Chapter 575 Besides Lead Poisoning, What Else?
Well water is blue?
The man who received Grete and his entourage lowered his head slightly and stared at the glass in Grete's hand, his expression extremely ugly. The water is blue, it’s not like he doesn’t know this...
Nonsense, if you really didn’t know, you wouldn’t have sent someone to fetch water from 20 miles away.
But the problem is, the well water is blue, so what? Whether there is something wrong with the well water or not, don't those poor people still have to drink it?
Besides, who can prove that the reason why they got this strange disease must be because of the water problem?
He was cursing in his heart, but he didn't dare to say it with his mouth. Not only did he not dare to say it, he bent his waist even more downwards, with a smile on his face:
"Well... we are all rough people. We are here to manage some properties under the orders of the city lord. The water in this well is occasionally a little blue, and that's it. As for why it turns blue, we I don’t understand either…”
Gretel couldn't help but reach out to avoid hitting the smiling man. He nodded and bowed like this. Elder Erwin already sighed:
"Gretel, let's take a look at these villagers first."
The villagers soon arrived. There were not many people, only 17 or 18 people, all of whom were old people and children. During this time, most young men and women were working in fields, mines, and workshops, and it was impossible for them to come to see a doctor.
These old men all seemed to know Elder Erwin, and they all flocked to him. Elder Erwin spoke several times in succession before the two old men pulled the child and tremblingly came over to Gretel. As soon as he got close, he bent down and bowed respectfully:
"Mr. Pastor..."
"Sit down, sit down."
Grete quickly jumped up and helped the other person. Carefully, he held the old woman at the front by her forearms and settled into her seat. Then he spread out his pen and paper and started asking:
"What's your name? How old are you?"
The old woman in front of her had snow-white hair and a skinny figure. She looked like she was seventy or eighty years old. When Grete helped her, he didn't dare to use too much force with his hands, for fear of crushing her ulna and radius bones.
Even so, he still saw the old woman shrinking, not knowing whether it was fear or pain. She sat carefully on the stool, her body naturally bent forward, and her back was raised high. After taking a few breaths, he replied in a low voice:
"My name is Annie, I am... 48 years old this year..."
Behind Gretel, Miss Silver Dragon gasped, obviously shocked.
Gretel showed no surprise. Poverty, hardship, and the blows of life can leave such marks on people. He asked patiently:
"Where does it hurt?"
"pain……"
"Where does it hurt? How long has it been hurting?"
"My whole body hurts... My head hurts, my stomach hurts, I feel pain everywhere... I feel dizzy and nauseous... It's been a year or two..."
Grete frowned slightly. He quickly turned his mind and analyzed everything. When he first arrived in your country, he had no clue about everything. He could only follow the rules of medical diagnosis:
The first is inspection. The old woman's face was pale, her lips were bloodless, and her movements were weak. It looked like anemia, but he was not sure whether the anemia was due to malnutrition or other reasons;
The body is bent and looks like a hunchback, but again, he can't say whether it is due to old age, spinal deformation, vitamin D deficiency, ankylosing spondylitis, or some other reason;
When he spoke, a rotten tooth appeared, which was obviously black...
If it is a strange disease that affects the entire village, then what are the influencing factors? groundwater? mine? Water pollution?
If it was a previous life, Gretel would immediately arrange for her to get a blood test. However, there is no laboratory here, no reagents, nothing. The only method available is——
He turned around and touched the glass of well water. The water in the glass was slightly rippling and a little blue, which looked ominous. Gretel thought for a moment, concentrated slightly, and took a picture of the identification technique:
“Lead in the water?”
He looked at the old woman carefully again. Lead poisoning can damage the nervous system and digestive tract, as well as the blood system. So dizziness, nausea, and anemia may indeed be the causes of lead poisoning. Of course, take a closer look:
"Old lady, open your mouth and let me take a look - don't open it so wide, bite your teeth together, let me take a look at the gums..."
The dental condition of villagers at this age is really poor, and their oral hygiene situation is also very head-scratching. Grete watched for a long time, and even threw a cleaning tool into her mouth, and finally confirmed that there was indeed a blue-gray line on the old lady's gums...
Gum lead line.
The body surface signs of lead poisoning, of course, mercury poisoning will also have similar signs.
"Teacher, are these villagers suffering from lead poisoning?"
"Did you also notice?" Elder Erwin turned back to a table next to him and nodded to him. The hand glowed like running water, falling from the top of the villager's head to touching the soles of his feet.
As the light flowed through, the villager burped and exhaled a smelly gas, and his face became a little more relaxed.
