1. There was an old doctor who lived in a village. Once he went to a neighboring village to see patients and was gone for several days.
2. During this time, back in his home village, sick people came to his home one after another, and all of them sat waiting anxiously for the doctor's return.
3. "What should I do?" wondered his wife.
4. There was a pile of dried plants in the kitchen used for starting up the fire.
5. "It tastes rather sweet,' she said to herself.
6. "Great! I'll give this to them as medicine. It won't hurt them to drink some juice made from these herbs, and it might even have a placebo effect and make them feel better."
7. So the doctor's wife chopped up the herbs and wrapped them in paper.
8. She announced to those waiting: "These are herbs left behind by the doctor. They can cure anything! Take them home and brew them into a medicine. "
9. A number of the patients did as they were told, and got better.
10. A few days later the doctor returned to his home village, and the cured patients came forward to pay for the medicine.
11. The astonished doctor said, "What payment? I didn't give you any medicine!"
12. "Your wife gave it to us," they answered.
13. The doctor turned to his wife: "You can treat patients? What medicine did you give them?"
14. The doctor's wife signaled the doctor with her eyes to take the money, implying she would explain everything after they got home.
15. Back home, the doctor asked his wife: "Let's say for the sake of argument that the herb does have medicinal value. Still everybody had different illnesses, how could it cure all of them?"
16. The next day the doctor invited all the patients to describe their illnesses.
17. Among them there were people with stomach ailments, incessant coughs, sore throats, tumors, or fetal toxins.
18. The doctor examined them one by one and found each of them fully recovered.
19. Thereafter the doctor used this herb to treat all Kinds of ailments.
20. Besides supplementing the body's chi (vital force), curing stomach ailments, lowering blood pressure, and eliminating toxins, if decocted with other medicines it enhances their effectiveness.
21. Later this herb, called licorice in English, came to be called "sweet grass" in Chinese because of its flavor.