The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 314
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 314
I had several possibilities in mind regarding the quality of the bear bile.
How many people in the country could distinguish quality by looking at the raw product?
Component analysis would be somewhat meaningful, but just because it contains a lot of UDCA, the known active ingredient, doesn’t necessarily make it good, so I planned to come and verify it properly myself.
But I never expected there to be pig gallbladder instead.
“Official certification? Which institution issued it?”
It was even stranger that they claimed to have official certification.
Bears are internationally endangered species, so even Russia wouldn’t officially export bear bile, yet there’s a certification agency?
“It’s a veterinary health certificate issued by the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance. I have the original.”
The secretary’s hands trembled slightly.
Since this was something being brought to a major corporation’s president, it must have gone through verification.
I took the certificate and placed it on the table so everyone could see it.
“What does it say?”
Naturally, it was written in Russian.
The secretary tried to interpret it, but Lee Mansu took out his phone, saying he’d translate and read it himself.
Choi Gwi-jae and I also put our heads together to read the translated content on Lee Mansu’s smartphone.
“This is just a hygiene and quarantine confirmation! There’s not a word about the authenticity, quality, or component analysis of bear bile!”
Lee Mansu roughly put down the paper and gritted his teeth.
“Well, it’s not written, but the official said it was very good authentic product when issuing the certificate. He also confirmed that the hunting permit was officially legitimate!”
“Good grief…”
“The hunting permit, quarantine certificate, and all the documents are probably real. But there probably aren’t that many bears with hunting permits issued per year… At least it would be far insufficient compared to demand. They probably sold all the real ones and passed off fakes, don’t you think?”
“They must have conspired with the officials too. Russia has considerable corruption as well.”
When President Choi Gwi-jae added his comment to my speculation, the secretary’s face grew increasingly pale.
“Ah…”
“There probably isn’t any official certification for authenticity. In the end, whether it’s real bear bile has to be determined by experts using their eyes and nose. So it seems hunters and related civil servants used their positions to commit fraud.”
Come to think of it, I’m doing the same thing, just talking based on what I see.
A Korean Medicine Doctor license in South Korea doesn’t qualify as a bear bile authentication certificate, and I can’t brandish the nameplate of Sichuan Dang Family Medical Institute head in 21st century South Korea.
“If you want to verify it scientifically, it would be better to separately request component analysis from a domestic research institute. Usually people don’t go that far because of the high cost…”
To verify authenticity and pharmacological components requires professional analysis equipment, which is difficult in ordinary laboratories and requires pharmaceutical companies or large research institutions.
Of course, such places don’t readily accept individual requests either.
“Secretary Jeong, find a research institute tomorrow and do component analysis, and if it turns out to be pig gallbladder as the Clinic Director said, track down those swindlers too.”
“Yes, I’ll take immediate action.”
But well, these people would manage it somehow.
When I suggested an appropriate method, Lee Mansu bit his lips and gave instructions to his secretary.
The panic disappeared from the secretary’s eyes too, replaced by anger.
“Don’t be too hard on him. People who deal in fakes are really brazen. They would have committed fraud even if told the US President would consume it.”
“Sigh, I understand. He’s someone who usually handles work cleanly.”
The secretary nodded to me and picked up the ice box.
Choi Gwi-jae stopped him.
“Why bother searching for research institutes? We can just analyze it at our company.”
Ah? That’s right.
The lamp was dark at its base. PK Biologics headquarters was in Busan.
“Ha… Right. It’s embarrassing, but I’ll ask for the favor.”
“Tsk tsk, exactly! To avoid getting scammed like this in old age, you should have invested in bio early on.”
President Choi Gwi-jae chuckled, saying he’d tell his grandson, and handed his contact information to Lee Mansu’s secretary.
A deep sense of defeat settled on Lee Mansu’s face.
Choi Gwi-jae grinned broadly, finding something very amusing.
“After fashion, now there’s another field like this…”
That must be their private joke, right?
Anyway, it seemed my job was gradually coming to an end.
“Make sure to get it analyzed properly. If you want to obtain new ones or prepare medicine even without bear bile, come to the clinic. Oh, since we’ve already done the consultation anyway, just calling would be fine if you’re busy.”
“Alright. Thank you for coming at this late hour. This old man almost got scammed without knowing it.”
Choi Gwi-jae slapped Lee Mansu’s back.
“Oh no, not at all. Handle it well, and I’m curious how it turns out, so let me know later.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Lee Mansu breathed heavily and thanked me.
I scratched my head and left Choi Gwi-jae’s house.
“Clinic Director, the house call fee…!”
Lee Mansu’s secretary chased me to the parking lot and handed me a considerable… considerable amount in cash.
* * *
I expected the component analysis to take quite some time, but Lee Mansu came to find me at the clinic in just two days.
The secretary I had seen at Choi Gwi-jae’s house was with him too.
Just from the expressions and gestures of the two entering the examination room, I could guess the results.
“It was pig gallbladder after all.”
Lee Mansu nodded heavily.
“Yes. If the Clinic Director hadn’t identified it, I would have paid good money to consume such a thing. I absolutely won’t let this slide, if only to prevent further harm to desperate patients.”
He fumed about catching and turning in everyone involved.
During the Daeduhwangkwon incident, I was angrier, but this time Lee Mansu was the one raging, so I became calm instead.
