Quick Transmigration: Underdog Turns out to be Untouchable

After arranging for someone to prepare food for the pregnant woman, Ye Shuangshuang began comforting the anxious woman: ”Don’t be afraid. Save your strength for now, and eat something later to regain some energy.

Your baby’s position is somewhat abnormal. I need to push the child back and then adjust the position. It might hurt a bit, but once adjusted, you’ll be able to give birth. Just conserve your strength for now.”

Ye Shuangshuang’s calm demeanor reassured the initially terrified woman, significantly easing the fear in her eyes.

After washing her hands, Ye Shuangshuang started to push the baby back for the woman. The process was not easy, but Ye Shuangshuang completed it quite quickly.

Then she began to correct the baby’s position through the woman’s abdomen. This technique is quite challenging, and in her past life, Ye Shuangshuang had learned it from a particularly skilled midwife who knew medicine.

By the time Ye Shuangshuang adjusted the position correctly, the pregnant woman’s energy was almost exhausted. Just then, the woman who had gone out earlier brought in the prepared food.

It was a bowl of rice noodles or rice vermicelli, Ye Shuangshuang couldn’t tell, with several large pieces of meat and two fried eggs. Ye Shuangshuang helped the woman sit up against the bed to eat.

Fortunately, the pregnant woman had a good appetite and finished the large bowl of noodles and soup, feeling much more energetic afterwards.

The baby’s position had been corrected, making the delivery process much easier. With Ye Shuangshuang’s help, the baby was soon born—a chubby, red-skinned boy.

Knowing the baby was born, everyone in the room was still in disbelief. From Ye Shuangshuang’s entry to the birth of the baby, barely half an hour had passed; it was so swift, it felt like a dream!

The family had initially prepared for the mother and child not to survive, but this unexpected turn of events filled them with unbelievable joy!

This time, Ye Shuangshuang had saved both mother and child. In addition to the regular fee for a doctor’s visit, the family generously offered Ye Shuangshuang a large red envelope of ten taels of Silver.

This amount of Silver was an exceedingly generous token of gratitude. Ye Shuangshuang hadn’t expected her first house call to be such a great success.

The following day, the Bai Clan man even brought a basket full of red eggs to the clinic to give to Ye Shuangshuang, saying it was to share the good fortune.

Ye Shuangshuang gained some fame this time, and being a female doctor, more people came seeking her services for childbirth after this incident.

Ye Shuangshuang didn’t mind, and attended to everyone who came. Each time, she was able to ensure the mother and child’s safety, which further enhanced her reputation for skillful deliveries, attracting even more people.

However, Ye Shuangshuang had recently been busy researching two medicines, one for treating malaria and one for athlete’s foot, as these were the most prevalent endemic diseases in Nanzhao—or Yunnan.

Athlete’s foot is mostly a fungal infection-caused skin disease, for which foot powder can provide relief. With the herbal foot soak Ye Shuangshuang developed, even if not completely curing, it could alleviate the symptoms.

When it came to treating malaria, Ye Shuangshuang knew the most famous medication was Quinine, due to its frequent mention in Qing dynasty novels she read in the past.

The main ingredient of Quinine is the cinchona tree, originally from Bolivia and Peru, later introduced domestically and found in Yunnan too.

But the cinchona tree is not the perfect cure for malaria. One reason is the difficulty in cultivating it, as it requires a very specific environment; it would die if temperatures fell below zero degrees, making widespread planting impossible.

Secondly, the cinchona tree itself has severe side effects. Patients treated with it often suffer symptoms such as diarrhea, asthma, tinnitus, and acute hemolysis.

Thus, even if malaria could be cured, the quinine might bring more dangerous side effects than the disease itself.

The truly effective treatment for malaria is qinghao extract, discovered by the Chinese pharmacologist Tu Youyou in 1971.

The World Health Organization once called qinghao extract the ”only effective malarial treatment” with no toxic side effects whatsoever.

Ye Shuangshuang knew how to extract qinghao. It involves yellow wormwood, and it cannot be extracted at high temperatures, as heat destroys the part effective against malaria.

Ancient people actually understood using yellow wormwood for malaria treatment. Ge Hong’s ”Emergency Formulas for the Elbow” from the Eastern Jin first described the antimalarial function of qinghao: ”Take a handful of qinghao, soak in two liters of water, wring out the juice, and drink it all.”

The key here is to avoid high-temperature extraction, but unfortunately, Ye Shuangshuang lacks modern tools. If only she had ether.

Ether is a good organic solvent. Soaking yellow wormwood in ether dissolves qinghao extract in the solvent, one of Tu Youyou’s inventive methods.

As Ye Shuangshuang ruminated on how to produce qinghao extract, she couldn’t help but think of the modern methods, which only made her more frustrated, as they couldn’t be replicated now.

The method from ”Emergency Formulas for the Elbow” is naturally not as effective as the scientific method of extracting qinghao, so Ye Shuangshuang has been pondering what other herbs to combine to achieve the best effect for treating malaria.

This time, it took Ye Shuangshuang three whole months to finally research the medicines for malaria and athlete’s foot.

Ye Shuangshuang was eager to find a treatment for athlete’s foot and malaria because the Ye Family lived here, and she feared they might contract these diseases.

This is why the court had never placed importance on places like Nanzhao for many years, because malaria and athlete’s foot were rampant; everyone considered being appointed here a hardship, and nobody wanted to come.

Thus, exiled criminals and disgraced officials became frequent visitors to Nanzhao, and only the Grand Ancestor Emperor was willing to develop this place.

The medications Ye Shuangshuang researched were two types: one was a powdered medicine for athlete’s foot in a porcelain bottle, and the other, for malaria, was a wax-sealed medicinal pill in a porcelain bottle.

Ye Shuangshuang hadn’t expected that the first person to use the medication would be Ye Fangchen, who was always the healthiest.

It was also Ye Shuangshuang’s oversight, having stayed at the clinic for a whole month researching without visiting home.

She was testing the medicine on white mice when Ye Jingyi and Ye Jingfei forcibly broke open the room’s door and dragged her out. Only then did Ye Shuangshuang discover that Ye Fangchen, who seemed the healthiest, had contracted malaria and was very ill.

In a rush, Ye Shuangshuang couldn’t care less that the final test of the medicine wasn’t completed. She hurriedly gave it to Ye Fangchen, and narrowly managed to save him.