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Text|Contains winter and summer
Edit|Contains winter and summer
If there is one type of health regimen that Chinese men love the most, it is undoubtedly "medicinal wine".
As the most traditional way of health preservation, which Chinese man can refuse to get a pot of treasured medicinal wine? Soak all kinds of precious Chinese medicinal materials into the wine, and seal it in the dust for several years or even decades, not only to maintain health, replenish the body but also warm the stomach on the day of the opening of the altar.
"Aphrodisiac" has been a topic of great concern in medicinal wine since ancient times, and when it comes to this effect, we have to mention an extremely special Chinese medicinal material - seahorse.
As the saying goes, "one horse bubbles for three generations, and people are still there", many medicine and wine lovers have even reached the level of obsession with "seahorses", so much so that after soaking for several years, seahorses only found out that they are "fakes"! At this time, even netizens have to ask, "Can this still be aphrodisiac?"
Why are so many people obsessed with seahorses, and what is the value of seahorses as "Chinese medicinal materials"?
«——【Unique Health Regimen - Medicinal Wine】——»
"Wine", since ancient times, has the title of "the long of a hundred medicines", and has many effects of relieving menstruation and invigorating blood, and warming and dissipating. Li Shizhen, the ancient medical saint who compiled the "Compendium of Materia Medica", left the words "wine, the beauty of the sky".
Traditional Chinese medicine is the most precious cultural treasure of the Chinese nation since ancient times, as early as thousands of years ago, the ancients tried to combine wine with traditional Chinese medicine, and there was a record in the "Emperor's Neijing" that "since ancient times, the sage's soup mash was made to prepare the ear".
So the "medicinal wine" was born, and the ancients left such an evaluation for the medicinal wine - "When the evil spirit comes, take it perfectly." It can be said that in the eyes of the ancients, medicinal wine was a "universal medicine" at that time.
As for the history of medicinal wine, some people believe that it originated in the Tang Dynasty, and some people believe that it originated in the Warring States Period, but the earliest account of medicinal wine can be traced back to the Yin Shang Dynasty, and most people generally believe that the history of medicinal wine originated in ancient times.
In ancient accounts, there is a clear distinction between "鬯" and "wine", as a liquid used for rituals or divination, the "鬯" in ancient books is often made from black millet and tulips.
To this day, tulip is still a Chinese medicinal material, and black millet happens to be the most primitive brewing material, so many people speculate that "鬯" is actually a medicinal wine.
Nowadays, in life, we can always see the figure of medicinal wine, but compared to its essential meaning, it is more like a façade symbol, just like the Northeast people pickle the sauce every time, even if it is not opened and put there, it is "pleasing to the eye".
Therefore, people often add all kinds of Chinese medicinal materials to medicinal wines, and even buy those rare and precious Chinese medicinal materials, just to be able to brew better medicinal wines.
In traditional Chinese medicine, seahorse, as a kind of Chinese herbal medicine, has the effect of tonifying the kidney and aphrodisiac, protecting the nerves, reducing fatigue, etc., so the seahorse has become a highly sought-after "artifact" of soaking wine from ordinary Chinese medicinal materials.
So what role does the seahorse play in nature, and why does it become a highly sought-after medicinal herb as a marine creature?
«——【Magical Sea Creature——Seahorse】——»
Seahorse is a small fish of the Sea Lobrogenidae Sea Dragonaceae, as a small marine creature, the average body length of the seahorse is only 5~30 cm, and because its head is horse-head-shaped, it is named seahorse.
Many people may think that seahorses have the word "horse" in their name, and their appearance is somewhat similar to that of horses on land, so they must move fast in the water.
Unfortunately, although the seahorse has the word "horse", it only looks like a horse, not only does it not have the agility of a horse in the water, but it is even far less than some ordinary aquatic creatures, why is this?
