Another day, early in the morning, Li Mengxi got up early, then called his younger brother up, and the two of them got dressed and hurried to the city lord's mansion.

The city lord's palace was busy last night. The soldiers strictly followed the requirements and heated the solution intermittently throughout the night. Finally, most of the solution was almost dried up, and only the bottom was left.

When Li Mengxi walked to the jar of oil, he looked at the jar that was still full of oil and scratched his head in frustration.

On the side, the soldier in charge of lighting the fire carefully explained, "Military advisor, I have been burning all night, and it is very dry..."

Li Mengxi smiled and comforted the soldiers, saying that the oil was not easy to boil, which relieved the soldiers' worries.

Except for grease, all the solutions, lime water solution, vinegar solution, flour lake solution, alcohol solution, and the last piece of water, all of these solutions have almost dried up and there is not much left.

For the last step, Li Mengxi decided to do it himself. He personally controlled the heat and slowly boiled out the final solution bit by bit.

However, after enduring it, Li Mengxi found that the problem had arisen again.

Because the bottom of the pottery urn is flat with a slight concave shape, the solution is spread very thin, which causes the water on the edge to be evaporated first, and then the evaporation residue, something similar to white salt, begins to evaporate as the heating continues.

Smoke, lake.

This is the first question.

The second question was, when Li Mengxi looked at the bottom of the urn and saw a little bit of solution in the urn beginning to boil, he realized that something was wrong.

In this test, low-temperature cooking was used throughout the entire process. The reason why low-temperature cooking was used was because the high temperature would destroy the drug ingredients.

The problem is here, when there is a lot of solution, heating is easy to control, but when the solution is only at the bottom, it will boil immediately if you heat it a little.

This made Li Mengxi realize that there was a big problem with the technical process. The pottery urn was too big and a delicate small vessel was needed.

A large vat can be used for the first half of the evaporation. When the evaporation reaches the end, transfer the concentrated solution to a small vessel and then heat it carefully.

In this way, you won't fail in the final stage because the temperature rises too fast.

Sensing the loophole, Li Mengxi had a hunch that all the busy work last night might be in vain.

Li Mengxi stopped heating and asked everyone whether the small amount of water left in the bottom of the urn had boiled before dawn last night.

The soldiers all said it was boiling.

Li Mengxi thought it was over.

After staying up all night, it didn't boil all night, but in the end, it boiled.

The temperature of boiling water is a hundred degrees. At this temperature, even if you boil the water twice, all the medicinal substances will probably decompose.

Li Mengxi felt that the test might have failed. He wanted to give up and start over. However, he luckily thought about it and found that Chinese medicine is also boiled at high temperatures. It turns out that Chinese medicine boiled at high temperatures can also cure diseases. This shows that although

High temperature will destroy a large number of drug components, but a small amount of the drug will always remain.

Based on this inference, Li Mengxi thought that it would be better to try it first, just in case, the willow bark cooked at high temperature would still be effective.

Pour out all the solution and pour it into a small clean earthenware bowl. Put the bowl on the fire to heat it. The solution is already very small. After a while, bowl after bowl of solution is boiled dry and the water evaporates.

Afterwards, something strange remained.

After the lime water solution was dried, a thick layer of white material appeared at the bottom of the bowl. Li Mengxi was confused. He didn't know whether the white stuff was calcium carbonate precipitate or a medicinal ingredient.

When the acetic acid solution is boiled dry, there is almost nothing left.

The flour solution boils dry and becomes liquid.

There is nothing left in the lake, it has turned into a bowl of charcoal.

Li Mengxi looked at the dark stuff in the bowl, and he was thinking, what went wrong? Is it necessary to use starch solution? Is there really some kind of strange thing that only dissolves in starch and not in others?

I don’t know, Mr. Li is not good at chemistry.

Regardless of whether there is some strange thing that only dissolves in starch, the extraction method is correct, and the starch must be boiled to the end.

The other solution, the alcohol solution, was also boiled dry.

Li Mengxi was looking forward to alcohol very much. In his impression, the extraction effect of alcohol was excellent. As a result, after a vat of alcohol was boiled down, there was almost nothing left in the bowl.

This made Li Mengxi feel very unlucky. It was a big vat of wine and a big vat of strong wine. It would take hundreds of jars of ordinary wine to extract this vat of strong wine. It would take thousands of kilograms of grain to get such a small amount of alcohol. As a result,

, nothing was extracted.

Li Mengxi was surprised. He couldn't figure out what went wrong.

When Li Mengxi had the least hope for the last solution, the last solution was just water, just clear water, without adding anything. When Li Mengxi boiled the clear water solution dry, when he saw a whole knuckle at the bottom of the bowl precipitated.

When there was such a thick layer of white powdery substance, he twirled the powder in the bowl with his fingers. He looked at the particles stained on his fingers, and he was completely at a loss.

He was at a loss, so he only added water. Where did this white stuff come from? Could it be a water quality problem? Could it be saline water? Could it be that what is left after boiling is salt?

But when I thought about it, it was wrong. Even salt-alkaline water could not cook it so well.

Besides, the well water picked out from the well is sweet and delicious, and it is not saline water.

