To the northwest of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, one of the eight hexahedral buildings, with five gilded characters of "Academy of Life Sciences" written on it.

Life science, that is, biology, is a science that studies the laws of life activities, the nature of life, the laws of development of life, and the interrelationship between various organisms and between organisms and the environment through molecular genetics. In the end, it can achieve the purpose of treating and diagnosing genetic diseases, increasing crop yields, improving human life, and protecting the environment.

However, at present, the life sciences have not yet developed to that extent, at least the genetic double helix structure has not yet been discovered.

At present, the Academy of Life Sciences is mainly studying several major projects set up by Li Weiguo himself.

The first is the hybrid rice project, which is more time-consuming.

Li Weiguo only knows the principle of hybrid rice, which is to study and breed three-line rice. A kind of rice is a sterile line of the female parent, which has a special personality, its stamens are thin and degenerate, the anthers are shriveled and deformed, and it cannot be fertilized and seeds by its own pollen. One is called the retention system, which requires the same as the parent parent; The third type is the restorer line, which has completely different requirements from the female parent, with tall branches, sound pollen and well-developed stigma, and produces seeds that are larger than the female parent to increase yield.

Because there were no talents specializing in the study of rice seeds in this era, Li Weiguo could only find high-yielding rice or rice with huge seeds from among the farmers who planted rice at home and abroad, and then sent special personnel to continuously cultivate and select rice seeds, open up experimental fields in the south, and select the best rice seeds year after year, stubble after stubble.

This is very time-consuming, but after more than ten years of continuous cultivation, the yield of rice seeds per mu in the Institute of Life Sciences has been a great success, and the yield of last year's experimental field has exceeded 580 catties, far exceeding the yield of rice planting per mu around the world.

Of course, the gap between this mu yield and the yield of more than 1,000 catties per mu in later generations is still very large, but this is already a huge progress.

You must know that Li Weiguo established this life science institute to study hybrid rice. But starting on a blank sheet of paper, there is no experience to learn, and it is all up to you to explore. To be able to achieve this kind of achievement is enough to be proud of the world.

Li Weiguo is not in a hurry to promote this experimental type of rice, because the current domestic grain production is very high and the population is small, so there is no need to increase grain production. Rushing into this new type of rice can only cheapen foreigners who lack food.

This is purely an investment for the future, because Li Weiguo knows that China's population will explode as the country becomes stable and prosperous, and that there is no need for family planning in this era. Family planning is also not practiced, so it is not until the population reaches a certain size, or when there is a shortage of food, that the promotion of new high-yielding rice begins.

During this period, the Institute of Life Sciences only continued to research higher yields of rice.

In addition to the hybrid rice project, the second project of the Academy of Life Sciences is a medical project related to human diseases, called the willow bark extract project.

Willow bark extract, as the name suggests, is to extract the natural salicylin in willow bark, and then convert it into salicylic acid by enzymes. Then the salicylic acid water is converted into ethyl salicylic acid.

This is the famous aspirin in later generations, and it is also the earliest, most widely used and most common antipyretic analgesic antirheumatic drug. It has many pharmacological effects such as antipyretic, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-rheumatic and anti-platelet aggregation, and exerts rapid efficacy. The efficacy is stable, the overdose is easy to diagnose and manage, and allergic reactions rarely occur. It is often used for colds and fevers, headaches, neuralgia, arthralgia, muscle pain, rheumatic fever, acute internal wet arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and toothache.

But. Historically, aspirin was invented and put into production in 1897, and the Germans monopolized the patent for aspirin, which sold at a price comparable to gold worldwide. It has generated huge revenues for Germany and has made governments around the world jealous. It was not until the end of World War I, when Germany was defeated, that the aspirin patent was plundered by governments and spread all over the world to the general public.

However, in this time and space, Li Weiguo's Academy of Life Sciences preemptively synthesized aspirin, so the Germanized name of aspirin will no longer appear on the stage of history, and it has a new name, called Da Huandan.

Of course, the name Da Huan Dan was just a joke made by Li Weiguo with a childlike heart, but he didn't joke, the listener was interested, and the Department of Food (Ministry of Health) immediately named it directly after Da Huandan.

The biggest contributor to the Great Huandan was named Frédéric Gérard, because he synthesized ethyl salicylic acid with salicylic acid as early as 1853, but Gérard was poor at the time and failed to attract attention.

Gérard was found by S.H.I.E.L.D. in 1857 and brought him and his family to Shanghai, China, to study ethylsalicylic acid and large-scale industrial production methods.

Now Gérard is the vice president of the Academy of Life Sciences, with the help of a large number of Chinese assistants, in 1864 to complete the theoretical certification of industrial production of ethyl salicylic acid, in the second year of Guanghua in the eastern suburbs of Beijing to build the ethyl salicylic acid factory, to achieve the industrial production of Dahuandan.

In this era, there has not been any special medicine, so each Dahuan Pill is very expensive, comparable to gold.

According to the sales proposal submitted by the Ministry of Food (Ministry of Health), the price of Dahuandan should be 10 yuan.

