Gary remembered this man. Although he wore a mask, the young and steady voice was still impressive, with a power to fight against fear. People who listened could not help but believe what he said.
A few days after he went to the college for help without success, the young doctor named Kraft unexpectedly appeared in person in the salt tide area, a place where no one in his right mind would come. Then he visited them door to door, claiming to help them.
Two wells were rebuilt to solve the lethargy caused by toxic water sources.
"Hello, if I remember correctly, your name is Gary, right?"
The bird-headed man was holding a rectangular wooden board in his hand. There was a clamping structure removed from somewhere on the upper edge to help him fix the paper on it.
It was a question, but the pen had already written down something quickly on the paper. The question just now was just a routine, and I had already made a judgment in my heart.
"Ah, yes, it's me. I didn't expect you to still remember." Gary closed the door behind him to block the messy interior.
There is no custom in the Yanchao area of inviting visitors to sit inside the house. This is not because of politeness or any other cultural reasons, but simply because the shack is too small to accommodate more people, and there is no extra space to sit.
"If you are free, I would like to take some of your time and ask a few questions, which may help us deal with this strange disease." Kraft dipped the tip of his pen in the ink bottle held by Lucius, "No.
It will involve some things that are not very suitable to answer."
As sincerely stated as always, Gary could not find any reason to refuse the request of a doctor who came to the Yantide area to solve the problem for free, not to mention that he did not need to pay anything.
Of course, there are very few good people in the world who are good for no reason. People who are as good as the saints of the church often have an agenda. But Gary didn’t feel that he had any good intentions, and his working hours became less and less for a month.
, people in this place will never be able to get even half a spare copper out of their bodies.
"As long as I know." Gary nodded.
With permission, Kraft started his own investigation according to the questions prepared in advance: "Does the time you wake up change after you don't drink the water from the well?"
The first question stumped Gary. He hesitated for a while and gave an uncertain answer: "It seems a little early, but I'm not sure. It may not have changed, it's still noon."
The tip of the pen draws a small cross on the paper, followed by a small horizontal line, separated by a slash in the middle - it may or may not be, pending further confirmation. After all, there is no accurate timing tool here, and patients all answer based on their subjective feelings.
Not sure.
On the whole sheet of paper, the first item after the densely packed names and numbers is mostly ambiguous records, with only a few indicating that they can be sure.
"Sorry, I'm really... not sure." Gary wrung his hands, feeling a little embarrassed that he couldn't give an exact answer to the first question.
"It doesn't matter. Just tell me how you really feel. There is no good or bad answer. Even if you're not sure, it's still an answer." Kraft said it didn't matter and moved the pen tip to the next page. "Have you had any dreams lately?"
"Any form of dream, such as dreaming that you are in a place similar to your own home, or dreaming that you cannot remember the content at all after waking up, also counts."
This question was like a prelude to asking for money from some priest or occult swindler. Gary shook his head blankly. He didn't remember any dreams, he only remembered an empty sleep, closing his eyes, and then waking up at dawn.
.
"No, not even once." Speaking of this, Gary felt an inexplicable chill, as if the devil came and took away his soul in the dead of night and put it back the next day.
When he said this, he felt that the eyes behind the red lenses were paying special attention, staring at him with solid gaze, as if there was some invisible atmosphere coming here.
After getting a negative answer, the tension disappeared. The bird-headed man drew a small horizontal minus sign on the paper, and his tone became a little relaxed that he might not have even noticed.
"That's really great."
The bird's beak was raised, and Gary thought he was smiling, but he didn't understand what was so "good" about it, just because he wasn't dreaming?
"Don't worry, sometimes dreams are a harbinger of something. It's better to have nothing happen than some unexplainable dreams, right?"
"You're right." Gary didn't understand this roundabout way of saying it, so he just instinctively agreed.
"Have you been feeling uncomfortable lately? Pain, dizziness, cough, diarrhea, etc."
"That's true, the foot pain has happened again recently, and the pain is even worse." Speaking of this, Gary was still a little scared.
The pain was like cutting out the bones, and it was so painful that it was difficult to move. But now he had to lose half of his working time every day, so he couldn't stay idle because of this.
He originally wanted to ask, fearing that it had nothing to do with sleeping sickness and would offend Kraft. But since the latter took the initiative, it was the best.
"Expose your feet and let me see." This sentence was completely redundant. Kraft lowered his head and saw that Gary was not wearing shoes at all. The salty black mud on the tidal flats dried and caked on his thick calloused feet, making it difficult to distinguish.
The original color of the skin is not revealed.
The joint connecting the thumb and the sole of the foot looked a little swollen. Due to the color of the skin, he couldn't tell if there was any redness or swelling, so he squatted down and stretched out his hand to press it.
Gary saw that he was wearing a pair of exquisite gloves made of unknown leather, and subconsciously shrank his feet.
