A Hospital in Another World? C.257

What?

Make vitamin C?

Garrett was dumbfounded.

How difficult is it to confirm that scurvy is due to a lack of vitamin C and then produce it? Simply put, this achievement is worth two Nobel Prizes.

In 1937, Hungarian biochemist Szent-Gyorgyi won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on vitamin C and oxidative reactions in the human body.

That same year, British scientist Haworth, for determining the chemical structure of vitamin C and synthesizing it artificially, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Archmage Carlisle, you’re overestimating me T_T If I had the ability to make vitamin C barehanded, I wouldn’t have struggled for over a decade in my past life and ended up just a deputy chief physician!

My highest degree is only a master’s!

I specialize in clinical medicine, not pharmacy!

By the way, what is the industrial process for extracting vitamin C... This isn’t something I forgot, it’s something I never learned...

Garrett descended from Igor Peak feeling depressed. Thinking about needing to overcome the hurdle of two Nobel Prizes to complete the task left him feeling powerless, not even wanting to enter the laboratory. Seriously, is it really necessary to create a magic potion to solve a problem that could easily be addressed with a lemon every day?

So annoying... Should I just write a paper on using lemon juice for treatment and toss it to the Alchemy Guild to figure out how to turn it into medicine...

Feeling unhappy, Garrett summoned his mount and rode aimlessly. The horse summoned by magic was more intelligent and obedient than those in the natural world; even if the master didn’t control it, it wouldn’t startle and run amok or trample people. Garrett rode his horse absentmindedly, the horse moving freely. Before he knew it, a fishy smell hit him.

Coming to his senses, Garrett lifted his head and realized he had arrived at the harbor district. Since he was already here, he decided to visit the clinic—thinking so, Garrett turned his horse and soon arrived at the clinic run by the Nature God’s congregation.

"Brother Matthew!"

"Oh, little Garrett, how come you have time to come over?"

Priest Matthew turned from the alchemy table with joyous greeting. Garrett felt a bit embarrassed: he hadn’t visited the clinic much lately, busy either with electrolysis or bacterial cultures.

After causing the plague, he had also lent a hand to the congregation, treating patients and cultivating, staining, and examining bacteria. It seemed like the council hadn’t even paid them for their services... He really owed them...

"Brother Matthew, sorry, I’ve been busy lately." He approached and leaned in, asking, "Brother Matthew, what are you making?"

"Making daffodil tablets... Don’t say, the daffodil tablets you made work really well. Those guys with gout from last time, they got better after taking the medicine for a few days. Oh, they were so pleased, behaved for two months, then indulged themselves for a while, and came back here to buy medicine, then behaved again for two months before starting to mess around!"

Daffodil alkaloids!

Garrett’s eyes lit up. It seemed like he had caught a thought, yet it seemed like he hadn’t. However, it wasn’t the time to be lost in thought; Garrett rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward to help:

"Brother Matthew, let me help you make them!"

Weighing, adding alcohol, shaking, filtering, settling. Evaporating the alcohol to obtain crude daffodil alkaloid extract. The content had been calculated last time, so there was no need to measure again. In total, 20 grams of daffodil powder yielded 12 tablets. Garrett worked deftly and smoothly, reminding Brother Matthew as he worked:

"Brother Matthew, remember to tell the patients that they can only take 1 to 2 tablets per hour, which means a maximum of 12 tablets in 24 hours. Overdosing can be toxic! Really, daffodils are poisonous!"

"I know, I know! You reminded me last time too!" Brother Matthew smiled. "Really, although you can just grind a bit of daffodil powder, mix it with some starch, and use it, you have to go through all this trouble!"

Garrett was dumbfounded.

Yes, that’s right. You can directly use the plant—or the powder of the plant—for medicinal purposes; why extract it? Why industrialize production? Why synthesize chemically?

Why do countless researchers in chemistry, chemical engineering, and biomedicine insist on going down this path despite numerous difficulties?

It’s not just for monopolizing, it’s not just for technological barriers. More importantly, it’s for the safety of medication!

For example, the dosage of daffodil alkaloids for adults is 0.5 to 1 milligram every 1 to 2 hours, not exceeding 6 milligrams per day. Too little dosage is ineffective, too much can be poisonous. So, how do you ensure the accuracy of the dosage?

Control the source of daffodils? How was the weather this year, sunshine, rainfall, fertilizers; how well did the daffodils grow? Use only bulbs, not leaves, or only certain parts of the bulbs?

Such control methods may be accurate to 0.1 or 0.01 grams. However, to be precise to milligrams or even micrograms, to ensure that each dosage of medication is consistently stable and uniform, is impossible!

And what about medicines with even smaller single doses? Like fentanyl, used for anesthesia induction, with a dosage of 0.05 to 0.1 milligrams...

Not to mention, the impurity content in medicinal plant extracts is too high. The simplest example, the active ingredient of aspirin, salicylic acid, everyone knows can be obtained by boiling willow bark. But how many components are there in willow bark tea? freёnovelkiss.com

Amino acids, sugars, organic acids, glycosides, phenols...

Dozens are the minimum. Trying to extract salicylic acid from this mixture, removing ineffective or harmful components—haha, it’ll make you cry.

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That’s why, after modern chemistry emerged, we have modern anesthesiology. If it were ancient times, using various herbs like datura, mandrake, and jimsonweed, mixing and refining them to give to patients would be gambling with lives. If the raw material fluctuates even slightly, anesthesia could become an overdose, and the patient wouldn’t wake up...

Only by relying on chemistry, only by extracting and refining through chemical means, can medication content be measured, can drugs be of high purity, uniform in nature, and stable, becoming reliable helpers for doctors!

These are all principles that were once studied...

"Brother Matthew, thank you." Garrett sincerely expressed his gratitude. Without waiting for Brother Matthew to ask, Garrett had already rushed out of the clinic like a whirlwind and summoned his mount again. Riding through the streets for a few rounds, he stopped at a fruit stall:

"How much are these oranges? And lemons?—I’ll take them all, deliver them for me!"

A cart of oranges, a basket of lemons, a cart of cabbage, and seven or eight other

varieties of vegetables were gradually dragged into Garrett’s villa. The cook wiped her hands on her apron in astonishment:

"Mr. Nordmark, are you... Are you hosting a banquet?"