Chapter 1430: Chapter 1408: The Crux (December Monthly Ticket Bonus 6)
Zheng Gu was taken aback and murmured, "But the effect of ginseng is much better than yam."
"However, the amount of ginseng in one prescription would be enough for him to take yam ten times. It’s nurturing and gradual, not for emergency ailments. With your prescription, he wouldn’t come back after one dose, but with mine, he would come back to buy several more times, isn’t its nurturing effect better than yours?" Manbao said, "Besides yam, you can also use licorice root as a substitute for ginseng."
Manbao then pointed to another prescription and said, "It’s not to say your prescription is wrong, but his condition is phlegm-damp, radish seeds should be used, your use of mulberry leaves as an adjunct wasn’t utilized well."
Manbao sighed, "You are just using the original prescription without any modification."
Zheng Gu: "... I thought I’d modified the prescription according to the patient’s condition."
Manbao felt that he hadn’t changed it at all and was still making adjustments based on the suggestions of the original prescription.
But this is how prescriptions work, otherwise why would they study the prescriptions of predecessors, or leave prescriptions for future generations?
So he wasn’t wrong in doing so.
Manbao became troubled, how should she teach this?
How did Doctor Ji and Teacher Mo teach her back then?
Manbao looked at Zheng Gu, and Zheng Gu also looked at Manbao innocently. The master and apprentice looked at each other for a long time, then Manbao exhaled and said, "Never mind, just see more patients. My teacher once said, read a book a hundred times and its meaning reveals itself; practicing medicine is the same, after seeing many patients, you will surely know how to prescribe."
Zheng Gu almost teared up, "Master, are you willing to keep helping me review the prescriptions?"
Manbao said, "Isn’t this how masters guide their disciples?"
That’s how she learned with Doctor Ji in Yizhou City before.
No!
Zheng Gu thought: Other masters do not have this patience, not even my own father loves me this way, otherwise why would he send me to the medicine cabinet as a little shopkeeper?
Manbao put away the prescription and handed it to him directly, "Take it back and ponder it over yourself, try to figure out why my prescription is different from yours. It’s best to jot down the reasons you come up with, and later I’ll check them."
Zheng Gu was stunned, "Still, I have to write the reasons myself?"
"Of course, only what you have thought through yourself can be deeply remembered. You don’t have anything else in the afternoon anyway, so just ponder more, jot it down first, and I’ll guide you the next day."
Zheng Gu was experiencing this educational method for the first time, but Manbao was already accustomed to it, Teacher Mo often did this with her.
Later, Mr. Zhuang discovered she always liked to correct mistakes on her old homework before he had a chance to explain, so he also came up with this method.
With the major assignments he assigned, after he corrected them, he would have us review them ourselves once, then explain after hearing their reasons the next day, often with twice the effect with half the effort.
Though Manbao and others ended up with a larger workload, nobody knew Mr. Zhuang learned this method from Manbao’s assignments, not even Manbao herself knew.
But this method indeed went deeper into the heart, not just Manbao, even Bai Shan learned this method and used it on Zhou Lixue and the others.
After explaining everything, Manbao supported her chin, reluctant to go out, she muttered, "Let Mr. Ding and the others see the joke, humph, your father is also really something. Since he discovered your problem, why didn’t he tell you?"
Zheng Gu also felt slightly resentful, so it was a lack of intuition because of this, you should have mentioned it!
If it weren’t for Doctor Zhou Junior, how long would he have to stand at the medicine cabinet?
He also felt embarrassed, so he didn’t want to go out either, and after a silent look between them, said: "How about I go home?"
Zheng Gu immediately said, "I’ll escort you!"
The two did not realize, that the moment they reached the front hall’s clinic, Doctor Ding sighed with emotion: "Can’t be compared, can’t be compared, she found the problem in just one day, how long did it take us to realize something was wrong back then?"
Doctor Tao smacked his lips, "It seemed it was nearly three months before we discovered it, right."
That was because a patient’s illness never cured and kept coming back, when he returned, Doctor Ding saw him instead.
Doctor Ding didn’t know he was Zheng Gu’s patient, so he prescribed another medicine. When the person saw that the prescription was completely different, he took out Zheng Gu’s prescription and asked.
Doctor Ding recognized Zheng Gu’s handwriting at a glance, and told the patient his prescription wasn’t wrong either, it was symptomatic, but not quite fitting to the person.
He asked the patient if he wasn’t feeling better lately?
The patient thought it over and agreed, the symptoms were indeed improving, just intermittently it never cured completely.
Although Doctor Ding gave an explanation, the patient still harbored some resentment.
The Zheng family intended to train Zheng Gu to be on the path of a famous doctor, this was just the beginning, of course, his reputation could not be tarnished.
Thus, Shopkeeper Zheng immediately pulled out his previous prescriptions and compared them with the medical record. With a quick glance, no issues were found, the prescriptions were all symptomatic.
It took them two or three days of mulling over the medical record and prescriptions before they realized something was amiss.
These prescriptions were too familiar, most were original prescriptions. If not the original, they were mostly recommended prescriptions from ancestor’s notes, with almost no personal modifications.
You couldn’t say the prescriptions he prescribed were wrong, because they were symptomatic, but you couldn’t say they were right either, because every prescription was missing that little something.
People pursue high-quality prescriptions, gaining one is like obtaining a precious treasure, because you can discuss the principal and assistant roles; generally, main and important assistant medicines don’t change, but every person is different, some auxiliary medicines can change.
This is intuition.
This problem was too subtle, in the beginning when Zheng Gu was sitting the clinic for the first time, Shopkeeper Zheng checked his medical records and prescriptions every day and didn’t find any problems.
In fact, if it were not for the Zheng family’s lofty goals, Zheng Gu sitting the clinic like this would have been fine, many doctors today were not up to Zheng Gu’s level.
But because the goals were too high, Zheng Gu had to cherish his reputation, and was temporarily set aside.
Doctor Ding and others thought it would take Manbao at least a month or two to discover the problem, who knew she found it in just a day.
The three doctors, with a mind to join in the fun, all shook their heads and sighed, they felt that they couldn’t measure up, they couldn’t measure up.
Shopkeeper Zheng, listening to their discussions from the pharmacy, couldn’t help but hum twice. Turning to face Zhou Liru, he smiled, "Come, come, let’s study from the beginning, once you’ve memorized everything accurately, put them all back into the medicine cabinet."
He added, "You do it yourself."
Zhou Man seriously taught his son, so of course, he had to earnestly cultivate her niece in return, adding medicine to the cabinet, this was something generally an apprentice could only do after four years.
Pouring medicine once is better than rote memorizing books and herbs for ten days.
But it is tiring.
Unfortunately, Zhou Liru wasn’t afraid of hard work, she thought, can this be any more tiring than working in the fields under the scorching sun?
Manbao found the crux of Zheng Gu’s problem and was seriously teaching them every day, sometimes guiding Zhou Liru as well.
It’s just a pity, "Can’t practice acupuncture in the palace anymore, otherwise you could seriously learn both your acupuncture and moxibustion."
Ms. Doctor Liu was most regretful because she also wanted to learn acupuncture from Manbao. She felt that acupuncture was amazing, wasn’t it her master’s excellent acupuncture skills that made him established in the palace?