Chapter 41: Allicin
With Lin Dazhuang taking the lead, more and more people came out.
They took knives and hacked at Hou Wen’s family.
Li Xiao didn’t even need to force them; once they let go of their fear, they started taking the initiative.
Those with grievances sought revenge for grievances, and those with grudges settled their grudges.
The Hou Family had ruled Hou Village for over fifty years, treating people of other surnames almost entirely as servants.
The hatred had long been pent up.
Before, out of fear of the Hou Family’s power, no one else in the village dared to resist.
Now, finally, someone had come who could stand up for them.
Thus, these people began to become roused and excited.
More and more people opened their hearts and verbally condemned the Hou Family members, listing the evil deeds the Hou Family had done.
Hearing the screams of the Hou Family members and seeing the surging crowd below, Li Xiao suddenly had an illusion.
He had wanted to force these people to take sides, but how did it turn into a grievance airing session?
Li Xiao felt like he had become Judge Bao, coming to uphold justice for these common people oppressed by the Hou Family.
“Don’t kill Hou Wen’s family yet.”
“Flay them all night first.”
Li Xiao said to Lin Dazhuang.
Old Man Hou’s family had done all sorts of evil; they were the masterminds who surrendered to the Geluolu people and harmed Li Xiao’s second uncle.
Of course, they couldn’t be allowed to die easily.
That would be too lenient.
It would take a whole night to dismember them with a thousand cuts.
If they were still alive, drag them back to Hexi Fort with horses.
Whenever they died, just throw them on the road to feed the vultures.
After arranging these matters, Li Xiao went into a room.
“Da Hu, how is Second Uncle?”
As he spoke, his gaze turned to the man lying on the kang.
He appeared to be in his thirties, quite tall, with sturdy bones; he should have been a very strong man.
But due to prolonged hunger causing malnutrition, plus the torment of injuries, his whole body had shrunk by a full size.
This was precisely Li Xiao’s second uncle, Li Erjiang.
After breaking through Hou Village, Da Hu found him in a damp dungeon.
With him were more than twenty people, most of whom were young and strong men from Hexi Fort who had followed Li Erjiang, and a few from places like Hedong Fort and Tazhai.
Most of these people were in relatively okay condition, just somewhat weak.
But for someone like Li Erjiang, who was already injured, being locked in such a dark and damp environment, plus malnutrition.
His injuries directly worsened.
He was already unconscious.
“My dad’s head is frighteningly hot.”
“I called him for a long time before he woke up briefly, then passed out again.”
Da Hu said, his voice choked with sobs, his eyes already red.
“Don’t cry!”
Li Xiao pressed Da Hu’s head with his hand and wiped messily across his face.
A man, crying what?
“Since Second Uncle woke up, it means the situation isn’t the worst yet; that’s good.”
“There’s still hope.”
Li Xiao said in a deep voice.
Light instantly appeared in Da Hu’s eyes: “Really?”
If someone else said this, Da Hu would definitely doubt it, since Li Erjiang’s injuries were so severe, almost no different from a dead man.
But the one saying it was Li Xiao.
His most respected elder brother.
From childhood to now, Da Hu had grown up following behind Li Xiao.
Moreover, in this recent period, whatever Li Xiao said would ultimately come true, and his actions were utterly convincing.
So, Da Hu couldn’t help but feel a bit confident.
“Whether it works or not, let’s try first!”
After Li Xiao spoke, he told Da Hu to fetch a basin of warm water.
He himself squatted beside Li Erjiang to check his injuries.
The main culprits were the three arrow wounds on his body.
One on the chest, one on the left arm, one on the abdomen.
The arrows had all been removed, but without proper follow-up treatment, the wounds became inflamed and infected by bacteria.
This caused persistent high fever, leading to coma.
In this situation, he definitely needed to be cooled down first to avoid brain damage from the fever.
Li Xiao had Da Hu and Er Hu wipe his body with warm water to reduce the fever.
He himself took Tie Tou and others to search house by house for what he wanted.
It wasn’t hard to find, just alcoholic beverages and garlic.
Hou Village didn’t lack these two things.
“Da Long Ge? Are we using garlic to treat Second Uncle’s injuries?”
In a kitchen, Tie Tou and Thin Monkey each held a bundle of garlic, looking at Li Xiao with suspicious expressions.
Li Xiao walked over hugging a jar of wine, placed it on the stove, and said affirmatively: “Garlic can definitely treat injuries.”
“But Second Uncle’s injuries are too severe; whether it works depends on heaven’s will.”
Li Erjiang’s injuries were very serious, even worse than that youth from Sanhe Fort.
The wounds already showed signs of rot; for other areas, amputation would be necessary, but on the chest.
“Can only treat a dead horse as a live one!” Li Xiao thought helplessly.
He actually didn’t dare guarantee he could save Second Uncle.
Though his injuries looked scary, fortunately, no vital organs or major arteries were hit, and bleeding had long stopped.
The key problem was the infection.
If in later generations, a few shots of penicillin would improve the wounds quickly.