Li Mengxi then thought that it might be lime precipitation. Then, Li Mengxi realized that something was wrong. There was not so much lime water precipitation.

Take out the bowl of lime solution and put them together with the clear water solution. Compare them one by one. It is obvious that the white powder in the bowl of clear water is thicker than that of the bowl of lime water.

If some lime precipitates after the lime water solution is boiled dry, then if there is a bowl of clear water without any impurities, what will precipitate? Li Mengxi had a vague guess about what would precipitate.

(Is it possible that the medicine in willow is soluble in water but soluble in alcohol and acetic acid?)

When his eyes touched the bowl of lime solution, Li Mengxi's eyes moved. (Oh, it seems that this thing is also soluble in alkaline...)

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Just then, Tian Bu came.

Tian Bu was worried about Li Mengxi's condition and came to check on him.

When he saw Li Mengxi, Tian Bu observed him carefully. Seeing that Li Mengxi looked good, Tian Bu knew that his condition was almost recovered.

Tian Bu smiled and asked, "Military advisor, how are you doing today?"

Li Mengxi looked at Tian Bu, and he nodded, "I'm fine."

After saying that, he stood up, picked up the two small bowls, and said solemnly to Tian Bu, "Tian Bu, you came just in time. I have a new medicine here. Could you please help me test its properties..."

Tian Bu's eyes fell on the two bowls in Li Mengxi's hands. Seeing that the bowls were filled with some unknown white powder, Tian Bu asked cautiously, "How should I test its medicinal properties? Please tell me from the military advisor."

When Tian Bu asked this question, Li Mengxi was stunned.

Yes, how is the potency tested?

To test the properties of the medicine, of course you have to find a bunch of patients with colds and then give the medicine to the patients to see how they recover.

Li Mengxi realized the problem. Testing drugs is different from testing paper-making technology. Paper-making technology only needs some dead objects for testing. However, drugs need patients and living people. Patients are difficult to find, and it is even harder to find a large number of patients with the same disease.

Sickness is something that is hard to come by. How can you find so many people infected with cold in a short while?

Li Mengxi frowned and asked, "Tian Bu, do you know that there are many patients with cold in our army?"

When Li Mengxi asked this question, Tian Bu nodded with emotion, "Every time the weather warms up and spring comes, diseases will occur more frequently. In the past few days, there have been more and more people suffering from wind and cold. There are no less than a few hundred people every day..."

Tian Bu just sighed casually, and Li Mengxi heard it and was wary of Dasheng.

As the weather warms and spring returns, diseases are more common...

plague!

The wind and cold in the city may not be a plague, but just a common disease. However, spring is neither cold nor hot, neither the scorching heat of summer nor the cold of winter. Therefore, spring is the time when viruses and bacteria are most active. Cold-tolerance is not a problem.

Viruses that are resistant to heat can live in spring, which is neither cold nor hot, and viruses that are resistant to heat and cold can also live in spring. Therefore, the likelihood of a major epidemic in spring is much higher than in summer and winter.

Li Mengxi realized the horror of the matter. Wind and cold may be a small problem, and it may also be a small problem for large swaths of people to be infected by wind and cold. But if a plague suddenly strikes one day, in this spring, the plague can invade very quickly.

Li Mengxi quickly asked Tian Bu, "Tian Bu, have you made the mask I asked you to find someone to make?"

Tian Bu was stunned and said, "I did it... I did it."

——

The weather is getting warmer and spring is coming, and diseases are more likely to occur.

For Tian Bu and the common people of the Han Dynasty, this was a common common sense issue. However, Li Mengxi, who was familiar with the principles of plague and had sufficient knowledge of epidemic prevention, did not expect this.

After all, knowledge belongs to knowledge, and practice belongs to practice. In the final analysis, Li Mengxi's life experience is still insufficient.

We rushed to the military medical camp. At this time, the appearance of the military medical camp had changed drastically. The military medical camp was divided into two parts, the wounded soldiers were moved to a secluded area, and the military medical camp was much spacious.

When I arrived at the military medical camp, I saw a long line of people waiting to see a doctor in front of the camp. As I walked past, I kept hearing coughs.

Li Mengxi disliked people coughing on him, so he couldn't help but walk a little further away.

When they arrived at the camp, Tian Bu showed Li Mengxi a mask.

Li Mengxi frowned when he first saw the mask. The mask was made of silk. It was a palm-sized piece of pale yellow silk. The texture of the silk was delicate and it was very good for making a mask. This was no problem.

However, the shape of the mask has a large bulging lump of crushed charcoal stuffed between the two layers of silk. The mask fits like a sandbag. With this shape, can it be carried up? Can it be brought close to the mouth and nose? Obviously not.

With such an ugly mask, I might as well just use a piece of cloth to cover my nose.

Li Mengxi frowned and looked at the mask, and then at Tian Bu. He asked Tian Bu if this thing was easy to use.

Tian Bu actually replied that it was useful.

Really unable to stand Tian Bu's too rough aesthetics, Li Mengxi decided to find someone to make a mask himself.

Before leaving, Li Mengxi handed two bowls of extract to Tian Bu.

He said to Tian Bu, "These two bowls are what I cooked with eight pounds of willow bark. I don't know if they can be used."
To be continued...