In fact, although the seahorse belongs to the fish, it belongs to the class of bony fishes, although it does not have scales similar to other fish, but it has extremely hard bones, and the hard bone plates in these bodies are the main means of the seahorse to defend against natural predators.
The unique body structure and special bone texture also prevent seahorses from swimming as fast as other fish, and even make them the slowest fish in the world.
This is the very slow swimmer of the seahorse, but it feeds on copepods, which are known for their agility, and maybe you don't know how fast copepods move?
However, experiments have found that a copepod can move up to 500 times its length per second, while a cheetah, known as the "king of speed" on land, can only move at 30 times its own body length per second.
How is this possible? In fact, from the perspective of biological Xi, seahorses are more like "chameleons" in the ocean, and seahorses' eyes can also move independently like chameleons.
When hunting, seahorses tend to cling to aquatic creatures such as aquatic weeds and corals, quietly preparing for ambush prey.
Due to the unique muzzle and nose structure of the seahorse, its head will not fluctuate in the water when it moves, and it is this characteristic that the seahorse constantly "sneaks up" on copepods, so as to prey on agile copepods.
But when it comes to the most famous characteristic of seahorses, it is the process of male "childbirth", which is also the biggest difference between seahorses and most other creatures on earth.
This is mainly due to the fact that male seahorses have a very special belly bag (also known as a "nursery bag"), and during the breeding process, the female seahorse will often lay eggs into the abdominal pocket of the male seahorse, and then let the male seahorse do the work of reproducing offspring.
In the abdominal pouch, the male seahorse will complete the fertilization and gestation of the offspring, and when the seahorse larvae can adapt to the external environment, they will burrow out of the male seahorse's abdominal pouch on their own, and the male seahorse's belly pouch can greatly ensure the safety of the offspring.
But even so, the survival rate of hippopotamus larvae is still less than 0.5%, so the seahorse will give birth to hundreds or even thousands of offspring during each breeding process, and it needs to be reproduced 2~3 times a year, only in this way can the normal reproduction of the race be ensured.
«——【·Market Value and Status Quo·】——»
The unique medicinal value of seahorses has made its market value continue to rise, and even caused seahorses to reach the extent that they were in short supply, and the price of just one pound of dried seahorses can reach about 300~500 yuan.
According to statistics, the mainland's annual consumption demand for dried seahorses is as high as nearly 100 tons, and the annual output value is as high as billions of yuan. However, the annual production volume of the dried seahorse market is only less than 10 tons, and the market is seriously lacking.
In such a market situation, the market demand for dried seahorses is still increasing, so in order to alleviate the market pressure, some people proposed to breed seahorses.
However, the artificial breeding of seahorses is not as easy as imagined, first of all, seahorses belong to the second-class protected animals in the mainland, and the qualifications required for their breeding are more cumbersome, and it is more difficult to obtain breeding licenses.
Secondly, seahorses have extremely strict requirements for water quality and temperature, and a slight carelessness may lead to injury to seahorses. Moreover, the breeding method of Xi sea horses is monogamous, and under the conditions of artificial breeding, the breeding of seahorses has been greatly limited.
As the demand for seahorses continues to increase, the profits behind them have gradually attracted some unscrupulous people, who often make huge profits by fishing wild seahorses.
This has ushered in an unprecedented disaster for wild seahorses, and due to the expansion of human beings to nature in recent years, the habitat of seahorses has been continuously compressed, their reproduction rate has been reduced, and the entire population has become precarious.
And the safety of these seahorses purchased through illegal channels cannot be guaranteed, so that many buyers of wild seahorses have found all kinds of hidden dangers, and even some illegal merchants sell seahorse molds made of plastic as seahorses as seahorses.
«——【·Conclusion·】——»
In order to protect wild seahorses and maintain the marine ecological environment, do not buy seahorse products from informal channels and avoid the risk of being deceived.
Have you ever soaked in "medicinal wine"? What do you think about the story of the "aphrodisiac" of the seahorse?