But unfortunately, this was the Song-Jin period, still over seven hundred years from penicillin’s invention!
Facing such infection, the injured had only death as the outcome.
Seeing Second Uncle’s pallid face and his high-fever coma, Li Xiao was certain that without effective treatment, Second Uncle wouldn’t last a few days.
Though Li Xiao knew the principles and production method of penicillin, the conditions weren’t there.
Because cultivating bacterial colonies was troublesome; a slight mistake could cause mutation, worsening the wound infection instead.
Moreover, cultivating penicillin’s bacterial colony took at least ten days, which was impossible in time.
Making penicillin wasn’t realistic, but Li Xiao thought of another substitute.
Allicin!
This was also an antibiotic, and the simplest kind to make.
It was well known that garlic had certain bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects, mainly due to the allicin in it.
It could kill some bacteria and fungi, reducing wound infection severity.
However, compared to penicillin’s bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects, allicin’s were far inferior.
For severe wound infections, allicin was powerless.
But the advantage was that allicin was easy to extract, took little time, and could be produced in large quantities.
The raw materials were just garlic and high-purity alcohol.
Both were easy to obtain.
But it also required an important tool: a distiller.
This existed in the Han Dynasty, mostly made of copper.
But a place like Hou Village definitely didn’t have one, and forging one now was too late.
Li Xiao could only make a simple distiller himself.
“Thin Monkey, peel all the garlic, wash it clean with water, don’t leave any dirt.”
“Then mash it all.”
“Tie Tou, search the surrounding courtyards for a hollow ox horn, and also find a clean sheepskin and a clean cloth.”
“Good!”
Hearing Li Xiao, the two nodded lightly; though they didn’t understand what he was doing, they obeyed instinctively.
“Garlic, distilling alcohol, distiller~” Li Xiao pondered.
“Hope it can be made!”
This was also Li Xiao’s first time using this crude method for allicin, with not much confidence; could only treat a dead horse as a live one.
After all, Second Uncle’s injuries were severe; without trying, he really was about to die.
Soon, Tie Tou brought the ox horn, sheepskin, and cloth Li Xiao wanted.
Then squatted down to peel garlic with Thin Monkey.
Li Xiao wanted the ox horn for a simple reason:
Ox horns were large and hollow inside.
Perfect to use as a distillation tube.
Just place the thick end of the hollow ox horn at the jar mouth, wrap it tightly with sheepskin, and a simple distiller was done.
Then Li Xiao placed this entire jar of alcoholic beverage on the stove and lit the fire to distill.
The alcoholic beverages of this era had too many impurities and too low alcohol content.
But purifying allicin required high-concentration strong liquor; ordinary wine wouldn’t do.
After nearly half a shichen, Li Xiao distilled three full jars of wine, finally obtaining a small half jar of strong liquor.
This showed how pitifully low the alcohol content was in this era’s alcoholic beverages.
Getting drunk on a thousand cups wasn’t hard.
During this process, Thin Monkey and Tie Tou tended the fire beside him, watching droplets fall from the ox horn.
They asked in astonishment: “Is this water?”
Li Xiao shook his head: “Strong liquor.”
“The strongest liquor in the world.”
“Strong liquor?” Tie Tou and Thin Monkey’s eyes widened.
After leaning close to smell, they exclaimed: “It’s really wine!”
“Such a strong smell.”
They had sneaked drinks of their dads’ wine before, but none were as potent as this.
Li Xiao didn’t explain much, but looked at the wooden basin nearby.
It was now full of the garlic paste they had mashed, filling the whole room with a strong garlic smell.
“What next?” Thin Monkey asked.
“Soak it for a shichen first.” Li Xiao said.
Soak this garlic paste in the alcohol jar.
Stir evenly, cover it.
Wait about a shichen, and the allicin from the garlic would dissolve into the alcohol.
Then filter out the remaining garlic and impurities; what was left would be alcohol containing allicin, then distill the alcohol out again.
What remained would be the simplest allicin.
The allicin made this way had low purity, and carried garlic’s spicy taste and residual alcohol flavor.
Its bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects were average, far inferior to later penicillin.
But even a small mosquito is meat; without penicillin, allicin was already the best antibiotic.
Even if it could just reduce soldiers’ risks of amputation and infection death a little, this allicin would have immense merit.
At worst, if the effect wasn’t enough, make up with quantity.
After all, the cost to make allicin was low, easy to produce in large batches.
The only drawback was that the produced allicin needed to be used quickly.
Because at room temperature, it only stayed active for three hours.
The longer the time, the weaker the bactericidal effect.
“Let it soak for now.”
“You two watch it; I’ll come back after a shichen.”
Li Xiao said to Thin Monkey and the others, then left the room; Luo Meng had just come to report on the Hou Family matters.
The people of Hou Village all had Hou Family blood on their hands.
The Hou Family was basically wiped out, leaving only women like Huang Xiuer without sons, and masterminds like Hou Tiancai waiting to be dismembered with a thousand cuts.
