In summer, when mosquitoes and insects were prevalent, ancient and modern people suffered from the same misery.

　　Xiaoyao, like Chuang Tzu, can not bear the pain of mosquito bites. In Tianyun Chapter, he writes:

　　"Mosquitoes wear their skin, and they can't sleep all night."Fu Xuan, a scholar of the Jin Dynasty, wrote a mosquito fu, which denounced mosquitoes.

　　"There are so many people burning that they become thunderstorms, poisoning their lives and curing their hunger with food and skin. Farmers and workers may be better off in Nantian, while women workers may be better off in machinery.

　　The struggle between human beings and mosquitoes has lasted for thousands of years. Ancient Chinese also wrote a history of the struggle against mosquitoes.

　　Mosquito repellent Vanilla

　　The ancients first thought that the simplest and convenient way to repel mosquitoes was to plant mosquito-repelling plants at home, such as mint, nocturnal primrose and so on.

　　Nevertheless, plants are fixed, but mosquitoes seem to be able to go up to earth and follow people around, so the ancients invented the "smoked mosquito incense" as a popular mosquito repellent magic weapon.

　　According to Zhou Li:

　　"Ben's palm removes moths to attack them. To smoke with wilderness, the matter of common maggots."Jiang Shi is a special insect-repellent official of Zhou Royal Family. His methods of insect-repellent include praying for gods and igniting shiitake fumigants. The former is superstition, while the latter is practical.

　　Speaking of this, the question arises: fire and smoke are for "smoking". So what is it that burns and what smoke is it that is produced?

　　In Zhou Li, it is mentioned that the burning wildgrass can drive away insect pests. The scent of wilderness is strong, spicy and poisonous. "Mountain people are poisonous rats, which is called rat mangy". Since even mice can be poisoned, killing mosquitoes naturally does not matter.

　　But the risk of wilderness is high, so the ancients would choose more plants such as mugwort and calamus, after evaporating their water, or hanging, or burning can make its odor emit better.

　　In Ming Dynasty's Ancient Painting and Editing "Supplementary Leigong Processing Instant List", Tuai Ye of "Processed Lithospermum" was one of the important mosquito repellent materials of the ancients. Lu You, a poet of the Southern Song Dynasty, said in his poem "Smoking Mosquitoes and Following Mr. Wanling Style":

　　"There are many mosquitoes in Zeguo. It's strange to call at night. Lift the fan but not the burnt wormwood.

　　In the middle of the night, you can't get rid of the disturbing mosquitoes by holding the fan, so you have to light up the moxa grass. Besides, there are duckweeds with similar efficacy to argyrophylla.

　　It is recorded in "Gewu Rough Talk":

　　"At the Dragon Boat Festival, duckweed is stored, dried in shade, realgar is added, paper is made, and fired to remove mosquitoes."These herbs used to fumigate mosquitoes are dried in shade, with realgar and other substances commonly used in ancient times, which became the most commonly used mosquito incense in ancient times.

　　In some places, mugwort and duckweed are rare, so the ancients invented other "mosquito repellent recipes".

　　Tan Zhenmo, a native of Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, recorded a unique mosquito-repellent incense in his book Tanzi Carving Insects at the end of Ming Dynasty.

　　"Mosquito smoke, old clouds, fumigated with moxa will collapse. However, Ai is not easy to get. The common medicine is eel, eel, turtle and other bones. Paper is wrapped three or four feet long, and eventually smoked.

　　These mosquito repellent materials used by the ancients are all "pure natural extraction, without any chemical additions, safe and pollution-free".

　　Curtain for mosquito isolation

　　In addition to smoking, there is a physical way to resist mosquitoes - hanging mosquito nets.

　　During the Spring and Autumn Period, Emperor Huan Qi once said:

　　"White birds (mosquitoes) are hungry and hungry for food, so the widow opens the net of green yarn and enters mosquitoes."From this we can see that mosquito nets have appeared since the pre-Qin Dynasty. What was the ancient mosquito net like?

　　Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty had a luxury tent in his book The History of Women. The tent was separated from the main entrance and was not linked. It did not seem to be much different from later generations.

　　There are thick and thin nets, and mosquito nets are about ventilation and ventilation, and the gap is not large enough for mosquitoes to enter, so the use of brocade, Luo, yarn, tufts, and other silk fabrics.

　　In Lu Yi's Records of Youzhong, there are records of the tents used in the stone tiger house of Emperor Zhao:

　　"Shishu Jinliusu Dou Tent in Winter Month... Spring and Autumn, but the brocade account, with five-color jacket, for the folder. Summer yarn, or Vincent Danlo, or Ziwengu, for single account.

　　Royal nobles and dignitaries use different materials in the four seasons. They are extremely extravagant, but ordinary people can not bear such a burden. Most of them choose cloth, Ge and other cheaper materials to make them.

　　After the Tang and Song Dynasties, mosquito nets were widely used.

　　Tujia woodcarving figures, birds and animals, three drops of water beds and tents, Hunan Civilization Network, Northern Song Dynasty Zhang Lei's "Leaving Chu Night Po to Send Four Heads of Nephew Yang Ke" said:

　　"Prepare for hunger, cook for the morning and repel mosquitoes at night."It can be seen that mosquito nets were the daily necessities of the ancients at that time.

　　It's not enough to have mosquito incense and mosquito net protection. Ancient people also had a mosquito repellent magic weapon, the whisk.

　　A handle can be held on the whisker, with animal tail hair tied on the handle, or cotton, hemp and brown filaments. In Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was popular to use the tail hair to make it, which was named "the tail of the elk". After Tang and Song Dynasties, people used palm leaves which were easy to pick to make it, also known as "the palm brush".　　

　　Du Fu's "Brown Fuzi" said:

　　"If the Brown Brushes and is poor, you will not know your own efficacy. Unable to replace white feathers, there are enough fly removal.

　　In Cao Tingdong's Health Care Essays, Miscellaneous Articles, there are also descriptions of the brown brush.

　　"Palm brush, with palm leaves, grabbed as filaments, under the petiole, you can hold. Playing in summer months, to chase mosquitoes and oysters, both fragrant, elegant in the tail of the elk.

　　In the south of Tang Dynasty, there was a kind of feather called "mosquito mother bird" to make "mosquito fan".

　　Tang Liu-ming's Records of Ling Biao recorded that:

　　"Mother mosquitoes and birds, like the green owl, have large and long mouths and feed on fish in ponds. At every cry, mosquitoes fly out of their mouths. The common cloud takes its feathers as fans to avoid mosquitoes and also calls it "mosquito-spitting birds".

　　The mother mosquito bird is actually a nightingale. When it opens its mouth to eat mosquitoes, there are always mosquitoes flying around its mouth, so the ancients mistook it for "spitting mosquitoes".

　　In addition to the above methods, the ancients invented mosquito-sucking lamps and mosquito-killing tanks according to mosquito's habit of phototaxis and water preference, but few of them survived and could not see their appearance.

　　"Mosquito Suction Lamp": The belly of the lamp is bulging and there is a mouth on it. The lamp is placed in it. The airflow enters from the big mouth and discharges from the upper flue. The mosquitoes coming from the phototaxis are easily absorbed and burned.

　　The "mosquito killing tank" is a water tank at home, with several mosquito-eating frogs.

　　Although there is little help, it is only small and difficult to prevent poisoning. The ancients struggled with mosquitoes with their intelligence and left precious "property" for future generations. However, our struggle against mosquitoes has not yet ended.