A small green booklet was pulled out from Lu Xuan’s pocket.
The pharmacy staff was visibly taken aback for a mont upon seeing the certificate. Carrying this around?
Probably no one would carry it around with them, right?
However, she didn’t think much of it, took Lu Xuan’s practitioner’s certificate, glanced at it to confirm it was correct, and then handed it back to Lu Xuan: "How many days’ supply do you need?"
"The maximum we offer here is a two-week supply."
"A week is fine."
The staff nodded and headed to the left side of the pharmacy under Lu Xuan’s gaze.
A row of herbal dicine cabinets was neatly arranged along the wall, with hundreds of small drawers, each with one or even three or four labels clearly indicating the nas of Chinese dicines.
As the staff walked over, Lu Xuan and the three others also moved closer.
While she was still verifying the prescription, Lu Xuan reminded, "Before the dicine is individually packaged, could I take a look at it first?"
The staff glanced up, squinting slightly, then nodded.
She neatly placed seven sheets of yellow paper on the table, found the Gentiana on the prescription, and imdiately placed it on a nearby large plate: "This is Gentiana, see for yourself."
After speaking, she went to find the second herb.
Lin Yongzhen and the others crowded around, looked at it, and curiously asked, "Xiaoxuan, don’t all these Chinese herbs look the sa? Can you really tell good from bad?"
This question puzzled not only Lin Yongzhen, but even Ji Xiuwen, who studied Traditional Chinese dicine, was sowhat curious.
There are many ways to distinguish Chinese dicine, and even those who study Traditional Chinese dicine can’t claim to know it all.
Moreover, generally speaking, unless you specialize in pharmacology, you have few opportunities to handle Chinese dicine. In school, there’s a chance every now and then, but after graduation and entering a hospital, opportunities to handle Chinese dicine beco rare.
For soone like Ji Xiuwen, who graduated and works in a pharmacy, it’s a bit better. So who go directly to assist doctors may never touch Chinese dicine after graduation.
In a Traditional Chinese dicine Hospital, herbal procurent generally has dedicated suppliers and has nothing to do with the doctors themselves.
Regardless of whether it’s good or bad, a small doctor can’t decide.
Even chief physicians or hospital leaders, those with decision-making power, don’t necessarily personally inspect the quality of Chinese dicines.
This ability to judge the quality of Chinese dicine is naturally not possessed by every Traditional Chinese dicine Doctor.
This is very different from ancient tis.
In ancient tis, most of the ti, Chinese herbs were personally harvested and even processed by Traditional Chinese dicine Doctors, so they were very clear about the quality of the herbs.
"Of course, you can tell."
Lu Xuan picked up a piece of Gentiana and introduced, "Gentiana, also known as Didan Grass or Mountain Gentian, is the root and rhizo of plants such as Gentiana or Trifloral Gentian in the Gentianaceae family.
This is a cold-natured, bitter-tasting Chinese dicine with the effects of purging liver and gallbladder fire and removing damp heat from the lower burner. It is commonly used to treat liver channel heat, convulsions, mania, headache, red eyes, sore throat, jaundice, hot dysentery, abscesses, sores and ulcers, scrotal swelling and pain, and genital itching. It can also be used with other dicines to treat Japanese encephalitis and is a commonly used dicine for clearing liver and gallbladder real heat.
It often grows in grassy slopes, thickets, and forest edges, and can be harvested in both spring and autumn, although the quality of Gentiana harvested in autumn is best.
After digging, you remove the stems and leaves, wash them clean, and dry them before using them as dicine.
However, there are indeed many counterfeits of this dicine, such as in the past when the dried roots of the herbaceous plant Clematis in the Scrophulariaceae family, commonly called Grass Gentiana, were used to impersonate Gentiana."
Ji Xiuwen leaned in for a closer look and asked, "If you really encounter it, how can you distinguish the real from the fake? I have seen Clematis before, and it indeed looks a lot like Gentiana. If you don’t look closely, you really can’t tell the difference. This is sothing I discovered only because I was in a pharmacy for a while; otherwise, I wouldn’t know Gentiana and Clematis are so similar."
"Look..."
Lu Xuan pointed at the Gentiana in his hand, "The real Gentiana has irregular, block-like dried roots, usually about 0.5-3 centiters long and 0.5-1 centiter in diater, with a dark gray-brown or deep brown, shriveled surface with horizontal stripes. The top has stem marks or residual stem bases; it is brittle, easy to break, with a slightly flat cross-section that is yellow-brown with a very small woody core that is pale white.
Of course, you can further distinguish it by sll and taste. Gentiana has a faint sll, and when tasted, it is extrely bitter."
Following Lu Xuan’s introduction, Ji Xiuwen looked closely for a while and found it almost exactly as Lu Xuan described.
He just hadn’t tasted it, so he didn’t know how it tasted.
"What about the fake Gentiana then?" Ji Xiuwen pursued further.
"The fake Gentiana also has irregular block-like roots, but you can see depressions in the stem marks at the top, which is a relatively obvious feature."
Lu Xuan said, "Moreover, the fake Gentiana has roots clustered on the rhizo, cylindrical, 2-8 centiters long, with a diater of 0.1-0.2 centiters, with a brown surface, flat or slightly longitudinally wrinkled; also brittle, easy to break, but the cross-section bark is tan, the wood is pale yellow; the aroma is faintly fragrant when slled, and it is also bitter when tasted, but not as extrely bitter as the real Gentiana."
"Of course, it’s not just that the herbaceous plants of the Scrophulariaceae family can be highly deceptive; there is another dicinal herb that looks quite similar to Gentiana."
"What herb is that?"
"Ta’erqi."
"Ta’erqi?"
Ji Xiuwen was completely puzzled, as he had never heard of it.
Lu Xuan explained with a smile, "Ta’erqi is the root of the small root plant Ghost White. Unlike Gentiana, Ta’erqi is toxic and its effects differ from Gentiana. Its rhizo forms irregular block shapes, with depressions in the stem marks at the top. Long, slender roots grow from the lower end of the rhizo and all around. The roots are cylindrical, 6-12cm long, 2-3mm in diater, with a brown surface, flat or slightly longitudinally wrinkled, the section is powdery white, the wood is yellow, and it has a bitter taste.
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