Chapter 391 "The Decameron" and Pneumonic Plague
Guangzhou, on Langbaiao Island not far from the port of Guangzhou, the heavily armed Lorenzo followed the doctor Cao Wang tremblingly.
Lorenzo had been praying. He believed that this was God's punishment for going to the Ottomans and allowing him to see such a horrific scene.
Langbai'ao is an island near Macau in Guangzhou Bay. It was originally occupied by the Portuguese, who established a stronghold here to conduct smuggling trade in the Ming Dynasty.
After the New Southeast Army occupied Guangzhou Prefecture, Su Ze forcefully drove away all foreign strongholds in the South China Sea and brought Langbai Ao under the control of Guangzhou Prefecture.
The New Southeast Army still garrisoned troops in Langbaiao and built gun towers, but the houses built by the Portuguese were still preserved.
At this time, the atmosphere on Langbaiao Island was extremely tense.
The wooden church built by the Portuguese in the center of the island has now become a place to house plague patients.
Since the first case of plague broke out, the Medical Department under the Guangzhou Shipping Department has discovered sick crew members on ten ships.
All these ships were prohibited from entering the Guangzhou port area, and were escorted by the Southeast Navy and anchored at the pier of Langbaiao.
All crew members were accommodated on Lang Pak O Island.
Tan Lun, the governor of Guangdong, sent a message to Nanjing and recruited all doctors in Guangzhou. Even the ship's doctors from foreign ships in Guangzhou port were sent to Langbai'ao Island to deal with the plague incident.
As a Venetian, Lorenzo is all too familiar with such scenes. This is the childhood shadow that all Venetians grew up hearing. This disease, which was named plague by Far Eastern doctors, has a more famous name in the West. ——The Black Death.
The earliest case occurred on a merchant ship sailing from Malacca to Guangzhou.
The shipowner was a Nanyang businessman. He recruited a crew in Malacca, hired an experienced Han captain, and embarked on this death journey.
The two Indian crew members who were the first to become ill suddenly developed a high fever, coughed up bright red blood, and had purple-red spots on their bodies.
The two crew members died miserably soon, and the captain also discovered something strange and ordered the sailors to throw the two bodies into the sea in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.
The terrible thing is that his efforts were in vain. The ship's doctor also showed the same symptoms, and the sailors responsible for carrying the corpse also began to fall ill.
When the ship arrived in Guangzhou, when the southeast pilot in charge of piloting boarded the ship, he only found the ship full of corpses and the dying captain.
But the pilot was frightened. He immediately reported it to the Guangzhou Shipping Department. Cao Wang, who was in charge of the Medical Officer's Office, immediately ordered everyone on the pilot boat to go to Langbai'ao, and towed the Malacca merchant ship to Langbai'ao. Anchorage at White O.
However, the disease did not stop. Later, officials from the Municipal Shipping Department who boarded the ship found the captain's diary. Before entering the port, he had sought help from several ships sailing with him. Someone had also boarded their ship and saw The hellish sight scared me away again.
The Guangzhou Shipping Department immediately began to check all ships arriving at the port, and sure enough, patients were found on several other ships.
These ships and crews were ordered to sail to Langbai'ao. Now there are more than 500 people on the entire island, and some of the people who have landed on the island have begun to get sick.
People were dying every day, and Lorenzo felt that he would definitely die on this island.
Cao Wang has been working continuously for eight hours, and now it's time for him to take a rest.
All the methods he learned at Li Shizhen Medical College were ineffective against this terrible disease, which made Cao Wang a little frustrated.
Now he has changed his goal from curing the disease to controlling its spread.
Under Cao Wang's suggestion, the doctors on the island now live in two-person dormitories and live in houses left by the Portuguese.
Cao Wang and Lorenzo were in the same room. After bathing, Cao Wang did not rest immediately, but opened a foreign book with a leather cover.
"It seems that incense and beak masks cannot protect against the Black Death, but the story in this book is quite good."
Cao Wang raised the "Decameron" in his hand and joked to Lorenzo.
Cao Wang is indeed as he said, extremely talented in learning languages.
He learned Latin from Lorenzo, and Lorenzo learned Chinese from Cao Wang.
Cao Wang can now read and write "The Decameron" in Latin, but Lorenzo has only learned to communicate in simple Chinese.
People die every day on the island, and even the doctors and guards are sick.
