Mosquito Coil | Guidable - Your Guide to a Sustainable, Wellbeing-centred Life in Japan

Mosquito Coil

By Guidable Writers Jul 23, 2016

The 2016 summer Olympics or Rio 2016 is going to take place in Brazil next month and many people in the world are looking forward to see this historical event in Brazil, but some people may concern about visiting Brazil now.

 

There are some concerns for visiting Brazil, such as security and sanitation problems, but mosquito-borne Zika virus has been the most serious problem for taking place the Olympic game in Brazil. Actually, some athletes have decided to withdraw from Rio 2016 because the Zika virus causes serious health problems against the human body, especially birth defects. Mosquito diseases are still causing serious health problems all over the world now. How can we deal with the problems?

 

Have you ever seen mosquito coils in Japan? There are a lot of types of mosquito coils all over the world, but Japanese mosquito coils are very unique, especially its shapes.


スクリーンショット 2016-07-23 14.59.36[Referene: http://01.gatag.net/img/201507/17l/gatag-00011001.jpg]


There are two types of unique mosquito coils in Japan. Firstly, one of the Japanese mosquito coils which is called “Kayaributa” is very unique because of its shapes. “Kayaributa” looks like a piggy bank, but the piggy style is not for saving money.  “Kayaributa” is a tool for putting mosquito coils its inside and also it looks like pottery. Probably, many Japanese will come up with summer when they see “Kayaributa”.

 

Secondly, the mosquito coils which are made by Dainihon Jouchugiku Co. Ltd is very famous and traditional one. Dainihon Jouchugiku Co. Ltd was established by a Japanese businessman, Eiichiro Ueyama in 1880s. Ueyama got a plant which is called Pyrethrum, using for the natural insecticide at that time from an American businessman in 1880s. The flowers are mixed with water after dried and crushed. It`s the oldest insecticide in the world, but Pyrethrum has been used for natural and not harmful insecticide for a long time.

   

スクリーンショット 2016-07-23 14.21.11[Reference:item.rakuten.co.jp]

 

Ueyama developed the mosquito coil which is made by Pyrethrum and he created a very unique type of mosquito coil, stick shaped mosquito coils. The stick shaped mosquito coil was a new blockbuster product at that time, but stick shaped mosquito coils burned up very quickly (it was burned up only 40 minutes) and it was not effective for repelling mosquitoes. After years of trial and errors, Ueyama finally came up with a more effective shape of mosquito coil, looks like a spiral shaped mosquito coil in 1890s. It was continued to burn up about 7 hours, and Ueyama`s ideas actually came from his wife Yuki (Yuki demanded Ueyama to create longer and thicker, spiral shaped mosquito coils because she saw a big snake near her house and her idea came from the snake).

 


スクリーンショット 2016-07-23 14.21.21
[Reference:yuujinnsha.com]


The spiral shaped mosquito coils are widely used in many countries, such as Southeast Asia and it helps a lot of people from mosquito diseases, for example, Malaria.

 

Osugi

Japan