When Mr. Qian found out about this, he went directly to Zhou Man and asked, "Did Mr. Zhou specially recruit Hu Xiaomei to attract people to become apprentices?"
Zhou Man smiled and said: "This is just one of the reasons. The most important reason is that Hu Dalang begged me and Hu Xiaomei also wanted to be an apprentice, so I accepted."
Mr. Qian couldn't help but ask, "How talented is she?"
"At least studying medicine is no problem."
Mr. Qian understood it and went out overnight. The next day, many people in Beihai County heard about it, especially the shopkeepers and doctors of the two pharmacies. They met and chatted in their spare time, "I heard that the Medical Department
I accepted an apprentice yesterday, he is only nine years old, I plan to teach him from an early age."
"I'm just an apprentice. I don't know whether I can learn it or not."
"Finally, there will be no problem in taking medicine in the future. I heard that she is an ordinary little girl with a poor family background. It is better to learn skills than to waste time at home and get married when she is old."
"With Master Zhou's broad mind, even though he is just an apprentice, he will definitely teach him well."
"Yes, last time I asked her about chest paralysis, she went to search for medical books and answered me. She still has such intentions for outsiders like us, let alone apprentices."
"It's a pity that we were born at the wrong time. If I had been born twenty years later, I would have gone to the Medical Department as an apprentice."
"...Shopkeeper, you are from the Xinglin family. Even if you are an apprentice, you should be like us, right?"
"What's the point? Jishitang also gave their young shopkeeper to Master Zhou as an apprentice. She was not famous in the world at that time." He felt that even if he couldn't become an apprentice, being an apprentice would be more than enough.
It's a pity that I was born at the wrong time and too early.
This incident did not cause much commotion in Beihai County at first, but not long after, someone took the child to the hospital and asked Zhou Man to accept the child.
Mr. Qian refused directly on behalf of Zhou Man.
The Medical Department wants apprentices, but they are mature apprentices who have medical skills and at least a certain understanding of pharmacology and can help. Hu Xiaomei is the first one, so she is special. They will not accept the others casually.
Everyone is busy now, who has time to take care of the children?
It was Hu Xiaomei. She was sensible and obedient enough that Zhou Man accepted her. She had been cutting medicinal materials and grinding medicines for several months before, and she was already familiar with it.
Even now, she still has to do these jobs, but she was paid before, but not now. But now, every time she cuts medicinal materials, Zhou Man will tell her what the medicinal materials are called and what their medicinal properties are, and then let her keep cutting and memorizing them.
…
The next time she needs to grind other medicinal materials, Zhou Man will tell her what the medicinal material is called and what its medicinal properties are, and she will continue to grind the medicine and memorize it.
Sometimes she can memorize three or four medicinal materials in a day, sometimes she can only memorize one, and sometimes she needs to identify more than a dozen medicinal materials in a row. If she can't remember it, she will need to deal with such medicinal materials next time.
Continue to recognize and memorize.
This was daytime work, and she would have to learn to read later.
She can read the names of medicines directly. Most of the time, Zhou Man teaches her a certain number of words every day. Occasionally, Mr. Qian will teach her when he sees them.
But this kind of non-systematic learning is very difficult, especially this kind of word does not go from easy to difficult, it is to learn which medicine you need.
Zhou Man taught it for less than ten days before he felt that this was not possible, because after only ten days, Hu Xiaomei had memorized two words and all the other words were mixed up.
Fortunately, she had memorized most of the medicinal ingredients she was asked to remember, otherwise Zhou Man would have doubted his judgment on her.
So Zhou Man took out a copy of "The Thousand-Character Essay" from his study and gave it to her, saying: "It's too difficult to read the names of medicinal materials. You'd better read from the Thousand-Character Essay."
Zhou Man taught her two sentences of the Thousand-Character Classic every day, and then he would read them by himself.
This effect was much better. At least Zhou Man wrote for her to recognize the time, and she finally recognized it.
Mr. Qian looked at it and couldn't help but be curious, "Mr. Zhou, you doctors all learn to read from the names of medicines?"
"I'm not," Zhou Man said after thinking for a while, "but other people learn it this way. Not only the apprentices in the medicine shop learn it this way, but the disciples of the Xinglin family also learn to read from medical books."
First memorize the name of the medicine and the medical decoction, and then compare it character by character. Even Zheng Gu knew how to read in this way when he was a child.
Fortunately for him, he started to read the medicines by memorizing the names. Generally, apprentices would first recognize the medicinal materials. After he had almost recognized the medicinal materials, he would start to read the medicines and then learn to take the medicines with the prescription...
Therefore, the process of studying medicine as an apprentice is particularly long, and requires you to be able to endure loneliness and endure hardships.
Such a boring apprenticeship life with no future in sight is very torturous, and you have to do so many repetitive tasks every day.
When Zhou Man was sitting in Jishi Hall, she looked at what the medicine boy apprentices had to do every day, and felt that she might not be as good as them. She felt that her patience was never good enough.
Mr. Qian smiled and said, "That's why adults are different from them."
Mr. Qian thinks that since there are better and more systematic learning methods, why must we follow the habits of drug stores and medical clinics?
But Hu Xiaomei also knows how difficult it is to study medicine. If she wants to be able to help Zhou Man, I don’t know how many years it will take for her to study.
So they still need mature "apprentices", Mr. Qian continues to work hard.
Finally, not long after the winter solstice, someone finally came to the door. It was a middle-aged doctor with a young man. After entering the medical office, he went directly to Zhou Man and said, "Mr. Zhou, we meet again."
Zhou Man just finished handling a patient, turned around and saw him slightly startled, and then laughed, "Doctor Wei, please sit down in the hall."
Doctor Wei is a doctor in Qingzhou. He owns a medicine shop at home. Naturally, it cannot be compared with big medicine shops like Jishitang Baicaotang, but he is still famous in Qingzhou. Last time, he and several doctors from Qingzhou came to ask Zhou Man for advice.
question.
Zhou Man still had a patient, so she could only let him sit down for a while. She saw the remaining patients before going to receive them.
Because the last two patients were men, Dr. Wei stood nearby and watched. When he saw the prescriptions prescribed by Zhou Man, he compared them in his mind with the ones he had just prescribed. He couldn't help but sigh again, it was still a lot worse.
ah.
Zhou Man not only prescribed medicine, but also prescribed injections. However, she looked at the time and said to the two patients: "You have to eat before getting the acupuncture. It's almost noon now. You go and eat something first.
Come back later and I will give you acupuncture."
The two of them responded immediately.
As soon as the patient left, Dr. Wei immediately called the young man next to him up, smiled with Zhou Man and said, "Mr. Zhou, this is the dog's son."
He had communicated with Zhou Man and knew that she did not want to be polite, so he said directly, "I heard that Mr. Zhou is accepting apprentices, what do you think of my son? He has studied with me for several years, and he knows how to do it.
It won’t be a problem to get medicine. If you need it, you can call him. If you are stupid, you can beat or scold him as you like.”
The young man stood aside quietly, and when Zhou Man looked over, he nodded in agreement.
Zhou Man turned back to look at Dr. Wei. In fact, she didn't like his son. She liked him, but how could she open her mouth?