Hysteria
Four or five children were lined up to see Sun Shuhui, the lead pediatrician. Every so often, one of them let out a bloodcurdling wail. Yep, they were having their tongues pressed down with a tongue depressor!
Almost every child was afraid of that little wooden stick, even more than they were of needles.
Dentist Shen Yisi was drilling away at someone's teeth with a hand drill.
Orthopedist Xu Xiao had a unique skill: he could diagnose bone problems by touch. Even without an X-ray machine—and certainly without a CT scanner—he could identify all sorts of issues with nothing but his hands. In no time, he had found a patient with scoliosis.
As the other doctors gradually got their clinics up and running, Li Bai's area remained eerily quiet.
Mental illness was often mistakenly called "nervous illness," and people in general were reluctant to seek treatment for it. Anyone whose mind was even halfway sound would hate being called crazy.
(Neurologists and neurosurgeons had gone to great lengths to snatch these patients away from psychiatrists. They had to shout themselves hoarse: "Nervous patients, come over here! Nervous patients, this way!"｜And so the question arose: should you go over, or shouldn't you?)
So it was perfectly understandable that no one was queuing up to see Li Bai.
The nurse from the township health center who was helping out kept looking at him sympathetically. What had he come all this way for?
The various literary and martial maniacs from the surrounding villages were usually kept at home when they went crazy. Few people took them to the hospital, partly because there weren't any suitable doctors, but mainly because their conditions were difficult to treat or cure.
Rather than waste money on medical care, families might as well keep them safely at