“Oh my, how ridiculous. I looked into it too, and it’s apparently a very traditional scam method. They say this kind of thing is rampant in Russia and China too. They deceive people by selling pig gallbladder, deer gallbladder and such as bear gallbladder.”
“That’s right. I heard even the distributors sell them without knowing whether they’re real or fake.”
“…I should have done another component analysis domestically before bringing it, but I was careless.”
The secretary also spoke dejectedly.
From the circumstances, it seems a real bear hunter committed the fraud, so it was understandable they were deceived.
I don’t think I need to get involved in uncovering the truth and catching the criminals…
Since he came to the clinic, he must have medical business, right?
“So what are you thinking of doing? Will you try to obtain new bear gallbladder? Or would you like to try the Injin-oryeong-san I mentioned yesterday first?”
I first confirmed the treatment direction Lee Mansu wanted.
While bear gallbladder is certainly an herbal medicine with special efficacy for liver function, it’s not the only herbal medicine good for the liver.
“Would there be sufficient effect even if prepared without bear gallbladder? My vision is severely blurry, just like 20 years ago. Back then, no medicine worked and I thought my time had come… but after taking bear gallbladder, my vision cleared up like magic.”
Lee Mansu seemed to want to use bear gallbladder if possible.
“You have severe fatigue, high blood pressure, and blurry vision too.”
“Yes, I’m extremely tired. Even now I’m completely drooping and barely managed to drag my old body here. In the old days, I would have raged about wiping out the lineage of these swindling bastards, but now I don’t even have the strength to get angry. Hehe.”
…So his reactions the day before yesterday and today were from being drained of energy. Just how hot-tempered was he in the past?
“It is a bear gallbladder pattern. Of course it would be much better if we include it and take it…”
What can you do when it’s hard to obtain even with money?
I shrugged my shoulders innocently.
But Lee Mansu bent his waist slightly and looked at me as if seeing through me.
Hmm…?
“Clinic Director.”
“Yes.”
“You have a way to obtain genuine bear gallbladder, don’t you?”
“Yes…?”
I may look like this, but I have some skill at playing dumb.
“Didn’t you identify the pig gallbladder at a glance? Something that even the local distributors can’t properly distinguish. Moreover, you spoke with such confidence about what my secretary obtained, so you must have seen genuine bear gallbladder quite often, haven’t you?”
Wow, he deduced this.
“…”
Instead of answering yes or no, I gave a subtle smile, and Lee Mansu spoke once more with earnestness.
“Please, I beg you. If time is needed, I’ll wait. I’ll prepare money generously too. Twenty years ago I also obtained and consumed it for hundreds. It’s medicine I absolutely need.”
Right.
Actually, his guess was about half correct.
I don’t know how to obtain it either. But… I definitely do have some.
There’s the bear gallbladder that Songgol tossed to me saying “I found this on the way.”
Though I was shocked, I processed it just in case, but I’ve never had a chance to use it until now.
The long-standing disparagement that herbal medicine is bad for the liver is so powerful that patients rarely come to oriental medicine clinics with the purpose of treating the liver in the first place.
Moreover, since I couldn’t explain the source of the bear gallbladder, it also went against our decoction room’s principles.
Even when fatty liver patients occasionally came to the clinic… I couldn’t recommend it first unless they openly sought it like this.
So I just kept it, thinking someday there would be an occasion to use it.
“Is there a particular reason you insist on bear gallbladder?”
“…Because I still have work left to do.”
Wow.
Until just now he was an ordinary old man as Choi Gwi-jae described, but when he spoke seriously, the atmosphere completely changed.
Indeed, is this the chairman who built up the group called Munkyung?
Though he’s retired from the front lines, there might be something he can’t just leave to his children.
“…Actually, I do have something in storage.”
As soon as I opened my mouth, Lee Mansu’s eyes flashed.
It seemed like the rightful owner had finally appeared.
“Please prescribe it to me. I really want to take it.”
“Where and how I obtained it…”
“Of course I’ll keep it secret. No, I’ll hide the very fact that I took bear gallbladder even from Chairman Choi. I just need this maddening fatigue to get better.”
If he’s saying this much.
I was definitely confident I could solve that part.
“Very well.”
Lee Mansu’s face brightened completely.
“I’ll prescribe Injin-oryeong-san with an additional 4g of bear gallbladder total for 20 days first. Since we did the consultation last time, let’s just do a blood test. It would be good to compare whether the liver values drop too.”
“4g per day?”
“No. That’s the total for a month. Based on powder. When you dry and process one raw bear gallbladder, you get around 10g to 15g. Bear gallbladder has tremendously stronger effects than you think, so 0.2g per day is sufficient.”
“Ooh…!”
Lee Mansu trembled with joy at the powerful effects of the bear gallbladder.
When he had examined that bear gallbladder from last time, it weighed over 16g. It was large in size and had incredible active components.
While prescribing a full 3-month supply to Lee Mansu would fetch the highest price.
Since other patients might need it later, I wanted to use only an appropriate amount for now and save the rest.
“What’s important isn’t how much bear gallbladder you take, but getting better. I’ll check your progress and prescribe more if needed.”
“Yes, please do that. Since you’re Chairman Choi’s personal physician, I’ll trust you completely.”
Lee Mansu nodded vigorously.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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