Everybody knows there are four great inventions in ancient China. The value of four great inventions is generally acknowledged by the world. However, maybe you don’t know: there are hundreds of kinds of inventions in the ancient China, and some inventions are very interesting or special. I will collect these inventions then introduce them to everybody. I want to introduce 4 special inventions of ancient China.

1. Carriage that Drum Count Distance

There was a kind of carriage in ancient China. A wooden small dummy stood on the carriage, and hold one drumstick. The wooden small dummy will wave drumstick and beat the small drum in front of it whenever the carriage went a certain distance. So it is known as “Carriage that Drum Count Distance”.

Perhaps you will think it is very magical, I can tell you the principle: A line connect the hand of the wooden small dummy to a gear, the gear is connected with another gear, thus form one set gear group, the end connect with the wheel. When the carriage advances, the wheel drives the gear group, the gear group drives the wooden small dummy, the wooden small dummy will beat the small drum. In fact this is taxi of Ancient China.

2. Censer in Quilt

Perhaps you will think this is inconceivable. One copper container, put perfume and burning charcoal inside it, and then put it into quilt. This is “Censer in Quilt”. It was used for keeping warm in winter in ancient China. Its magic is: No matter how the censer rolls in the quilt, the annular support around censer can situate it in a horizontal position. You needn’t afraid the burning charcoal will fall. Very wonderful! I think this is an interesting China invention.

The following is two special medical inventions of ancient China.

3. Variolation

Prime minister Wang Dan’s son died of variola in Sung Dynasty (960 — 1279). Wang Dan didn’t hope others catch this kind of disease again. He invited the famous doctor from all parts of the country, attempted to find a certain treatment or prevention method. A Taoist priest coming from Mount Emei offered a method: Inject the vaccine of weakening toxicity into the mucosa of nasal cavity of healthy people, thus let people obtain immune ability to variola. This is variolation’s origin. Europe had this technology until the 16th century.

4. Autumn Stone

Because of its appearance looks like the crystalloid with the frost in autumn, ancient Chinese named it as “Autumn Stone”. In fact Autumn Stone is a kind of sex hormone that is drawn out from people’s urine. In the 11th century, famous doctor Zhang Sheng Dao detailed recorded the method that drew the Autumn Stone from people’s urine in his book Experience Prescription. People didn’t find that there was sex hormone in the urine until the 20’s of last century in Europe.