Daily life of farming and supporting a family on the ancient Loess Plateau

"Jianye, Jianye, what's wrong with you? Second Uncle, Second Aunt, please come out and help!" A series of urgent shouts, accompanied by the child's cries, came from outside the gate of the Ji family's old courtyard.

Ji Yongling got off the kang (a heated brick bed), lifted the straw curtain, and before she could even cross the threshold, she saw Ji Yongmei running in with a "tap tap".

"Sister Ling'er, hurry, hurry, my uncle has an epileptic seizure!" Ji Yongmei saw Ji Yongling come out and pulled her outside.

Ji Yongling was pulled so hard that she almost fell over.

Grandpa Ji and Madam Yang also lifted the straw curtain and came out of the cave dwelling. Ji Manchuan and Ji Manqing, who were storing miscellaneous items in the cave dwelling, dropped what they were doing and ran out of the courtyard gate with their heads covered in sawdust.

Outside the courtyard gate, Shuanzhu's wife was pulling on the arm of a man sitting on the ground, trying to pull him up. The man had his head tilted to the side, his eyes rolled upwards, and his mouth and right hand twitched involuntarily. Next to him, a child was squatting, crying loudly while clinging to Shuanzhu's wife's trouser leg in fear.

Upon seeing this, Ji Manqing immediately knelt down beside the man and was about to pinch his philtrum.

Ji Yongling immediately stopped Ji Manqing, then pulled away Shuanzhu's wife, making the man lie down on the spot. She turned to Ji Manchuan and shouted, "Dad, come and help, turn Uncle's body to the side."

Ji Manchuan quickly stepped forward and, together with Ji Manqing, helped the man lie down facing one side.

Ji Yongling glanced around, got up, broke off a thicker branch from the nearby walnut tree, bent it a couple of times to make sure it was hard enough not to break easily, and immediately placed it between the man's upper and lower teeth. After doing this, Ji Yongling told everyone to spread out a bit.

Although no one knew what Ji Yongling was doing, no one made a sound and consciously stepped back. The child who was tugging at Shuanzhu's wife's trouser leg and crying also obediently shut his mouth.

Ji Manqing stared wide-eyed as he saw the man biting down hard on a twig, his face trembling with force. He asked, "Ling'er, are you making Jianye eat twigs? He's having such an epileptic seizure, aren't you afraid he'll choke? How about we feed him grass instead?"

Ji Yongling “.......”

Grandpa Ji slapped Ji Manqing on the back of the head.

After a while, the man's body slowly relaxed, and his eyes and mouth returned to normal. He looked around blankly and spat out the twig from his mouth.

The man looked around at the Ji family members, then at Shuanzhu's wife, and asked, "Sister, what happened to me? Why am I sleeping on the floor?"

Shuanzhu's wife was terrified. Seeing that her husband had recovered, she immediately knelt down, grabbed his arms with both hands, and cried, "Jianye, what happened to you just now? Don't you know?"

The man shook his head.

It turned out that the man was Hou Jianye, the younger brother of Shuanzhu's wife. He brought his son to inform Shuanzhu's wife that she should go back to her parents' home in a few days.

During a casual conversation, Hou Jianye heard that Ji Yongchun had drunk the folk medicine powder given to him by Ji Yongling and that it had cured his stomachache. Hou Jianye then wanted to bring his son over to ask for some of the medicine powder.

His son is 5 years old. He also started not eating well after the Chinese New Year and would often complain of stomach pain and bloating.

I went to the county to see a doctor and took some medicine. I felt a little better, but not completely. Sometimes it still hurts. So I wanted to ask Ji Yongling for some medicine to see if it could cure the problem completely.

As soon as he reached the gate of the Ji family's old courtyard, he suddenly convulsed.

Yang said worriedly, "Shuanzhu's wife, quickly call Shuanzhu back. I'll have Manchuan accompany you to the county to see a doctor. It's quite frightening that someone who was perfectly fine suddenly started having seizures."

Shuanzhu's wife wiped away her tears and nodded.

Ji Yongling knew this was a typical manifestation of an epileptic seizure, but she didn't know what caused it. In that era, there were no CT scans, X-rays, or other diagnostic equipment.

She could only ask first: "Uncle Jianye, have you ever had epilepsy before?"

