Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Five years ago I wrote a fun piece for the Harvard Health Blog called “4th of July: Holiday or hazard?” Perhaps that title reads as excessively alarmist. Look, I’m not out here trying to ruin everyone’s fun. But, as an ER doctor, I have seen my fair share or holiday shenanigans gone
I received a really interesting email from a reader in response to this article and I wanted to share it with you!
The author asked that I not share their name.
But I appreciated the history lesson!
-J
=====
Dear Dr. Faust,
I regularly read Inside Medicine and have found your commentaries both insightful and practical, especially during the pandemic.
But as a practicing Sinologist and dedicated detail freak, I must correct a minor error in your July 4th post. The first cannons used in battle--defining "cannon" as a cylindrical weapon firing projectiles using the explosive pressure of gunpowder--were 13th century, probably made of bamboo, and Chinese (see Prof. T. Andrade's 2016 book from Princeton UP). A bronze cannon weighing 108 kg and found in northwestern China has been controversially dated to the early 13th c., but scholars have cast some doubt on its utility.
The earliest images of metal weapons, also Chinese, show vase-shaped cannons, with heavily reinforced firing chambers. The earliest date-able exemplar--a very small (6 kg) hand-held anti-personnel weapon used by the Mongols--was cast in 1298 and might have been manufactured in some quantity. Historians of East Asia, including Prof. Needham, credit the 13th and 14th century Mongols, their allies and their enemies, with systematic development and use of cannons. The History of the Yuan [Mongol dynasty] recounts the battlefield use of portable cannons in the 1280s, decades before their first appearances in European warfare. Indeed, the transcontinental conquests of the Mongols are usually held to have spread the practical use of cannons across Eurasia.
This doesn't matter much, but I've spent my career teaching against Eurocentrism and it's hard to stop.
I received a really interesting email from a reader in response to this article and I wanted to share it with you!
The author asked that I not share their name.
But I appreciated the history lesson!
-J
=====
Dear Dr. Faust,
I regularly read Inside Medicine and have found your commentaries both insightful and practical, especially during the pandemic.
But as a practicing Sinologist and dedicated detail freak, I must correct a minor error in your July 4th post. The first cannons used in battle--defining "cannon" as a cylindrical weapon firing projectiles using the explosive pressure of gunpowder--were 13th century, probably made of bamboo, and Chinese (see Prof. T. Andrade's 2016 book from Princeton UP). A bronze cannon weighing 108 kg and found in northwestern China has been controversially dated to the early 13th c., but scholars have cast some doubt on its utility.
The earliest images of metal weapons, also Chinese, show vase-shaped cannons, with heavily reinforced firing chambers. The earliest date-able exemplar--a very small (6 kg) hand-held anti-personnel weapon used by the Mongols--was cast in 1298 and might have been manufactured in some quantity. Historians of East Asia, including Prof. Needham, credit the 13th and 14th century Mongols, their allies and their enemies, with systematic development and use of cannons. The History of the Yuan [Mongol dynasty] recounts the battlefield use of portable cannons in the 1280s, decades before their first appearances in European warfare. Indeed, the transcontinental conquests of the Mongols are usually held to have spread the practical use of cannons across Eurasia.
This doesn't matter much, but I've spent my career teaching against Eurocentrism and it's hard to stop.
With gratitude for your work,
[Redacted]
If you survive July 4th 💥 try the pyrotechnics orchestrated to classical music 🎶 on Bastille Day above the Seine at the Champ-de-mars. Magnifique. 🗼