredients in naturally growing plants should be much greater than the mass left on the scale.
In a certain order, half of the medicine was added to the lead jar and simmered.
David noticed a difference in Kraft's expression and explained: "Lead can accelerate the reaction and improve the taste of the medicine."
I don’t know if it can accelerate reactions, but it can certainly accelerate life.
After simmering over low heat, half of the water in the jar evaporated. David poured in the remaining medicine, filled it with water again, and continued baking.
Kraft watched the whole process patiently and without understanding. The water in the jar went from clear to yellowish and black, and finally concentrated to less than one third of the volume, a slightly viscous dark liquid.
A smell like cough syrup, mustard, and rice crispy rice mixed together overflows from the inside, hitting the nasal mucosa hard and powerfully.
The maker uses a coffee spoon-sized but deeper spoon to scoop up a little concoction, put it on the tip of the tongue and take a sip.
"Tsk, tsk." David made a sound like clicking his tongue, and his expression relaxed. He was probably satisfied with the finished product.
The tongs removed the hot lead pot from the charcoal fire, placed it on the blackened cork mat and pushed it to Kraft, and thoughtfully placed a new spoon.
"Thank you." Kraft's politeness allowed him to take the spoon and thank him, but his safety awareness made it difficult for him to take a small bite.
This thing looks like an artificial version of black liquid - black, viscous, and extremely suspicious. The biggest difference is that black liquid can tempt people to come into contact with it, while its smell only makes people want to stay away.
It's hard to imagine what kind of mood Mr. Barber and other patients had when taking this stuff. Perhaps the pursuit of certain functions can drive people crazy.
"Actually, the taste is not as bad as the smell." Seeing Kraft's hesitation, David said, "The honey should cover up part of the bitter taste."
[No, I’m not worried about suffering]
The two eyebrows tend to knit together. If you don't take a bite, it seems like you're sorry for David; if you take a bite, you're sorry for your body.
Kraft scooped out a small amount with difficulty, raised it in front of him, his lips wriggled, and he recalled the glorious deeds of medical forefathers who tried the medicine on their own. In the end, he was still unable to convince himself, so he just put it under his nose and smelled it.
No miracle happened. The smell of the heated spices covered up most of the smell, and he was not a humanoid analyzer who could smell and taste molecular formulas.
"Have you never thought about taking out the medicines inside one by one and trying them?"
"Why do you think so?" David was slightly surprised by the split argument.
"The reaction during the preparation process is difficult to predict. One or two changes may have an impact. Only a few extremely skilled people can make optimizations."
"Well, of course, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your level, but drug compatibility is indeed a very complex subject, and it also tests luck. Even experienced doctors may invest a lot of time and get nothing."
It sounds a bit like alchemy, and it's actually pretty much the same.
Kraft gave up trying to dig out valuable information from David, but still held on to a glimmer of hope.
He doesn't know the dead medicine, but what about the living medicine?
"Can you show me some live...I mean fresh materials?" Before he had no choice but to try them one by one, he wanted to make a desperate struggle, trying to evoke memories through the image of plants.
"It's difficult. Most of the fresh medicinal materials can only be seen in the place of production. But if you don't mind, I have an illustrated book."
Some people's "Human Structure" is an old version, but their drug illustration is a new version.
The cover is high-end leather, with silver corners, and the paper is pure in color. It is written in small script in a classical style, and even has colored patterns. Even the drawings use the latest style with some perspective techniques, striving to restore the true colors and images.
There are traces of curling and flattening at the corners of the pages, indicating that the owner frequently read and maintained them.
The book does not have a table of contents, but it does not prevent David from flipping to the corresponding position by hand and introducing these magical plants, as well as some magical minerals and animals in detail.
"This is the fresh appearance of pepper, with smooth green beads. You don't usually see it. After all, what we use is basically dry. Dried pepper is sometimes used to clear the nose."
"The same goes for cinnamon. It is actually the bark of a tree. Collecting it will cause a lot of damage to the tree. In addition, it is said to have a strong reproductive effect, so it has been in short supply and the price is not very friendly."
"But it is precisely because there is cinnamon in the recipe that I believe it is not just a random thing, at least it is a recipe developed by someone who knows certain medicinal properties."
Speaking of his profession, David talked a lot. Regardless of whether the accuracy remains to be considered, his knowledge in the direction of medicine is worthy of recognition.
Compared with the pharmacy professor at Rivers University, David's understanding of drugs may not be systematic enough, but he is more in-depth on some special details and non-mainstream applications, and is biased towards applications.
David followed the prescription and took out each medicine from first to last, "...and this, Zi Ling, is very beautiful, right?"
The shape of the drawing matches the name very well. Purple bell-shaped flowers hang in clusters on a somewhat thin branch, with dark spots attached to the openings. It is beautiful but also has a subtle sense of danger.
"Actually, it's not all purple, there are also some light yellow and red varieties. More rigorous prescriptions will indicate which one to use, but this one doesn't."
"It is worth mentioning that purple bell is toxic regardless of its flowers and leaves, and it is not stated in this prescription."
"Toxicity?" For natural plants, the other side of toxicity is often medicinal properties.
"Eating this plant by mistake can cause vomiting, dizziness and headaches, and there have been cases of death. Professional pharmacists will strictly limit the dosage when using it."
"Are you having heart palpitations?"
"It's not very clear, because it's actually not easy to encounter people who are poisoned by accidental ingestion, and we use a small amount, so we don't have many detailed records."
A picture that was used to fill in the courseware in a pharmacy class was rummaged out from the trash heap of memory, and overlapped with the picture book pattern in front of me, inspiring a little inspiration.
Immediately, various related information responded to the demand and spread out in his mind, "Is there any visual problem? For example, the patient said that the color of the scenery changed, turning yellow and green?"
"Maybe? Most poisoning is a hallucination."
"Hmm..." Kraft thought quickly, looking for various characteristics that could be used to describe David from the names of the drugs he knew, "So this plant has a lot of hair?"
Suddenly jumping from the symptoms of poisoning to the description of the feel of the herbal medicine, David took a few seconds to react. If he had not handled the medicinal materials himself, he would not have been able to answer, "Ah, yes, have you been exposed to it before?"
"I've never seen one growing in the ground, but I really want to see it now."