Cao Wang has close contact with these patients every day, and his calmness is difficult for Lorenzo to understand.
But he didn't resent Cao Wang. If Cao Wang hadn't provided this job, he would have starved to death in Guangzhou.
Cao Wang has also promised him that if they all die in Langbaiao, his friends will also send Lorrazo's pension and salary to the Ottoman Empire and give it to his wife Jessica.
Lorenzo believed in Cao Wang because Cao Wang, like his good friend Antonio, was a man of his word.
Lorenzo's thoughts wandered, and he thought of his friends Antonio and Bassanio's days together in Venice.
Before eloping with Jessica, in order to propose to Portia, a beautiful girl who inherited a fortune, Bassanio used his fleet as a mortgage and borrowed money from Jessica's father, the stingy Venetian merchant Shylock, without knowing it. Is Antonio's fleet back now?
If the money is not paid, Antonio will have to pay back a pound of flesh to his father-in-law, the stingy Venetian merchant!
Lorenzo retracted his thoughts. Cao Wang was still "critically" reading "The Decameron" while he lay in bed unable to sleep.
"Cao, can we really leave Langbai'ao alive?"
Cao Wang flipped through the book and said, "Did the group of people in "The Decameron" finally leave the mountain villa alive?"
Lorenzo thought about it, " The background of "The Decameron" is that during the Black Death epidemic in Florence, Italy, in the 14th century, 10 men and women took refuge in a villa in the countryside.
They played and entertained all day long, and each told a story every day. They lived for 10 days and told hundreds of stories. This is a collection of short stories that is very famous in Italy and even in Europe.
Lorenzo had read this book a long time ago and couldn't quite remember the ending of the story. He shook his head and said,
"Sorry, I don't remember."
"Forget it, reading the ending in advance is not a good habit."
Lorenzo opened the conversation and said, "Cao, do you really think this is the Black Death? This is different from me knowing about the Black Death." "I
found it too."
Cao Wang closed the book, and he and many Talking to Western ship doctors, the Black Death has been ravaging the West for a century, and Western medicine has also gained a certain understanding of this disease.
The Black Death was called the Plague, indicating that it was probably spread by rats.
Cities where the Black Death often broke out also experienced large numbers of rats dying.
Rats, the fleas that had spread the plague between humans and rats, were responsible for the Black Death.
Since the Middle Ages, Westerners' habit of not bathing has gradually changed. With the development of urban construction and rodent eradication work, the Black Death has gradually been controlled.
But this time the plague in Guangzhou was not accompanied by the death of a large number of rats. Moreover, the plague occurred on a ship, and rats could not circulate between ships. Many Western ship doctors believed that this was not the Black Death.
Cao Wang closed the book and said: "There are also records of large numbers of rats dying in the Decameron, but this time the plague did not accompany the death of rats. There were no rats at all on several ships." "Could it be other plagues? Or
maybe Divine punishment?"
Cao Wang glanced at Lorenzo and said, "Quickly put away your tricks. Although rats are not the same as rats, the other symptoms are the same as plague, so in addition to rats and fleas, there are also There are other ways of transmission."
"If we find this method of transmission, we can cut off the spread and control this terrible epidemic."
Cao Wang said: "My teacher, Dean Li Shizhen, once fought against the poison with Governor Su in Jiangbei. During the epidemic, my teacher used a microscope to observe living schistosomiasis in the snails, and confirmed the theory that the governor's snails were the intermediate host for transmission, thus curbing the spread of the plague in Jiangbei." "This time the plague on the ship in Guangzhou must also have had something to do with it
. An unknown way of communication."
Luo Lanzuo had heard Cao Wang talk about his experience studying at Suzhou Medical College many times.
He also learned that Cao Wang's teacher Li Shizhen was a great court doctor, even greater than Hippocrates in ancient Greece.
What's even more valuable is that this great miracle doctor is still compiling a medical classic that includes all drugs and treatments!
Lorenzo really couldn't imagine that such a great doctor would personally teach students and even treat ordinary people.
You must know that the so-called famous doctors in the West are basically the personal doctors of kings or nobles, and they will never treat ordinary people.
Only in the ancient Greek city-state era, doctors would treat civilians in the fields.
But the common people of ancient Greece, like the citizens of Rome, were great status in themselves.
Apart from Dr. Li, Lorenzo did not expect that Su Ze, the governor who ruled the entire southeast, was also a great doctor.