"Really lead poisoning?"
Serila kept frowning and watching from the side, supporting the old man and coaxing the children. Seeing Gretel starting to cast a spell, she immediately put her head around:
"So, just use the detoxification technique?"
"Well……"
Gretel responded vaguely. Like lead poisoning, but not quite...
Before he could explain, Cerela had already ran out happily, the healing spell in her hand flashed with white light, and she called everyone by name:
"Detoxify! Detoxify! Continue to detoxify!"
Miss Silver Dragon looks cute and cute, and in terms of spell casting level, she is much better than Elder Erwin. The detoxification technique fell quickly, and in the blink of an eye, every villager present had a part to play, and every one of them was occupied.
There was an outpouring of gratitude. Everyone, old and young, felt a little more relaxed. Serila raised a happy smile:
"Hehe... That's good, isn't it?"
"...It's not that easy." Gretel and Elder Erwin looked at each other and shook their heads slowly. At least, lead pollution will not turn the groundwater blue, and lead poisoning will not cause villagers pain all over their bodies.
What the city lord said before was that they had a strange disease and it hurt everywhere...
He smiled at the old woman again. She stretched her arms slightly and gently stopped her getting up:
"Old lady, please sit down and let me take another look... um..."
[Endless Ink Pen] quietly walked around behind the old woman. Grete turned on the X-ray magic, glanced at it, and immediately felt something was wrong.
The bones look...off. Upon closer inspection, the bone density of the ribs, especially the ends, is significantly lower. Looking at the long bones of the limbs, the density is generally loose and the structure is thin, the bone cortex is thinning, the medullary cavity is widened, and the bone trabeculae are sparse.
There are strips of dense shadows at the ends of long bones, which are lead lines caused by lead poisoning. However, reduced bone density is not something that can be caused by lead poisoning.
"...Teacher, besides lead mine, what other mines are there?"
The version the city lord told him was that there was a silver mine here, but the output was already very small. There are also some other ores that are outsourced to others and several workshops have been opened here. He doesn't know the specific situation...
Anyway, the entire valley, as well as several surrounding mountains, have been leased to people. If you open a mine and a few workshops, you can still employ a few villagers and add some income to them, right?
"I'm not sure either." Elder Erwin shook his head slightly. "Although the identification technique tells me that it is a lead problem, the release of the detoxification technique cannot completely solve their pain... Shall we go up and take a look together?"
Gretel stood up with him. After some discussion with Appa, the Silver Moon Deer knelt down and let him climb onto the deer's back. Everyone walked to the mining area on the ridge together. The other three walked on foot, and their steps were much lighter and more flexible than his.
The further up the stairs you go, the more ugly Elder Erwin's face becomes. Grete also felt heavy:
The lush mountains looked like open wounds, with several mountain tops exposed. The greenery is gone, the trees are gone, and the large and small ores glow with a gray-black metallic luster, covering the entire mountaintop.
The stream at the foot of the mountain meanders towards the village. By the stream, ant-like crowds were busy dragging baskets of stones to the water's edge, and then carrying the stones away from the stream. Based on Gretel's meager smelting knowledge, they were probably panning for ore?
"This is how pollution comes." Elder Erwin said softly. Grete nodded heavily and said nothing:
From mineral sand to stream water, from stream water to groundwater. Then it spreads to the surrounding soil, is absorbed by plants, and is enriched in plants, animals, and human bodies. That's why Elder Erwin said that the whole of nature is sick.
After walking for a while, yellow smoke rose straight into the sky. Suddenly a gust of wind blew, Cerela wrinkled her nose and sneezed with all her strength:
"Ah! What...what does this smell like!"
There was an unpleasant sour smell, mixed with the smell of rotten eggs, that made people cry. Grete quickly cast a bubble spell on himself, Apa, and Bernard, and frowned:
This is the smell of sulfides. There are many kinds of sulfide that need to be used in refining minerals. He can't say which ones will pollute the land, but the light sulfide itself is enough...
They ran over mountains and ridges all the way to the entrance of the mine. The entrance is narrow and dark, allowing only one or two people to go in and out carrying ore on their backs. Miners with dark faces are almost crawling on the ground carrying heavy ore on their backs. Grete rushed forward and quickly used an identification technique——
"Galena, sphalerite, quartzite, calcite..."
Grete still has to think hard about the specific composition and molecular formula of these ores; however, there are two elements that are definitely not wrong -
"This is a lead-zinc mine! Among the lead-zinc mines, the most likely to be associated with, the most likely to cause large-scale pollution, and damage human health is..."
That’s right, this is it!
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