I Opened a Clinic in the Northern Song

Transmigrating into the body of Lin Mo, a traveling physician in the Northern Song, he’s barely set foot in a border garrison before disaster strikes! A soldier’s arrow wound is rotting down to the bone, while the deputy general clutches the Imperial Pharmacy’s wound salve and insists, “Military regulations come before lives.” Lin Mo tears off the dressing. “At this rate, he won’t last three days!”

One pair of bronze forceps takes on the military code, but earns him a summons from an imperial commissioner demanding answers under an imperial edict. When an epidemic breaks out, the Imperial Medical Bureau orders the people to drink ephedra decoction to “sweat the illness out and save their lives.” Lin Mo instead sets up isolation tents and treats patients with cool mugwort compresses. When the Harmonious Preparations Bureau cuts off his supply of morning glory seeds, he takes his apprentices into the wild to gather substitute herbs, and teaches the people how to identify medicinal plants: “You don’t need the Imperial Pharmacy’s prescriptions to stay alive!”

He angers the tonics-first physicians so much they slam the table, exposes the Harmonious Preparations Bureau for relabeling old medicines, and even dares to refuse ginseng decoction for a princess suffering from wasting thirst. He joins forces with Wang Anshi to push for medical reform, taking the fight from a tiny military clinic to the political arena. Lin Mo has only one aim: tear down the monopoly over medicinal herbs so poor people can get treatment and have a chance to live!