Lorenzo had heard more than once about this great leader who created the Southeast from the mouths of officials and people in the Southeast.
He was the Pericles of the Ming Dynasty, a just ruler and a learned scholar.
In addition, he is also a great inventor. The loom in the southeast, the glass manufacturing technology that even shattered Lorenzo's dream of getting rich, and a large number of advanced technologies that changed the world were all invented by this governor. .
This was enough to surprise Lorenzo, but he didn't expect that he was also a great healer.
Lorenzo could only marvel at how God favored one man so much and gave him so many talents.
Cao Wang said: "I heard that the workshops in Guangzhou have made more sophisticated microscopes. I have written to the Guangzhou Medical Administration Department and asked them to send the microscopes to the island as soon as possible." "If the Black Death is really the
same If the voodoo bugs cause trouble, then you can find traces of the voodoo bugs through a microscope, and then you may be able to find the transmission mechanism of this disease."
Cao Wang spoke very quickly, and mixed in a lot of vocabulary that Lorenzo couldn't understand.
He had heard Cao Wang talk about the microscope, which was said to be an instrument invented by Su Ze, the governor of the southeast, and could observe extremely tiny organisms.
Could it be that the Black Death was really spread by extremely tiny organisms?
Lorenzo once again became curious about Suzhou Medical College, and he suddenly wanted to study medicine.
Tan Lun was very concerned about the possible spread of the plague in Guangzhou port, and immediately sent the latest microscope built by the glass workshop to Langbaiao Island.
After Cao Wang got the microscope, he immediately analyzed the body fluids of the infected people.
Lorenzo watched Cao Wang busy and became his experimental assistant.
It happened to be the tenth day that Cao Wang landed on the island.
"Sure enough!"
Cao Wang observed a special rod-shaped bacterium in the samples of infected people under the microscope.
Immediately afterwards, Cao Wang conducted anatomy and analysis on several corpses that had died from the plague, and found that the lungs of these deceased people had lesions.
Large numbers of bacilli were also found in the sputum of the lungs.
Cao Wang immediately reported the news to the Medical Administration Department of Guangzhou Port and reported the discovery.
Cao Wang wrote in his report to the Medical Administration:
"The ship that was initially infected mainly transported the furs of certain animals. The crew may have contracted the plague while trading or transporting these furs in Malacca."
" Unlike the plague described by Western ship doctors, this time the plague was not spread by rats and fleas." "
After dissecting the corpse of the deceased, I found that there were a large number of disease poisons in the sputum in the lungs of the deceased." "
This disease poison can be seen It was rod-shaped, about the same size as the bacterium predicted by the Grand Governor, and I named it Yersinia pestis." "I speculated
that Yersinia pestis infected the patient's lungs and spread through coughing and sneezing, so in a closed cabin It spread quickly, and other crew members who came into contact with the ship also quickly became infected and brought the plague to other ships." "
During the research in Langbaiao, all doctors wore cotton masks and followed the regulations of the Grand Governor. Unfortunately, most of the doctors who contracted the disease were foreign ship doctors and did not resolutely follow hygienic practices." "
I named this type of plague pneumonic plague." "
My suggestions for pneumonic plague are as follows:"
"The pilots and the Medical Administration Personnel, wear masks when boarding the ship for inspection." "
For ships arriving from Southeast Asia such as Malacca, all crew members need to be quarantined for two days. Report any crew members who have fever symptoms. Pneumonic plague develops quickly. If no crew members have fever within two days, , and then allow crew members to disembark for trade."
"Strengthen the health screening of southeastern people entering and leaving the port area, and set up a special location outside Guangzhou to treat suspected patients." After
Cao Wang finished writing the letter, he suddenly coughed violently.
Lorenzo who was beside him looked at him in horror. Cao Wang immediately said:
"Don't come close to me."
"Get someone to copy this letter and send it to Guangzhou."
"If you can survive, in my In the desk, there is a letter of recommendation written by me." "
Lolanzo, you can take the letter to Suzhou after completing the immigration inspection. Your work experience on Langbai'ao Island is very useful. My teacher, Mr. Li Shizhen, will arrange for you to enroll." "
" The ending of "The Decameron" is good, but it's a pity that it's not my ending."
Today is still one update. Sorry, I will resume two updates tomorrow!
(End of chapter)