Free Web NovelChapter 325: Chapter 292: Burns
"Quick, quick, Mr. Lin, my husband accidentally got burned today..." A middle-aged woman cried as she clutched one of Lin Miao’s hands, pleading.
"Ma’am, please don’t worry. Where is the injured person? Did someone bring him here?"
"No, he’s at home..."
"Sister, I’m heading out on an emergency call. Please explain to the patients waiting that I’ll be back soon. I’ll see all today’s appointments, so I may delay everyone a bit."
"Alright."
For the burn emergency, Lin Miao and Liansuo quickly followed the woman.
Burns generally occur due to carelessness or accidents, but they are quite troublesome to deal with.
If it’s just a minor burn, it can heal without leaving significant scars. But if it’s a large-scale burn, it’s problematic, and scars are unavoidable. Even with skin graft surgery, it won’t be the same as before.
The woman’s husband was a chef, and as they say, those who know how to swim are often the ones who drown. Chefs working near stoves frequently get minor burns, but they have their own methods of handling them, usually without affecting their work. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
But dealing with large burns is much more challenging.
As Lin Miao entered the door, he saw extensive blisters from the waist down, almost covering half a leg. It made his scalp tingle: "This wasn’t just burned, was it?"
"He was brought home yesterday evening. I thought it was nothing serious, but today it turned out like this..." The woman explained while wiping her tears.
"What medication was used?"
"Chicken oil."
Lin Miao immediately understood. As someone trained in Chinese medicine, he knew what chicken oil was. Chicken oil, also known as egg oil, is made by frying egg yolks and is sometimes called phoenix oil or holy ointment. It does have an excellent therapeutic effect on burns but is only effective for minor to moderate burns, especially those from hot water or steam.
For oil burns or severe, extensive burns, it has no effect at all.
There’s another type of chicken oil, rendered from old hens’ fat, which also can treat burns.
These are folk remedies generally effective only if the skin isn’t broken, just reddened. Applying them then tends to yield good outcomes.
But once the skin is broken and infection sets in, it becomes serious. This crude "chicken oil" contains impurities and bacteria, leading to wound infections easily. Once inflammation and ulceration set in, the problem worsens dramatically.
Evidently, the chef lying on the bed had already fallen into a high fever and coma, incapable of feeling pain.
His half leg was swollen and red, with large blisters, and part of the genital area was also affected.
Pursuing how he got injured is meaningless now; the priority is treating the patient.
"Did you call any physician for treatment before?" Lin Miao asked. He needed to know if anyone had handled the situation before and how, to assess the injury accurately and avoid redundant actions.
"After the burn, it was just rinsed with cold water and the grease washed off using soapberry. When they brought him back, they told me to apply chicken oil and let him recuperate at home. I didn’t expect him to get so badly injured, sob..." The woman cried continually, worried about her husband, the family’s backbone. Without his work, what could they eat or drink, and how could they raise their two children?
"Ma’am, I’ll write a prescription for you. Take it to Yongning Hall, give it to Xia Zhu, and have her prepare the medicine for me quickly!"
"Mr. Lin, without checking, how are you prescribing?"
"This isn’t an internal medicine prescription; it’s for an external burn ointment. By the time I handle his wounds, the medicine will be ready to apply immediately. Understand?" Lin Miao explained, as treating such severe burns was evidently troublesome.
With these blisters and improper handling already causing inflammation, this could be life-threatening.
Lin Miao quickly wrote down a formula for a burn treatment ointment.
It included Huang Lian, Huang Bai, Da Huang, Di Yu, Dang Gui, Xue Yu charcoal, Ma Bo, Zi Cao, San Qi, Borneol, pearl powder, and licorice, to be made into an ointment.
Lin Miao then pried open the patient’s mouth to examine his tongue, noting a red tip with yellow coating, and a surging pulse, indicating a pattern of intense fire toxin burning.
The prescription was Xi Jiao Di Huang Tang: Rhino horn, Sheng Di Huang, Bai Shao Yao, Mu Dan Pi, Huang Lian, Huang Qin, Huang Bai, Zhi Zi.
If rhino horn was unavailable, water buffalo horn could substitute to clear heat, cool blood, and detoxify.
While there are many simple folk remedies for burn treatment, their effectiveness might not suit this patient in such an advanced condition.
Also, searching for them suddenly posed challenges, like badger oil and dog oil used for burns, which aren’t readily available unless pre-stocked. Pharmacies don’t prepare such items, nor was it within his work scope to create them.
While dog oil, earthworms, and sugar can treat burns effectively, obtaining dog oil and earthworms isn’t easy.
Considering the blisters, inflammation, and serious condition of the patient, especially in such hot weather, using these was inappropriate.
Initially, Lin Miao’s objective in preparing glassware was to develop syringes. With syringes, crafting hollow needles becomes feasible, providing more emergency options for critical patients like fluids and blood transfusions, as well as injections.
