A missing story

In November last year, I was invited to write a very short article about Dr Wu Lien-Teh for the MINDS digital newsletter. The guidelines I was required to follow were to have: a brief background of him, his school days in Penang Free School, his work and success in China during the plague, his profound idea on Mask, and the Wu Lien Teh house and any other important exhibits of his.

Well, the newsletter has just been released but the Wu Lien-Teh story is missing. Edged out by other stories. I'm not questioning the decision of the newsletter editorial board but apparently, Dr Wu Lien-Teh is still not important enough in the minds of many informed Malaysians. It's a pity but it shows there's more that needs to be done.

Since it wasn't used, I might as well reproduce it here even if it serves nothing more than to record my contribution. But what's important is that it serves to summarise all of Wu Lien-Teh's life into approximately 600 words.

Remembering Dr Wu Lien-Teh

More than 60 years have passed since the death of Dr Wu Lien-Teh (伍连德) in Penang on 21 January 1960. There is little doubt that Wu Lien-Teh was a Malaysian hero but to me, he towered above all other Malaysians. 

At the height of his remarkable career, he travelled widely to give lectures to medical specialists and researchers. He chaired an international medical conference attended by eminent scientists who came from the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany and the rest of Europe to learn from him. 

As the first president of the China Medical Association (1916-1920), he is recognised as the man who modernised the practice of medicine in China. Such was his world-wide stature that in 1935, he became the first person from the Straits Settlements and British Malaya to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Wu Lien-Teh would not have been so respected if he had not travelled to the Chinese port of Harbin in 1910 to investigate an unknown disease that was killing all its victims. He proved that the carcass of the tarabagan, a rodent renowned for its fur, was responsible for spreading the pneumonic plague. Ultimately, this pandemic claimed some 60,000 lives in China before he brought it under control.

Along the way, he developed a prototype gauze and cotton surgical mask which he insisted his staff wear as protection. This bulky mask is acknowledged to have evolved into today’s N95 mask and it continues to safeguard millions of lives around the world.

Despite his fame and busy schedule, Wu Lien-Teh never forgot his humble roots. During his travels, he usually stopped in Penang and included visits to his alma mater, Penang Free School, where he was School Captain in 1894. 

Winning the coveted Queen’s Scholarship enabled him to study at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. As a qualified medical practitioner, he opened a dispensary in Penang for a few years before accepting a position in China. After he returned from there in 1939, he chose Ipoh to resume work as a medical doctor. Finally retiring in 1960, he died in Penang at the age of 80.

The good doctor is remembered through two roads named after him in Penang and one in Ipoh. There is also a bust of Wu Lien-Teh in the grounds of the Penang Institute in George Town, which is a present from the Harbin Medical University. 

Since 1928, Penang Free School has had a sports house named after him. In 2012, The Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society was established in Penang to celebrate the life of the man who fought the Manchurian plague, modernised medicine in China and set the standard for generations of doctors to follow.