[Memory at Sea] Shanghai Mosquito Control Past Hygiene | Mosquitoes | Past

From May 22 to October this year, Shanghai comprehensively carried out the patriotic health campaign against mosquitoes in summer and autumn, and carried out centralized and unified mosquito control activities throughout the city through the monthly concentrated action week. Although mosquitoes are small in size, their harm to the human body should not be underestimated. Calling on the whole society to take action, jointly prevent and control pests, and spend the summer with health and peace of mind is not a small matter for Shanghai.

In fact, in the first summer after the liberation of Shanghai in 1949, the content of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government Announcement was related to mosquito control.

The neighborhood committee mobilized residents to carry out a thorough cleaning. Information photos

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This "Notice of the People's Government of Shanghai", issued on July 2, 1949, was issued by Mayor Chen Yi, Vice Mayor Zeng Shan, Pan Hannian, and Wei Que. "It was found that the population in this city is dense, the transportation is convenient, and the past is frequent. During this scorching summer, if hygiene is not emphasized and epidemic prevention measures are strengthened in advance, infectious diseases are prone to spread. In order to ensure the health of the military and civilians in the city and prevent the spread of infectious diseases during the summer, a special epidemic prevention and health campaign is launched. Eight epidemic prevention and health regulations are hereby promulgated, and it is important for citizens from all walks of life in the military and political organs in our city to consciously abide by and implement them."

Article 6 of the attached "Regulations for the Summer Epidemic Prevention and Health Campaign to be followed by the military and civilians in this city" specifically points out that the accumulation of dirt can easily lead to the proliferation of flies and the spread of diseases. In addition to being instructed by the Health Bureau to clean various places daily, keep them clean, divide areas, and spray floor mucus on public toilets, manure pits, garbage piles, stagnant ponds, vegetable fields, and other places to eliminate mosquitoes and flies, all military and civilians in our city must strictly abide by the following: they should automatically clean their homes, alleys, and keep them clean. Garbage, dirt, melon peels, etc. are prohibited from being discarded anywhere; It must be effectively dumped into the garbage bin. And prohibit garbage boats from dumping garbage into the Huangpu River. Urine and defecation should be done by finding a toilet. It is prohibited to defecate or defecate in the corners of the alleyway, and it is also prohibited for manure truck workers to stain the streets with their feces.

As a result, people from all walks of life and different ages in Shanghai actively participate in the action of eliminating mosquitoes and insects. Our city's newspapers also publish guidance in prominent sections: "Pay attention to all sources of water that grow mosquitoes, gradually treat them, and extinguish their larvae." "Mosquito repellent can be done by fumigating with mugwort and any dry grass, and using mosquito coils is even better. Mosquito repellent can be done with mosquito nets, which must be wide enough to cover the whole body. The nets should not be too tight to obstruct air circulation, and should not be too sparse to prevent mosquitoes from entering. The holes should be repaired, and the edges of the nets should be properly sealed. Before sleeping, mosquitoes should be expelled and checked. When sleeping, it is important to cultivate the habit of not exposing hands and feet outside the tent or touching the tent. Mosquito repellent can also be applied to clothing or exposed parts of the skin." "There are many methods to eliminate mosquito larvae, usually using fire oil or other insecticides scattered or poured into sewers and places prone to sewage accumulation; using wood chips soaked in heavy oil to disperse in silted sewage also has special effects on killing mosquito larvae. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention at all times to drain sewage, clear ditches, and prevent mosquito larvae from breeding and reproducing."

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At that time, Guangfu Village was located in Lane 555, Guangfu West Road, Putuo District, which included Guangfu Village, Donghedli, Xihedli, and many others. Many of them were simple thatched sheds or wooden houses, and more than 12000 people lived in Shanghai during the early days of liberation. Some of the people living here are industrial workers from factories in the Caojiadu area. Behind the village is a green field, where vegetables and crops are grown, as well as many manure tanks for fertilizer. In front of the village was the black and foul smelling Suzhou River at that time.

In the early 1950s, during the patriotic health movement, Guangfu Village "organized adults into 8 health work groups according to their regions, with 150 groups below, and 382 children also forming 8 health work teams." Men, women, and children worked together to clean some dirty sewers and transform them into underground ditches, and eliminate outdoor blind spots. They also established fly and mosquito extermination teams, maggot extermination teams, women's weeding teams, river salvage teams, ditch dredging teams, propaganda mobilization teams, lane cleaning teams, garbage disposal and spittoon disposal teams, including inspection teams and evaluation teams for residents from all walks of life. Regular red flag competitions were held between large groups and between groups.

Among them, "Women's Federation representatives Jiang Suqin and Wang Yufang from the salvage team went to the riverbank to salvage. The sewage was deep enough to reach their chests, and the black mud covered their entire bodies, but they had no complaints and happily cleared the mud and floating grass in the riverbank.".

The enthusiasm for such comprehensive mobilization quickly changed the hygiene conditions in the streets and alleys of Shanghai.

