Mosquito-repellent incense is a great artifact in the invention of mosquito prevention (network diagram)
Mosquito coils have a long history. Taking China as an example, when discussing the origin of mosquito-repellent incense, we must talk about the tradition of burning incense and offering sacrifices in China. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, on important days, people would burn firewood, straw and cloth to show their respect for heaven. In the Han Dynasty, incense burners and incense sticks appeared, which not only changed the material of incense, but also diversified its functions. Based on the fear of mosquito smoking, the saying "burning incense to avoid epidemic" began to appear in ancient books. In addition, some ancient scholars regarded reading as a top priority. Whenever you write a composition or read an open book, you should burn incense and bathe in prayer to show your piety.
In the Song Dynasty, influenced and inspired by moxibustion therapy of traditional Chinese medicine, mosquito-repellent incense was made mature. Especially in Jiangnan, people at that time were especially good at storing duckweed during the Dragon Boat Festival, adding realgar after air drying, and then wrapping it in paper to make it look like moxibustion to avoid mosquito bites. In the Ming Dynasty, a new type of mosquito-repellent incense with turtle shells and fish bones wrapped in paper appeared in some places.
Incense burning and mosquito repellent have existed in China since ancient times (network map)
In modern times, robert fortune, a scot, was sent to China by royal horticultural society for a three-year (1842- 1845) inspection mission. During 1849, he bought some local mosquito-repellent incense on the way from western Zhejiang to Wuyishan, Fujian, and used it, which was quite effective. After returning to England, Fu Qiong recorded this mosquito-repellent incense in his book "The Residence of China People", which attracted the interest of many entomologists and chemists for a while.
Although these are different in shape and material, they are the same as the mosquito-repellent incense we use today, in the final analysis. So where did the modern mosquito-repellent incense originate?
The time has come 1862. The hero of the story, Ichiro Kamiyamada, was born in the home of a citrus farmer in Youtian City, Wakayama Prefecture, southwest of Mu Yi Peninsula, Honshu.
Mountain Syuichiro (network map)
After graduating from last Ichiro University, I worked for the family business. 1885, Hidichiro Ueyama set up a store specializing in selling its own citrus, and began to plan how to open the international market. In this year, with the help of Fukuzawa Yukichi, the founder of Keio University and an enlightenment thinker in Meiji period, the owner of a plant company specializing in plant sales and import in San Francisco, USA, found Ueyama Eiichiro. This intersection not only brought a turn for the family business, but also laid the groundwork for Kamiyama Hideyoshi to invent mosquito-repellent incense.
A year later, the boss suddenly sent a box of plant seeds to Ueyama Eiichiro, and attached a letter saying that it was the seed of pyrethrum originated in Yugoslavia, which was very effective in preventing insects and protecting crops, and the cultivation conditions of this plant were simple. At present, many Americans get rich by planting it.
Ueyama eiichiro was very interested after reading it. First, he planted a lot of pyrethrum himself, and then he lobbied many farmers all over the country to promote pyrethrum cultivation. Unexpectedly, there were very few respondents. Thinking that it might be because farmers didn't see the results and didn't dare to follow suit rashly, Hidetaro went up the mountain and racked his brains to come up with a new idea for popularization. He dried pyrethrum into powder and sprinkled it on crops. He tried to verify the insecticidal effect by this method, but the effect was still not good.
Pyrethrum (network diagram)
This summer, Hidichiro Ueyama sat in her room at a loss, thinking hard about new ways to promote pyrethrum. Who knows, a few mosquitoes slipped in, but didn't notice at the moment, Syuichiro was bitten out of several bags on the mountain. I reached out and took two photos, but there was still a steady stream of mosquitoes rushing forward. In the face of these desperate little guys, Yamamoto Hideyiro had a headache and had to stand up and walk around the room, not giving mosquitoes a chance to get up.
The pesky mosquitoes brought unexpected gains to Hidichiro Ueyama, Yushan, who tried to promote pyrethrum (network map).
Walking up the hill, Hidichiro suddenly stopped and remembered some pyrethrum powder thrown at home. He thought pyrethrum had insecticidal effect, so he found some and put them in a basin and put them in the house. Strange to say, although the mosquito is not dead, it seems that it dare not get too close. Perhaps in order to prove that it was not a psychological effect, Syuichiro closed the doors and windows on the mountain, and lit the pyrethrum powder with a tie and a torch. After a while, a wisp of gray smoke filled the room. Without thinking, the scene that Kamiyamada Ichiro was dumbfounded happened. He saw that the mosquito, whose teeth were bared not long ago, was silent for a while. He finally saw a mosquito, only to find that the other person flew around like a drunk, and finally fell to the ground without interest.
Ichiro Yamayama didn't expect pyrethrum to have such a strong mosquito killing effect. Surprised, Hideyoshi's thinking became active. He thought, since it is impossible to popularize pyrethrum cultivation and let pyrethrum play a role in protecting crops, it is a feasible way to develop its mosquito-killing effect.
Children's painting about mosquito-repellent incense (network diagram)
1888, Ichiro Yamada invited a craftsman to make incense. After numerous processing and experiments, it took two years to finally develop the first mosquito-repellent incense in the modern sense. The inspiration of this mosquito-repellent incense comes from the incense in the niche. At first, it has the appearance of incense, so the common problem of incense is that the burning time can only last for about an hour, but it is easy to break when the length increases, and the mosquito-killing effect is relatively insufficient. At this time, it was still his wife's words, which woke up Yukio Yamashita. "Spiral words are not better."
On the mountain, Hidichiro heard the news and was inspired. After repeated experiments, he finally figured out a way to make two mosquito-repellent incense spiral with a round stick as the center. 1902, this spiral mosquito-repellent incense, which can burn for about seven hours, was officially launched and named "Golden Bird Mosquito-repellent incense". It is this improved version of mosquito-repellent incense that laid the foundation for the emergence of modern mosquito-repellent incense. During this period, there was an anecdote about the inspiration of this mosquito-repellent incense. It is said that Ueyama Hideyoshiro's wife was asked how she came up with the idea of making spiral mosquito-repellent incense. Ueyama Hideyoshiro's wife replied that she was going to the toilet.
However, due to technical conditions and other reasons, mosquito-repellent incense at that time was all rolled by hand, which was inefficient. This situation continued until about 1955, and the production of mosquito-repellent incense began to be fully mechanized. In the following days, the method of making mosquito-repellent incense is naturally improving. Slowly, additives such as allethrin, sawdust powder, starch and nanshu powder began to appear in mosquito-repellent incense, and pyrethrum powder, once the main raw material of mosquito-repellent incense, gradually became an auxiliary component to perfume mosquito-repellent incense.
Proparghrin is a chemical substance with the molecular formula of C 19H26O3, which is mainly used for indoor mosquito and fly control (network diagram).
Today, mosquito-repellent incense has become a summer necessity for most families in the world. However, although mosquito-repellent incense has good mosquito repellent effect, it has certain toxicity. Inferior mosquito-repellent incense can induce respiratory diseases in children and lead to cancer, so families with pregnant women or children must use it with caution. In 2004, mosquito-repellent incense and pesticides were also included in the scope of pesticide management. Manufacturers must have production license number, pesticide registration certificate number and pesticide production license to produce mosquito-repellent incense. However, under strict monitoring, there are still some illegal manufacturers illegally producing. So this requires us to carefully identify when buying mosquito-repellent incense. After all, killing mosquitoes is important, and personal safety is more important. As a primate, there is really no need to fight with a small insect for a plate of mosquito-repellent incense.
(Note: Some contents refer to Japanese Wikipedia and Baidu Encyclopedia)