Thousands of Years of Medicine

Wedge medicine box AD 2024, late autumn. In the traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy of a tertiary hospital in Beijing, Shen Zhiwei was weighing medicinal materials with an old spoon. Her fingers were slender and white, but her movements carried a sophistication that was befitting her thirty-two-year-old age. Fifteen grams of astragalus, ten grams of angelica root, six grams of chuanxiong - each medicine fell into the copper plate, making a subtle and crisp sound. "Doctor Shen, have the medicines for bed three been prepared?" Nurse Xiao Zhou poked his head in. "Okay." Shen Zhiwei handed over the medicine package, but her eyes fell on the dusty wooden box on the top of the medicine cabinet. The box was said to have been left by her great-grandfather. It contained a handwritten prescription book, with four faded words written on the cover - "Shen's Medicine Record". She remembered that when she was a child, her grandfather opened the yellowed book and said to her: "Zhiwei, our Shen family's medical practice can be traced back to 1,700 years ago. At that time, our ancestor was called Shen Xi, a famous doctor in the Jin Dynasty. He was mentioned in Ge Hong's "The Legend of Immortals"." She didn't believe it at the time. One thousand seven hundred years, how many generations has it been passed down? Grandpa smiled and said no more. He just touched her head with his calloused hands. Grandpa has been dead for five years now. Shen Zhiwei looked at the wooden box and suddenly had an impulse - she wanted to open the medicine book and trace the footsteps of the Shen family's medical practice along the faded ink marks. What she didn't know was that this trail was far further than 1,700 years. It stretches all the way to the dawn of civilization.