On December 25, 2018, three insect science popularization experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Insect Museum came to the Experimental Middle School affiliated to Xuhui Teachers' Continuing Education College and completed a new exploration experiment of "exploring aromatic plants and mosquitoes" with children. Under the guidance of insect experts, students manually installed tools to extract essential oils from lemongrass, and then applied them to their hands to "feed" mosquitoes, testing the mosquito repellent effect of plant essential oils. Photo by reporter Lai Xinlin from our newspaper

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Due to the limited level of knowledge and technological means at that time, in order to eliminate mosquitoes as soon as possible, citizens widely used pesticides and insecticides, including pyrethroids, hexachlorocyclohexane, and DDT.

Citizens will use DDT as mosquito repellent at night. After spraying DDT, in order to achieve the best mosquito control effect, the whole family often closes the windows and sleeps. Although mosquitoes are smoked to death, human health is actually greatly damaged. People will also organize and spontaneously spray pesticides on sewage ditches, stagnant ponds, garbage bins, garbage piles, and other places. Residents exchange opinions and say, "One kilogram of pyrethroid powder dissolved in three kilograms of foreign oil has a fast and strong insecticidal effect, which is worth introducing. Planting should be promoted. DDT or 666 can cause mosquitoes to die in more than ten minutes, but the effect is slower. However, if sprayed in large quantities on the wall, the insecticidal effect can last for weeks or months."

In an interview with Archives Spring and Autumn, Master Zhang, a retired worker in his 70s, said that in those years, "every evening, the cadres of the alleys would go door to door to distribute papers soaked in 'dichlorvos' or sprinkled with' 66 powder ', and then close the doors and windows for a unified time to smoke mosquitoes and flies. First, they would put away all the food and use, and then all the people would go to the alleys, and then spray with spray. At night, looking around, the scene was very spectacular. A few days after the collective action, they did not need to light mosquito incense or hang mosquito nets in bed.". He said, "At that time, there was no concept of environmental pollution. After smoking, everyone was excited to search for the bodies of flies and mosquitoes and report the results."

This mosquito control method gradually disappeared in the urban area, but was preserved at the junction of the suburbs. In 1995, Dr. Yan Zheng, who had just graduated from Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, was assigned to work in Pengpu Town. At this time, Pengpu Town was still a picturesque suburb: the vegetable greenhouses were filled with thriving vegetables, and farmers emerged from self built bungalows and hoes to cultivate in their own plots. He still remembers vividly: sleeping in the hospital on duty at night, fighting against mosquitoes. At that time, the hospital was located at 789 Lingshi Road, and the outer walls of the two-story building were densely covered with ivy, while the inner walls were densely covered with mosquitoes. Waiting for someone to approach, they flew up with a loud bang, like black clouds. Before starting the night shift, the doctor needs to place four large washbasins on the first floor. Each basin should be filled with dichlorvos and poured onto a newspaper. They should be ignited and smoked first to ensure a safe overnight stay.

Back in the day, a reader who loved Pingtan once wrote his own lyrics and submitted a report: "It's scorching summer again, and flies and mosquitoes fly and chirp indiscriminately. They bring countless bacteria, causing a great plague. Cholera, typhoid fever, and red and white dysentery are the three major causes of malaria, and the illness is unbearable. The rapid spread is truly terrifying, and the deaths one after another are truly shocking. To do a good job in epidemic prevention and hygiene, we must focus on producing time with peace of mind. Epidemic prevention is like preventing bandits, and it also requires everyone to work together. Through the neighborhood association, we must abide by the law and implement it in three chapters. We must clear the sewer and drain sewage, clean the streets, and eliminate mosquitoes and flies. We must not abandon melon peels and fruit shells lightly." Garbage and coal ash should not be dumped indiscriminately. Stinky medicine should be evenly distributed; the ground should be defecated frequently; insecticides and disinfectants are as effective as gods. Urinals and public toilets should be regularly rinsed, and the stench should be so strong that it can harm people

More than 70 years have passed, and in the "Six Things to Remember for Home Pest Prevention" released by the media this year, many pest prevention measures are still the same as before, including keeping the home environment clean, keeping food not exposed, removing various accumulated water, preventing mosquito breeding, installing screen doors and windows to prevent mosquitoes from entering the room, taking frequent showers, wearing light colored long sleeved pants when going out during peak mosquito activity hours, and spraying mosquito repellent on exposed skin. It will also organize personnel to put anti mosquito agents on the stagnant water that cannot be removed, and implement space spray and residual spraying in local areas with high density of adult mosquitoes and flies, so as to reduce the density of mosquitoes and flies, thus reducing the epidemic risk of mosquito borne infectious diseases such as dengue fever and intestinal infectious diseases.

On July 1, 2020, in the green space near Beijing Capital International Airport, Chen Xiaolong, a customs officer at the Customs Port Health Supervision Office of Beijing Customs, used the net catching method to monitor midges. A customs officer from the Customs Port Health Supervision Office of Beijing Customs Capital Airport is responsible for monitoring and preventing various vector borne organisms such as mosquitoes and midges, reducing the occurrence of mosquito borne infectious diseases, and strengthening the quarantine defense line at the port from the perspective of vector borne disease prevention and control. As summer night falls, they often leave busy figures in the approximately 35 square kilometer area of the Capital Airport Port area. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Cai Yang