www.construction-physics.com/p/how-long-do-we-wait-for-new-inventions
2 corrections found
China famously couldn’t manufacture them until very recently
China had long manufactured huge numbers of ballpoint pens; the missing domestic capability was high-quality pen tips or tip steel, not the pens themselves.
Full reasoning
This sentence overstates the well-known China ballpoint-pen story. China was already manufacturing ballpoint pens at enormous scale before 2017. What Chinese manufacturers lacked was a domestic source for the pen tips / tip steel / ball-holding socket assembly, so they relied on imported components or materials for that part.
China Daily reported in 2017 that China was already "the world's biggest manufacturer of ballpoint pens" and that the breakthrough was developing its own pen tips, "ending a long-term reliance on imported ones." It also said Chinese manufacturers were already producing 38 billion ballpoint pens every year. The Washington Post similarly described the issue as China's inability to make a high-quality version of the most important part of the pen, its tip.
So the inaccurate part is the implication that China could not manufacture ballpoint pens until recently. The narrower and correct claim would be that China long depended on imports for high-quality pen tips / tip materials.
2 sources
- China develops its own ballpoint pen tips - China Daily
China, the world's biggest manufacturer of ballpoint pens, has finally developed its own pen tips, ending a long-term reliance on imported ones... Stationery manufacturers in China produce 38 billion ballpoint pens every year...
- Finally, China manufactures a ballpoint pen all by itself - The Washington Post
China had long been unable to produce a high-quality version of the most important part of the pen, its tip.
“crippled his mother and blinded his wife perfecting the dose.”
Standard references on Hanaoka say his wife lost her eyesight and his mother died from the experiments; saying he merely "crippled" his mother is inaccurate.
Full reasoning
The dramatic quote gets Hanaoka Seishū's family outcomes wrong. Multiple reputable references describe his anesthetic experiments as causing his wife to lose her eyesight and his mother to die. That directly conflicts with the article's statement that he "crippled" his mother.
The National Library of Medicine's Hidden Treasure exhibition text says: "his mother died; his wife lost her eyesight." A Yale Peabody Museum exhibition catalog says the same thing in slightly fuller form: Hanaoka's "mother died from one experimental potion, and his wife lost her eyesight from another."
So the problem is not the claim about his wife being blinded/losing eyesight; it is the claim about his mother. The historical references I found describe her as dying, not being merely crippled.
2 sources
- Hidden Treasure. The National Library of Medicine
The members of Hanaoka’s family who volunteered as test subjects suffered terribly: his mother died; his wife lost her eyesight.
- Samurai and the Great Peace exhibition catalog - Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
This success came at a price: Hanaoka’s mother died from one experimental potion, and his wife lost her eyesight from another.