Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 286 Furry Herbs

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 seasoning.

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 substance.

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 so. The difference in the content of active ingredients in naturally grown plants should be much greater than the mass left on the scale at that point.

In a certain order, half of the medicine was added to the lead pot and simmered.

David noticed a difference in Kraft's expression and explained: "Lead can accelerate the reaction and improve the taste of the medicine."

No miracle happens. The smell of heated spices masks most of the smell, and he is not a humanoid analyzer who can smell and taste molecular formulas.

[No, I’m not worried about suffering]

Kraft watched the whole process patiently and without understanding. The water in the jar went from clear to yellowish and black, and finally concentrated into a dark liquid that was less than one third of the volume and somewhat viscous.

"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."

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.

A smell like a mixture of cough syrup, mustard, and rice crackers overflowed from the inside, hitting the nasal mucosa hard and powerfully.

"Thank you." Kraft's courtesy allowed him to take the spoon and thank him, but his safety awareness made it difficult for him to take a small bite.

The eyebrows tend to knit together. If you don't take a bite, you'd be doing a disservice to David; if you take a bite, you'd be doing a disservice to your body.

I don’t know if it can speed up reactions, but it can definitely speed up life.

"Why do you think so?" David was slightly surprised by the split argument.

This thing looks like a man-made version of black liquor—black, viscous, and extremely suspicious. The biggest difference is that black liquor tempts people to come into contact with it, while its smell only makes people want to stay away.

The tongs removed the hot lead pot from the charcoal fire, placed it on the blackened cork mat and pushed it to Kraft. He also thoughtfully placed a new spoon.

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 scooped out a small amount with difficulty, raised it in front of him, his lips wriggled, and he recalled the glorious deeds of the 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.

The maker uses a coffee spoon-sized but deeper spoon to scoop up a little concoction and put it on the tip of his tongue to take a sip.

"Have you never thought about taking out the medicines inside one by one and trying them?"

"Tsk, tsk." David made a smacking sound, and his expression relaxed. He was probably satisfied with the finished product.

"The reaction during the preparation process is difficult to predict. One or two changes may have an impact, and only a few extremely skilled people can make optimizations."

"Well, of course, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your level. It's just that drug compatibility is indeed a very complicated 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 extract valuable information from David, but still held on to a glimmer of hope.

He didn’t know the dead medicine, but what about the living medicine?

"Can you show me live...I mean fresh materials?" Before he had no choice but to try one by one, he wanted to make a death struggle, trying to evoke memories through the image of plants.

"It's more 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.

It has a high-grade leather cover 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 this does not prevent David from flipping to the corresponding location by hand and introducing these magical plants, as well as some magical minerals and animals in detail.

"This is what pepper looks like when it's fresh, 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 great damage to the tree. In addition, it is rumored to have a strong reproductive effect, so the supply has been in short supply and the price is not very friendly."

"But it is precisely because there is cinnamon in the prescription that I believe it is not just a random thing, at least it is a recipe developed by someone who knows certain medicinal properties."

David talked a lot about his profession. Regardless of whether the accuracy is questionable, his knowledge in the direction of medicine is worthy of recognition.

Compared to 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, the painting is very beautiful, isn't it."

The shape of the drawing fits 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's worth mentioning that purple bell is toxic regardless of its flowers or leaves, and it's 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 unfolded in his mind, "Are there any visual problems? For example, the patient said that the color of the scenery changed, turning yellow and green?"

"Maybe? Poisoning is probably 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.”

(End of this chapter)