Zhang Zhongjing cures poor people's diseases

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the area around Luoyang was often drought-stricken and plague-stricken, people were short of medicine and many died of diseases. When the news reached Zhang Zhongjing's ears, he came from Nanyang to Luoyang to practice medicine, despite his old age and illness. No matter it was the official family or the common people, Zhang Zhongjing received all the people who came to him for medical treatment with warmth and care, and he got rid of the disease every time.

One winter morning, just after dawn, the door of Zhang Zhongjing's house was knocked on by a child named Li Sheng. The ragged and skinny Li Sheng met Zhang Zhongjing and said timidly, "Your Excellency, you are a miracle doctor, please have mercy on me, an orphan with no one to depend on, and give me a medical examination!" Zhang Zhongjing made Li Sheng sit down, took his hand and carefully cut his pulse, then looked at his tongue and color, and finally said with certainty, "You are not sick at all."

"I am sick! I am poor and sick, please treat me!" Li Sheng said with tears in his voice. It turned out that his parents had both died and he had sold all his family's assets before he could barely bury them, but now the landlord was forcing him to pay his debts. So he begged Zhang Zhongjing to prescribe him a panacea to cure his "poor disease".

Zhang Zhongjing listened to Li's cries and did not speak for a long time. He had been practicing medicine for many years and had cured countless patients, but it was the first time he had cured a poor man's disease. He asked his disciple to fetch two buns for Li Sheng, and after a long time of contemplation, he wrote down a remedy: white thatch root, washed and dried, and stuffed in the house.

After seeing this prescription, Li Sheng was very puzzled, but could not ask questions. After he returned to his temple, he gathered the children of poor people, to thatch to grind up thatch. In a few days, they will have the village near the thatch shaved out. Li Sheng lives in that broken temple, inside and outside by thatch root stuffed full.

This winter, the Luoyang area did not fall a piece of snow. The next spring, not a drop of rain, dry air, the spread of epidemics. All the dignitaries in Luoyang City were eager to consult Zhang Zhongjing. Zhang Zhongjing asked his disciples to attend to the patients here, while he came to the village where Li Sheng lived and treated the poor people.

In response to the signs and symptoms of the epidemic, Zhang Zhongjing prescribed a prescription that included a little less than three coins and a lot more than one or two taels of white foxglove. When other doctors saw Zhang Zhongjing using such medicine, they also secretly followed suit. In this way, it did not take long, white foxglove root has become a shortage of valuable herbs. The Medicine stores sold out of goods, Zhang Zhongjing's master and disciple will introduce them to buying from Li Sheng. Li Sheng sees the poor to buy, will charge less or no money; see the rich to buy, will sell at a high price.

After the plague passed, Li Sheng made a fortune. He used the money to buy back grain in the capital and distributed it to the poor people. Because Li Sheng did a good deed for the villagers, the villagers came over and helped him build a thatched roof. From then on, Li Sheng had his place to live and lived a stable life.

Li Sheng felt grateful for Zhang Zhongjing's kindness and marveled at his foresight, so he asked him how he had judged the epidemic. Zhang Zhongjing did not panic and told the reasoning. It turned out that based on winter without snow, dry climate, and the phenomenon of a variety of diseases, he presumed that the next spring plague will be epidemic. The wild grass root has the function of clearing the heat, eliminating blood stasis, and facilitating urination, which is good medicine for the plague.