"No, I'm in great shape. I don't get sick all year round. People in the village have always called me a little bull since I was a child," Hou Jianye immediately shook his head and denied.

"Does anyone in your family have this situation?"

Hou Jianye continued to shake his head: "How could someone in my family have epilepsy? This is the first time I've ever encountered one. I wonder if I've run into something unclean?"

Ji Yongling shook her head: "It has nothing to do with those gods and ghosts, this is an illness. Have you ever bumped your head before?"

Hou Jianye continued to shake his head.

Ji Yongling frowned and pondered for a moment. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the thin little boy next to Hou Jianye. Suddenly, a guess came to her mind. She turned to Jianye and asked, "Uncle Jianye, are your pigsty and ash pit connected together?"

Hou Jianye looked at the Ji family members with a puzzled expression, then nodded and said, "Everyone's pigsty is like this, isn't yours?"

Ji Yongling squatted down again and pulled up Hou Jianye's arm, which had just been grabbed by Shuanzhu's wife. She seemed to have just seen something.

She carefully examined Yongning's arm, stopping near his wrist where she saw a nodule the size of a peanut. She pressed it and confirmed that its hardness was similar to cartilage, and it was not attached to the subcutaneous tissue.

Ji Yongling became even more certain of her guess, so she looked up and asked Yongning, "Uncle Jianye, how long have you had this lump on your wrist? Does it hurt?"

Hou Jianye raised his arm, glanced at the lump, and said, "Hey, this one? I have a few on my chest and back too. It doesn't hurt or itch. Sometimes it disappears by itself, and sometimes it reappears. It's been about half a year, but I don't remember very clearly."

Ji Yongling understood immediately; these were nodules formed under the skin by cysticercus larvae. Therefore, Hou Jianye's epilepsy was most likely related to it—secondary epilepsy caused by swine tapeworm infection. It was just that in this era, there were neither the resources nor the technology to surgically eradicate it.

Seeing his daughter's confident demeanor, Ji Manchuan guessed that she knew what illness Jianye had, so he said to her, "Ling'er, if you know what illness your Uncle Jianye has, just tell us. We can all handle it."

When Shuanzhu's wife heard this, she also thought it was a very serious illness, and she started crying again.

Ji Manqing also said with a solemn expression, "Ling'er, just tell me, there are many procedures involved in handling the funeral, and Jianye also needs to explain things to his family."

Hou Jianye's face turned ashen, and his lips began to tremble.

Seeing Hou Jianye's expression, Old Master Ji was afraid that things would get out of hand if he continued talking. He glanced at his two sons and said, "Ling'er isn't a doctor. She's only learned a little from Granny Liu. Whether it's good or bad, let's take her to the county to get a checkup."

Ji Yongling was both amused and exasperated by her father and fourth uncle's words, so she said directly, "Grandpa, Father, Uncle Jianye is probably like Chun'er, he ate undercooked pork and got worms in his stomach. But..."

Upon hearing that it was worms in his stomach, Shuanzhu's wife immediately stopped crying and stared intently at Ji Yongling.

Ji Manqing craned his neck: "But what? Ling'er, who did you learn this from? You only say half of what you mean, it's so frustrating! Humph, you must have learned it from your father."

Ji Manchuan glared at Ji Manqing, but Ji Manqing pretended not to see his gaze and touched his nose.

Ji Yongling said with a serious expression, "Uncle Jianye's condition is more serious than Chun'er's. It's possible that worm eggs have entered his brain."

Everyone was a little taken aback when they heard this.

Madam Yang asked, "What kind of worm is this? I didn't see any worms on the meat when I ate it. Even if it's a worm from the stomach, how could it get into the brain?"

Ji Manqing chimed in, "Mother, Ling'er means the insect eggs went into the brain."

Then, Ji Manqing muttered to himself, "Huh? Why doesn't the bug go there, but lets the eggs go? Does that mean anything can get into the brain?"

"Grandma Liu said that people in the South often get this disease, which is called pork tapeworm disease. It is caused by eating raw or undercooked pork. When people get this disease, there will be tapeworm eggs in their feces. If pigs eat this feces, the tapeworm eggs will grow into larvae in the pig's small intestine. If people then eat this pork," Ji Yongling decided to popularize this knowledge in Grandma Liu's name.

"Stop talking." Madam Yang shivered and rubbed her arms to interrupt Ji Yongling.