But this price is too expensive, comparable to gold, according to the price index comparison, ten yuan in this era is equivalent to a thousand yuan in later generations, ordinary people can not afford to consume.

Although the cost of pharmaceuticals in this era is very high, it is still too expensive, according to Li Weiguo's meaning, it is reasonable to set at five yuan a box, and it is still very expensive for ordinary people, but the current production capacity is limited, this efficient life-saving drug is scarce and expensive, and it is inevitable that it will be more expensive.

However, Zhou Fu, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, still gave Li Weiguo an idea, and still set the price of Dahuan Dan at the price of ten yuan, so that the people know that this life-saving medicine is expensive, and then when they go to the hospital to take medicine, the state can carry out policy reductions and exemptions for the people who are not wealthy, which will make the people grateful to the court, and the rich do not need to do this, for them. Ten yuan and one hundred yuan are the same, don't care at all.

In this way, it can not only allow pharmaceutical factories to obtain funds for the sale of large quantities of Dan, increase profits to expand reproduction, but also not cause the burden of medical treatment for the common people, a win-win situation in one fell swoop.

Li Weiguo adopted Zhou Fu's proposal, and the price of Dahuan Dan was set in this way.

However, the sale of Dahuandan was strictly controlled by the imperial government, and it was only allowed to be used by patients in hospitals at all levels, and it required the supervision of doctors. It is forbidden to leave the hospital without permission, and the customs also strictly investigates it, and once it is found that the smuggler of Dahuan Dan will be executed for treason.

In addition to Dahuandan, the development of penicillin was also carried out in the Institute of Life Sciences, and also achieved great success.

Penicillin is an antibacterial drug that has a special effect on pneumonia, meningitis, abscess, sepsis and other diseases, and tens of millions of people die from these diseases every year around the world, which shows the importance of penicillin.

However, Li Weiguo initially organized the development of penicillin, and the fundamental reason was that penicillin had a huge therapeutic effect on the wounded in the army.

It was Li Weiguo's entrepreneurial period. It attaches great importance to the military, so it attaches great importance to the development and research of penicillin.

Today, after more than ten years of continuous cultivation, penicillin bacteria rely on natural penicillin strains for fermentation and extraction from the very beginning. The medicinal properties are extremely unstable, often ineffective, and the storage time is not more than one month, and now it has been successfully developed by the American biologist Carlson, an academician of the Academy of Life Sciences. It is synthesized all the way from unstable penicillin A to stable penicillin G, and penicillin dry powder is realized, which can be stored for more than one year.

Not so long ago. Penicillin can already be industrially produced in small batches.

Li Weiguo named penicillin as Xiao Huandan, and together with Da Huandan, they form the two most important special drugs in China's medical system.

The importance of the small pill is no less than that of the big one, so its price is also expensive. Due to the limited industrial production conditions, the output is very small, only half of the production capacity of Dahuandan, so the price is also twice as high, and the retail price is as high as 20 yuan.

Regardless of whether it is a small or a large one, the imperial government strictly prohibits carrying it out of the hospital and the border without permission.

Ten yuan for the big one, twenty yuan for the small one, this is just the domestic price, and it is still preferential for its own nationals, if you change to a foreigner, the retail price of the big one is 100 yuan, and the small one is 200 yuan, which is ten times more.

Even if the price rises tenfold, it is difficult for foreigners to obtain these two special drugs, because the Chinese population is large, whether it is a large or small Dan, the production capacity is limited, and domestic hospitals at all levels themselves are not enough to use, naturally will not easily export abroad.

Of course, sometimes due to political factors, it is inevitable that some compromise will not be reached.

For example, during Davis's state visit to China, the North American government asked Li Weiguo to allow Americans to buy the big and small pills produced by Shennong Pharmaceutical Company.

On the issue of the United States, Li Weiguo wanted to maintain the situation of division between the North and the South of the United States, so he naturally had to consider Davis's request, so he took the lead and approved Shennong Pharmaceutical Company to reserve a 5% share of drugs to sell to the Davis government.

Davis was very happy about this, although he was asking for medicine for the American people, in fact, he obtained this batch of special drugs only for the American aristocracy, for those rich people, in order to gain the support of the rich people.

Of course, the price of drugs exported to the United States is also extremely expensive, the drugs themselves are scarce, and the price of drugs has doubled all the way after arriving in the United States, Da Huan Dan has been hyped to 300 yuan a box in the United States, and Xiao Huan Dan is as high as 800 yuan a box, ordinary Americans naturally cannot afford it, and it can only be used by rich American tycoons.

Davis helped the Americans buy Chinese special drugs, and European powers such as Britain and France also asked Li Weiguo for export quotas through their legations in China.

Even if Britain is blocking China's exports in the South China Sea and the Atlantic, it has to bow to China, because the two special drugs of Da Huan Dan and Xiao Huan Dan are almost life-saving drugs in many cases, and which of the British queens, royals, and nobles is not afraid of death? I want to stock up on a few boxes of special drugs at home, in case of emergency, it is a life-saving medicine, for the British who regard their lives as more important than the country, in order to get the Chinese special medicine, they are willing to put down their bodies and beg China.

