All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French

Dealing with Blocked Noses in 1930s Shanghai….

Posted: July 16th, 2019 | No Comments »

Who says China Rhyming doesn’t delve deep into the minutiae of inter-war Shanghai life?

A slightly curious 1930s advertisement for a nose blockage treatment produced in Shanghai. The China Biological and Chemical Laboratories is long gone I feel, but once did have offices down on Kiangse Road (Jiangxi Road). What has me slightly alarmed is that Comfortal is advertisied as being between than ‘arsphenamine’ is a derivative of arsphenamine, once used to treat syphilis and yaws (the latter being a tropical infection of the skin, bones and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum pertenue and found mostly, these days at least, in Africa and Papua New Guinea). Seems an odd way to unblock your nose – any ideas sciencey types?



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