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It was an incredible time, in the seventies and eighties, people had a story about pagoda sugar in their childhood memories. Although this sugar is delicious, the scene after eating it is unbearable to look at. And behind this story, is a parasite threat, a small monster called roundworm, how does it breed in the human body? Why is this tiny pagoda candy its nemesis? Let's uncover this little-known history together.
The threat of roundworms
Roundworms are insects that live in the small intestine, they are smooth in shape, earthworm-like, and appear pale pink or white with yellow color. Because of their elastic corneum, which makes them resistant to digestive enzymes in the human intestine, roundworms cannot be digested, and their long lifespan and frequent egg-laying make it difficult to eradicate once parasitic in the human body.
Roundworms most often appear in rural areas, where food hygiene standards are low, people only seek to fill their stomachs, and the concept of hygiene is weak. This makes eating food with roundworm eggs commonplace. Once the eggs hatch in the human body, they absorb nutrients and oxygen from the intestines and multiply endlessly. At that time, the medical conditions were not ideal, there was a lack of effective treatment, and there were no specific drugs, so many people were infected with roundworms.
The appearance of pagoda sugar
Then we came to the emergence of pagoda sugar, a drug jointly developed by China and the former Soviet Union to get rid of roundworms. The main components of pagoda sugar include sucrose and piperazine phosphate. In their research, researchers accidentally found that the endemic plant Artemisia annua around the Arctic Circle contains a component that can paralyze roundworms and prevent them from attaching to the intestines, namely piperazine phosphate. Through a large number of experiments and data verification, the researchers finally confirmed the efficacy of piperazine phosphate on roundworms, and began the production of pagoda sugar.
Since roundworms mainly parasitize children, in order to make children more willing to take medicine, when making pagoda sugar, sucrose is added to it, giving the sugar a sweet taste. Coupled with the active publicity of the state, pagoda sugar soon became a "small dessert" for every household. The children embraced and were finally able to easily deworm them. The sight of people who eat pagoda sugar being able to excrete roundworms alive every two or three days may seem disgusting, but it also proves the effectiveness of pagoda sugar.
However, the good times were not usual, and over time, pagoda sugar gradually withdrew from people's lives. Why did it suddenly disappear?
The dilemma of raw materials
The production of pagoda sugar is inseparable from artemisia, however, there was no cultivation of artemisia in China. Artemisia annua is a semi-shrub-like grass that is extremely cold tolerant and grows basically only near the Arctic Circle. Initially, the former Soviet Union sold 20 grams of wormwood seeds to China and supplied more than a dozen pieces of equipment for refining. With the help of experts, China successfully cultivated wormwood in Weifang to make pagoda candy.
However, after the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, the former Soviet Union withdrew their experts and equipment, leaving the production of wormwood in trouble. Due to the lack of professional guidance, a large number of roundworms can only be discarded, and the proportion of purification of drugs has also dropped significantly. Coinciding with that period of time, Weifang experienced two months of rainy weather, the production of wormwood worms was greatly reduced, the supply of pagoda sugar was sharply reduced, and the roundworm epidemic began to spread again.
Domestic independent research and development
However, faced with a difficult situation, Chinese researchers decided to fend for themselves. Despite the loss of technical support from the former Soviet Union, they resolutely developed their own pagoda candy. Although there is no support from artemisia, experts have successfully extracted useful substances from artemisia through unremitting efforts to achieve independent production of pagoda sugar.
However, with the large-scale production of self-developed pagoda sugar, a large inventory was generated. This, in turn, led to a further decline in the supply of wormwood. Fortunately, experts have also developed drugs that do not require wormwood to get rid of roundworms, gradually reducing the need for pagoda sugar. With the improvement of people's living standards and the improvement of food hygiene requirements, the phenomenon of roundworm egg parasitism has become rare. Coupled with improvements in medical infrastructure, roundworms are no longer a big problem now.
The departure of Pagoda Sugar
As roundworms gradually disappear from people's lives, pagoda sugar also loses its necessity for existence. People gradually forget its existence, especially the younger generation, who have long been unfamiliar with pagoda sugar. The evil deeds of roundworms are controlled under modern medical and sanitary conditions, so that pagoda sugar gradually fades out of the historical stage.
In this story, Pagoda Sugar plays a key role, bringing unlimited hope and health to the children of that era, keeping them away from the threat of roundworms. Today, its mission is over, however, it has left a historical chapter of struggle and self-reliance.
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