Artemisinin is currently used for treating drug-resistant malaria. It is found in Artemisia annua and also in A. apiacea and A. lancea. Artemisia annua and A. apiacea were known to the Chinese in antiquity and, since they were easily confused with each other, both provided plant material for the herbal drug qing hao (blue-green hao). This article shows, however, that since at least the eleventh century Chinese scholars recognized the difference between the two species, and advocated the use of A. apiacea, rather than A. annua for 'treating lingering heat in joints and bones' and 'exhaustion due to heat/fevers'. The article furthermore provides a literal translation of the method of preparing qing hao for treating intermittent fever episodes, as advocated by the eminent physician Ge Hong in the fourth century CE. His recommendation was to soak the fresh plant in cold water, wring it out and ingest the expressed juice in its raw state. Both findings may have important practical implications for current traditional usage of the plant as an antimalarial: rather than using the dried leaves of A. annua in warm infusions, it suggests that fresh juice extraction from A. apiacea may improve efficacy.

Artemisinin, qinghaosu, was extracted from the traditional Chinese medical drug qinghao (the blue‐green herb) in the early 1970s. Its ‘discovery’ can thus be hailed as an achievement of research groups who were paradoxically successful, working as they were at the height of a political mass movement in communist China, known in the West as the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), a period that was marked by chaos, cruelty and enormous suffering, particularly, but by no means only, among the intelligentsia. On the one hand, China’s cultural heritage was seen as a hindrance to progress and Mao set out to destroy it, but on the other hand he praised it as a ‘treasure house’, full of gems that, if adjusted to the demands of contemporary society, could be used ‘for serving the people’ (wei renmin fuwu). The success of the ‘task of combating malaria’ (kang nüe ren wu), sometimes known as ‘task number five hundred and twenty‐three’, depended crucially on modern scientists who took seriously knowledge that was recorded in a traditional Chinese medical text, Emergency Prescriptions Kept up one’s Sleeve by the famous physician Ge Hong (284–363).

Ancient Chinese herbal texts as far back as the 4th Century Zhou hou bei ji fang describe methods for the use of Qing Hao (Artemisia annua) for the treatment of intermittent fevers. Today, the A. annua constituent artemisinin is an important antimalarial drug and the herb itself is being grown and used locally for malaria treatment although this practice is controversial. Here we show that the ancient Chinese methods that involved either soaking, (followed by wringing) or pounding, (followed by squeezing) the fresh herb are more effective in producing artemisinin-rich extracts than the usual current method of preparing herbal teas from the dried herb. The concentrations of artemisinin in the extracts was up to 20-fold higher than that in a herbal tea prepared from the dried herb, but the amount of total artemisinin extracted by the Chinese methods was much less than that removed in the herbal tea. While both extracts exhibited potent in vitro activities against Plasmodium falciparum, only the pounded juice contained sufficient artemisinin to suppress parasitaemia in P. berghei infected mice. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of malaria treatment using A. annua infusions.

Zanzibar hosts three different groups of Chinese: the so‐called huaqiao community with beginnings that can be traced to the 1930s; the government‐sent teams of experts who since the revolution of 1964 have consolidated the links to the People's Republic of China (PRC); and a new wave of business people since the late 1990s, individual migrants who engage in various trades and generally are very mobile. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Zanzibar in 2001–2004, I explore the backgrounds of these communities and their social relations, as expressed through kinship ties, businesses, medical services, food exchanges and other means of interaction. With few exceptions, members of the three groups were not much interested in increasing relations between each other. They represent different economic positions and wealth, and different allegiances to the local community and to China. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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