(Photos courtesy of Wikipedia).
My Chinese friends here in Malaysia sent me a video talking about Dr. Wu and his invention of a mask which is the forerunner of the N95 mask used to prevent transmission of the coronavirus. He is a fascinating character and his autobiography runs to over 600 pages! I promised I would write up a little account of Dr. Wu to help spread word of his achievements. So, here is the text from my Facebook post today. I think his book would be fascinating to read but, from my brief search, it looks out of print.
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Back in my previous life, I used to use the bubonic plaque as a discussion point in the teaching of infection control to students of Pharmacy in Hong Kong. But I had never come across the fascinating story of the Malaysian Plague Doctor, Dr. Wu Lien-teh. His story has been told recently in local newspapers because of all the discussion about the need to wear face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. You can read more about him here, but for now a brief summary...
Dr. Wu was born in Penang in 1879 and was the first medical student of Chinese descent to study at the University of Cambridge. He moved to China in 1907 and in the winter of 1910 was asked to travel to Harbin to investigate a disease which killed practically 100% of those infected. He identified the disease as pneumonic plague which was spreading in the air. This idea was dismissed by 'experts' because everyone knew it was spread by rats and fleas. But Dr. Wu held firm and designed a special mask made with layers of gauze and cotton to filter the air. Such was the arrogance of a French clinician sent to replace Dr. Wu that Dr. Mesny refused to wear this mask and promptly died a few days after visiting a ward of plague sufferers. It is thought that Dr. Wu's mask is the forerunner of the current N95 mask.
Dr. Wu also initiated quarantine procedures, arranged for buildings to be disinfected, and bodies to be cremated; all quite radical ideas at the time. He became an authority on infection control and was the first Malayan to be nominated for a Noble Prize in 1935. Although a road in Ipoh and a neighbourhood in Penang are named after him, the extraordinary achievements of Dr. Wu, the Plague Doctor, are missing from the history books.
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