"Don't move, let me press it and tell me if it hurts?"
This place is called the first metatarsophalangeal joint. As soon as he pressed it, Gary showed an obvious expression of pain. Kraft released it and pressed all the way up until he felt pain in his ankle.
"Joint sand." He said, this is the alias of gout in Wendeng Port of this world. It is named because uric acid finally condenses into tophi in the joints, and the things squeezed out after inflammation and ulceration look like grains of sand and pebbles. "
What have you eaten recently?"
It is not uncommon in port cities. A large amount of seafood in the diet, coupled with the increase in purines caused by drinking beer, does not make sense that the metabolite uric acid is not high.
Gary's recall time was very short this time, and he answered after a moment of reflection: "Bread, some cheap fish, and the shells my wife picked up at the beach."
"Eat less food from the sea, drink more water, and don't drink beer. It's best to change your staple food." There are no symptomatic drugs, so we can only start with dietary adjustments to gain some control.
After receiving the answer, Gary didn't look happy and asked numbly: "Is there no other way?"
"Not yet." Of course there is, but not now, and neither do I.
According to custom, Kraft, who is a bit mysophobic, couldn't wait to take off his gloves and throw them into the big yellow trash can. Just when he was about to take action, he realized that this was not a hospital, and the gloves on his hands were not disposable rubber gloves.
He stretched his right hand in the air, holding the clipboard and pen in his left hand, and asked Lucius for help: "Give me a small piece of linen, thank you."
After wiping his gloves and throwing the linen into the trash nearby, Kraft turned back to Gary and was about to tell him about his diet control, but he quickly realized that this made no sense at all.
In Wendeng Port, some cheap fish and ubiquitous shellfish are the most cost-effective sources of protein and fat for heavy manual workers at the dock. If you want to find an alternative, or simply rely on a lot of starchy food, even brown bread, it seems
Not very realistic either.
"Drink more water. I will come again next time. If you feel uncomfortable, tell me." Writing the abbreviation of "Joint Sand" on the last blank, Kraft said goodbye to Gary and took Lucius to the shed next door.
Go.
It's really bad. I hope this all ends soon, he thought as he knocked on another door.
This difficult work did not stop until the evening, and a small stack of paper was filled with small pieces of closely arranged information.
The two returned to Kraft's new residence for a short rest, changed out of their black robes and beak masks, and went to find a place to have a good meal to relieve the fatigue of the day.
As usual, each person had a portion of grilled fish, vegetable soup, and pretty good white bread. Kraft himself considered it a reasonable dinner that was nutritious and appropriate in portion. He took a sip of the soup and said, "We'll meet again in two days."
Go check it out."
"It's so short. I guess it won't be too obvious like today, right?" Lucius, who had just stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth, almost vomited it out. He was not a well-trained person like Kraft. Even if he walked mostly,
I was very tired after most of the day.
Kraft pushed away the soup bowl and recalled the pieces of paper he had sorted out today. He felt that he had no appetite at all. He had to turn them into color-coded floor plans when he went back, and there were more requirements he had for himself.
"This is a very important experience, Lucius. I'm not talking about trekking all day in the salt tide zone, but about sorting out cases of a new substance causing large-scale disease."
The numbers after the names were the numbers for each shack in his memory. He tried to map the collected information to the map in his mind. The distribution was not very even, but he couldn't tell much for the time being.
"We need to collect information frequently, use these things to describe the continuous development process, record the ending, find some general rules, and summarize countermeasures to prepare for facing this situation in the future."
"In the future?" Lucius heard the implication, "Do you think there will be many more things like this in the future, so many that we need to organize a special category?"
"How about why do you think this matter is almost over?" The boss brought Lucius's portion of grilled fish over, and Kraft stopped talking, "Let's do this anyway, anything is always better than nothing. If you need me,
Do you give me a salary?"
"Forget it, I think what you said makes sense." Lucius picked up the grilled fish and took a bite. Since someone was treating him, this was his third portion. With vegetable soup to relieve his tiredness, he might be able to put in the work.
Eat them all back.
He chewed heavily, and after eating half of it, he noticed that the food in front of Kraft didn't move much, "Aren't you hungry?"
"Hey, I just thought of something." Kraft leaned back in his chair and sighed, "I feel that there are some things that I can't cure, or it may be useless no matter how superb my medical skills are."
"Which one do you mean?"
"It's not just one. There are big ones and small ones. They're all basically the same. I can completely understand that I can't remove the obstacles, but I still often have unrealistic illusions."
"What you said today sounds like the philosophical people in the academy." Lucius put down the fish bones that he had eaten, "Have you considered giving them to me if you don't want to eat them?"
"Forget it, let's eat." Kraft also tasted the grilled fish, which tasted just right. The day's work began and ended with a dinner party.