Li Weiguo then took the opportunity to raise the issue of "piracy" in the South China Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to Britain, and the British government was forced to announce the "elimination of pirates" under pressure from the royal family and the House of Lords.

In fact, the so-called "pirates" are pretended by the British Navy and the navies of the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and other countries, and all governments are well aware of them, but many things cannot be openly admitted, and no matter how strong Britain is, it cannot let the British people know that the British Royal Navy is pretending to be pirates to rob Chinese merchant ships. After all, the British are very fond of Chinese tea, silk, porcelain and other goods, and a large number of them are imported from China, and now the prices of these goods have skyrocketed, precisely because the shipping routes are occupied by "pirates".

Therefore, after the British government showed sincerity, Li Weiguo ordered the Customs Department to give Britain a batch of export quotas for special drugs to meet the requirements of the British royal family and nobles.

Of course, it's a big deal to make money. Li Weiguo naturally wanted to slaughter the British severely. The price of the miracle drug exported to Britain was twice as high as that given to the United States, in retaliation for the British pretending to be "pirates" for looting Chinese export merchant ships.

As the British government compromised, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and other countries also abandoned the ransacking of Chinese merchant ships in the South China Sea, so China's foreign trade exports gradually returned to normal.

However, the crisis is not over, the European and American powers will not be willing to let the Chinese slaughter in the field of medicine, the British government soon set up a research committee to specifically reverse study China's special drug Dahuan Dan and Xiao Huandan, looking forward to getting the formula and drug ingredients. In the future, there will be no need to be slaughtered by China. Subsequently, other European and American powers also carried out reverse research, either explicitly or implicitly, with the same idea.

Of course, Li Weiguo could not let the European and American powers get their wish, as early as the beginning, the big and small Huandan, which were exported to European and American countries, were passive. The pills of the big and small pills are made very large, and ingredients such as cordyceps, fritillary, gastrodia, saffron, and snow lotus are added to them, and these ingredients account for more than 90%.

On the one hand, these ingredients account for more than 90% of the ingredients of the entire special effect drug. It is equivalent to directly diluting the original medicinal ingredients that are really used for the treatment of diseases in the big and small pills, so that the experts of the European and American powers will also be misled and confused by these messy ingredients when analyzing the ingredients of the drugs. Instead, it ignores the medicinal ingredients that are really useful.

On the other hand, Cordyceps, fritillary, gastrodia, saffron, snow lotus and other ingredients are unique to China's medicinal herbs, not abroad, even those European and American experts do not understand the real formula of Da Huan Dan and Xiao Huan Dan.

Of course, the most important thing is the real medicinal ingredients, and even if the experts of the European and American powers finally discover the secret, it will be quite difficult to synthesize it, and even if it is finally synthesized, it will take a lot of time to industrialize production.

You must know that when Germany developed aspirin in 1897, the European and American powers either did not study it, but they just couldn't study it, and it was not until Germany was defeated in 1918 that the British and French powers forced Germany to hand over the formula of aspirin, which broke Germany's monopoly on aspirin in 1920.

It can be seen that in the absence of a formula, it is very difficult to reverse study the big and small pills. You must know that the current level of science and technology is 1867, far less than the level of 1897, and even worse than the level of 1918, coupled with the misleading and confusing ingredients of Cordyceps sinensis, fritillary, gastrodia, saffron, snow lotus, etc., which are unique to China, it is almost impossible for the European and American powers to study the big and small pills.

Although he knew that the European and American powers would not be able to study it for several decades, Li Weiguo still made all kinds of preparations, and one of the measures was to expand the production capacity of the big and small Dan.

On the one hand, the demand for large and small Dan in Europe and the United States is extremely strong, the price is high, and the profit is almost hundreds of times, which is simply a huge profit. Taking advantage of the empire's monopoly position on the big and small Dan, we will expand production capacity on a large scale and make as much money as possible.

On the other hand, the expansion of production capacity is also to prevent the European and American countries from starting to produce drugs after successful reverse research. Because China's large-scale production of drugs will reduce costs and have strong market competitiveness, even if there are similar factories in Europe and the United States in the future, they will not be able to compete with China's pharmaceutical factories, and they will soon be dragged down, so as to ensure the monopoly of China's drugs.

In addition, Li Weiguo also ordered the Imperial Police, the Supervision Department, and the Homeland Security Bureau to strengthen the secrecy of prescriptions and pharmaceutical factories, as well as the examination and supervision of employees, so as to prevent European and American powers from sending spies to steal prescriptions and related information.

The reason why Li Weiguo is so aggressive and attaches so much importance to it is all because of the huge profits of special drugs, and the billions of people in the world, basically everyone will use big or small pills every year, and there will be more in the years of war. Even if a box of large or small Dan is only sold for one dollar, there will be a huge income of more than one billion yuan every year.

What's more, the price of Da Huan Dan and Xiao Huan Dan is now ridiculously expensive, more expensive than gold, coupled with the price speculation of unscrupulous businessmen, it will push up the price of drugs all the way, which is more enjoyable than directly robbing a bank. (To be continued.) )