For the poison of "Crane Top Red", I believe most readers will see its name before it is seen. It often appears in various novels and became common in various murders and sly struggles of the court. If anyone drank the poison mixed with Crane Ding Red, he would die immediately and become unconscious.
So what kind of medicine is it and how toxic is it? In fact, the main component of Crane Dinghong is arsenic trioxide, the molecular formula As2O3, and you know its alias, this is arsenic.
Arsenic is also a common medicine for storytelling. Wu Dalang in "Water Margin" was poured into a bowl with arsenic medicine by Pan Jinlian, so he died unjustly, but he top red this How do you get the title? In folklore, the red-crowned crane is a very auspicious animal, symbolizing longevity and wealth, but the red on its head is considered to be highly poisonous.
People are always alert to those bright colors in nature. Therefore, many folk tales believe that once the crest of a red-crowned crane is touched by mistake, it will be poisoned to death, and there is no cure. There were not many red-crowned cranes in ancient times, and most people had only seen them in books or paintings. In this way, it would naturally be rumored to be false. Therefore, "Red Peak" is also called "Crane Top Red" or "Erysipelas".
When the Qing Dynasty arrived, the legend was even more outrageous. The ministers of the upper dynasty carried the pearls with the red crown of the crane at any time and place. When they made a mistake or said the wrong thing, they faced When the emperor punishes him, he apologies for it, which is naturally unnecessary. In the earliest days, "Crane Top Red" still referred to the red-crowned crane's head, but it had no other purpose.
However, with the appearance of arsenic, it has changed. Generally speaking, arsenic is a white frost-like powder. However, the ancient technology is limited. When arsenic is forged, various impurities and crystals often appear. It has a bloody red color.
Therefore, the red crane top has become a suggestive term specifically referring to "arsenic", which acts as a cover, and its toxicity is exactly the same as that of arsenic, except that it is called There are more people, and everyone knows that there are actually poisons. What is interesting is that in ancient times, it was mentioned that the inspection of arsenic and crane top red was often used to detect the poison with silver needles. Is this really effective? In fact, silver cannot react with arsenic trioxide, the main component of arsenic, but the ancient arsenic will have a large amount of sulfide, which reacts with silver to make the silver needle black. Therefore, the silver needle test only detects the sulfur-containing impurities in the arsenic That's all, this can be considered a kind of luck.
There was also a good person who added red-crowned crane crumbles to the food of small animals. However, the animals did not react abnormally when they ate them, so the real "red-top" was Not highly toxic.
In the official records, the crane crest is used to refer to the hornbill's head. This bird lives in the tropics. The indigenous people take its head and crotch as decoration. The value can be equal to ivory. During the Yuan Dynasty in China, "Island Yi Zhilue" recorded the story of foreign tributes to the Central Plains dynasty. Therefore, many handicrafts made of crane top red have been passed down in China. Therefore it is also used to refer to carvings.