"So to eradicate this disease at its root, we need to separate the grey pen from the pigpen, so that the pigs don't have the chance to ingest the parasite eggs," Ji Yongling continued.

Grandpa Ji shook his head and looked at Ji Yongling, saying, "This kid is really insistent on this distinction between the gray pen and the pigsty."

"Dad, we have to listen to Ling'er. The pigsty and the ash pit should be kept separate," Ji Manchuan quickly chimed in to support his daughter.

Ji Manqing chimed in, "Score! Dad will definitely score! I don't want to end up like..."

"We'll split it up when we get back." Before Ji Manqing could finish speaking, Old Master Ji interrupted him. In fact, he already believed Ji Yongling's words to a large extent.

"Can Jianye's illness be cured?" Shuanzhu's wife asked hurriedly after hearing Ji Yongling's eloquent explanation.

Ji Yongling smiled at Shuanzhu's wife and said, "Auntie, don't worry too much. The deworming powder that Granny Liu gave us should be effective. As long as we get rid of the bugs and their eggs, Uncle Jianye will naturally get better. I'll go get the medicine first." After saying that, he ran into the yard.

A short while later, Ji Yongling brought out two bowls of medicine, giving one to Hou Jianye and the other to the child next to him.

Upon hearing that it was deworming medicine, Hou Jianye and his son immediately drank the medicine given by Ji Yongling clean. They knew that as long as the worms were removed, they would be cured.

Seeing that the two had finished drinking the medicine, Ji Yongling repeatedly instructed, "Uncle Jianye, although you have drunk this deworming medicine, you still need to go to the county to find a doctor to prescribe some medicine for treating epilepsy. Come back to me in six months to drink the deworming medicine again."

Hou Jianye nodded, then asked somewhat embarrassedly, "Ling'er, will you still have this medicine in six months? Will it all be used up by someone else?"

Ji Yongling smiled and said, "No, I have a lot of this powder. I'll save some for you."

Hou Jianye nodded in relief.

"Sister Ling'er, these bugs are so scary! I want to drink some medicine too, my stomach hurts." Ji Yongning, who had been standing behind the adults watching the commotion, clutched her stomach and blinked at Ji Yongling.

“When have you ever had a stomachache? Your mother and I have never heard you mention it,” Ji Manqing said, grabbing Ji Yongning’s ear.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch! Sister Ling'er, help me!" Ji Yongning cried out, covering his ears.

"Sister Ling'er, are the medicinal herbs for this powder expensive?" Ji Yongzhou moved a few steps away from Ji Manqing and asked.

"Sister Ling'er, Ru'er's tummy hurts too." Ji Yongru also covered her tummy with her chubby little hands, looking at Ji Yongling with bright eyes.

Ji Yongling looked at the children and chuckled, saying, "One serving for each of you, drink a bowl. But after you finish your medicine, you must wash your hands thoroughly before meals and after using the toilet, and absolutely no raw meat. Otherwise, I won't be responsible if you get worms again."

Considering the poor sanitation conditions of that era, and the high chances of children contracting parasites, Ji Yongling felt that giving these children deworming medication would be beneficial.

Along with Ji Yongmei, several children stood at the door of Old Ji's house, each holding a bowl of deworming medicine, carefully sipping it as if it were something precious.

After we finished drinking, we looked at each other, beaming with joy, as if we really had worms in our stomachs, and that this bowl of wine had instantly killed all the worms.

Several adults looked at the child with smiles on their faces, feeling relieved, as if the child would never get worms again.

Shuanzhu's wife and Hou Jianye expressed their deepest gratitude to Ji Yongling. After thanking him, they pressed Hou Jianye's son down to kowtow to Ji Yongling.

Ji Yongling, with the soul of a modern person, was completely at a loss for words at this way of expressing gratitude by kowtowing, and quickly hid behind Ji Manchuan.

Not long after, Ji Laoliu and Shuanzhu returned from the fields, and they thanked Ji Yongling profusely once again. Ji Yongling tried to stop them, but in the end, it was Old Master Ji who intervened and had Shuanzhu take Hou Jianye to see a doctor in the county.

After seeing Hou Jianye off, Ji Yongling's family returned to the courtyard and went about their own business.

What they didn't know was that the news quickly spread throughout the village.