Chapter 8 iodine tincture

The Chinese often use common names for industrial products.I was born in the city, and I thought I was new enough, but until I went to the countryside, I only knew about iodine but not iodine tincture.Just like I am used to calling red mercury "red potion", methionine solution "purple potion", storage battery "electric medicine", ammeter meter "fire meter", and enamel cup " "Porcelain cylinder", the air raid siren is called "pull heizi", and the whistle is called "calling mouth". After I arrived in Maqiao, I often corrected some of the country people's more rustic names.For example, a square in a city is a square, not a "floor", let alone a "sunping".

I didn't expect at all that men, women and children here use a very formal scientific name: tincture of iodine.On the contrary, they don't know what iodine is. It's strange that I use such a strange word.Even a dumb old crone can speak more academically than I can.When they talked about tincture of iodine in Maqiao dialect, they seemed to have uttered a secret code unintentionally. They usually kept secret codes, but they only spoke out when necessary, connecting with distant modern science. I inquired about the origin of the word.My conjectures fell through one by one.There have never been foreign missionaries here (foreigners may open hospitals and use scientific names for medicines), nor have large-scale troops come here (new troops may be injured or use new names for medicines), and most of the teachers have studied here. In the county town, those farther away have only been to Yueyang or Changsha, and it is impossible to bring back something more modern than the terms there.In the end, I learned that this word was associated with a mysterious person.

Luo Bo, the old village head of Xiacun, held a bamboo pipe and said that a man named Xi Daganzi was the first to use iodine tincture here.