Currently, they could use syringes to extract pus from the blisters.
If you don’t drain the fluid from the blisters, how can you apply the ointment for burn treatment? You also need to perform aseptic processing to avoid infection.
Without a syringe, it’s impossible to extract the fluid, so we can only use a silver needle to pierce it.
After disinfecting the silver needle with homemade alcohol, lay a layer of quickly absorbent gauze over it. Although it can’t be completely sterile, high-temperature disinfection is better than ordinary cotton gauze.
Once the blister is pierced and the pus flows out, gently wipe it clean with a clean cloth. Finally, use a cotton ball dipped in alcohol to disinfect the wound.
This pain is even worse than the initial burn.
Even though the patient is unconscious due to fever, he can still feel the pain and immediately cries out.
"Ah, it hurts..."
"Liansuo, help hold his shoulder, don’t let him move around, it’ll be over soon," Lin Miao instructed. If the patient moves, it would be impossible to clean and disinfect the wound.
There’s no iodine or povidone-iodine. If we had it, it would be much better than alcohol disinfection, at least the patient wouldn’t suffer so much.
But there’s no other way; if the wound isn’t disinfected, how can surface bacteria be killed? That’s the only way to make it heal quickly.
After some time of debridement and disinfection, Xia Zhu and the lady finally returned home and brought back the prepared burn ointment.
Evenly apply the burn ointment on the wound. freēwebnovel.com
"Keep it ventilated and apply the ointment twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening. With this weather, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t wear clothes, just move less and sweat less. Take the internal medicine I prescribed; the fever will subside in three days, and then you can come to see me." Lin Miao instructed, "Watch the diet, keep it light, with less oil and salt. The first few days of a burn are the hardest to get through, but after that, it’ll be fine. It’s not on his face, so normally you won’t even notice it when he wears clothes."
"Thank you, Mr. Lin. How much is the consultation fee? I’ll get it for you."
"According to the rules, with both the consultation and medication fees, it’s one tael of silver for you." Lin Miao said. This was already quite generous, as another physician for a large area burn debridement and disinfection might not even be sure of healing it, and without ten taels of silver, they wouldn’t agree to it.
One tael of silver?
The woman’s mouth tightened slightly; indeed, one tael of silver is a significant expense for an ordinary family.
However, she also knew that Lin Miao’s consultation fee was the lowest in all of Dongshan City, and it even included the medicine cost.
"Please wait, I’ll get the silver for you."
The woman went inside, took some broken silver pieces, roughly about one tael, and handed it to Lin Miao.
Lin Miao weighed it with his hand; it was about nine qian, but he wasn’t the type to fuss over it. Ordinary people weren’t easy to deal with, so he accepted it.
The man in the family works as a cook in a restaurant, with a presumably decent income. It’s probably the large household size and heavy burden that make it seem so tight financially.
...
Lin Miao had been practicing for quite some time and had scarcely dealt with burn patients. This case was a rare exception; generally, unless it’s a large burn, patients manage to take care of it themselves with some traditional remedies and don’t need to visit a physician.
It’s only with such extensive burns that they seek out a physician.
Hence, such cases are rare, adding a valuable experience.
The content for tonight’s small class was also ready, saving him the trouble of searching for a topic.
"Mr. Wen, why are you here? After joining us for breakfast, are you planning to stay for dinner too?" Seeing Wen Ruyu enter, Lin Miao’s expression immediately frowned.
Even if you’re Xia Zhu’s future boyfriend, you don’t have to be so shameless, right?
"I’ve long heard that Mr. Lin holds evening classes. I wanted to come and see, so I asked Xia Zhu to bring me along." Wen Ruyu explained with a cheeky smile.
"My small classes aren’t something just anyone can attend."
"Understood, Mr. Lin. Whatever the conditions are, as long as I can do it, I won’t refuse," Wen Ruyu vowed, patting his chest.
"Can you really do anything?" Lin Miao looked at Wen Ruyu playfully.
"Anything except betrayal of one’s teacher."
"What about treason?"
Wen Ruyu’s face suddenly froze. The very mention of such a head-losing matter—how could anyone do that?
"Don’t worry; I’m just joking. I’m living well; why would I rebel?" Lin Miao chuckled, "How are you going to explain this to your mentor after listening to my class?"
"My mentor doesn’t restrict me from learning from others. A healer must avoid becoming complacent and should learn from everyone stronger than themselves. That’s the only way to continuously improve and advance. This is also the original intent and purpose behind the establishment of the Imperial Pharmacy Qihuang Research Institute!" Wen Ruyu said.
"Your mentor is a great healer," Lin Miao nodded in approval. There aren’t many people without prejudices and who are willing to break free from sectarianism. The more people like this, the more medicine can continue to advance and innovate.
