Dr Gnoh Lean Tuck

From the archives of The Straits Echo newspaper comes this story about a certain Dr Gnoh Lean Tuck who found worldwide fame a few years later as Dr Wu Lien-Teh.

Dr Gnoh Lean Tuck
The Straits Echo, 9 October 1903, Page 5

DR GNOH LEAN Tuck arrived on Wednesday night at 11 pm from Singapore by the German liner Zieten. Many friends and relatives went on board to meet him and escort him ashore in a steam launch. On reaching the wharf he drove to the Ng Sing Kongsi and then to his parents' home at Green Hall. We are informed that Dr Tuck will stay in Penang until the 15th of this month, when he will sail for Kuala Lumpur in order to start work at the Pathological Institute there.

We have much pleasure in giving our readers today the portrait and an authoritative resume of the career of this distinguished Straits Chinese. Mr Tuck obtained the only Queens Scholarship awarded in 1896, at the early age of 16 years. He left his home on Aug 7th of that year, arrived at Cambridge towards the middle of September, and forthwith passed the College entrance examination. He was admitted as a 'Pensioner' at Emmanuel College under the able tutorship of Mr WN Sharshawd, MA, FRS. He began studying Natural Sciences in conjunction with Medicine, but was somewhat handicapped in this respect during the First Term by having to prepare for the "Little Go." This, however, he passed without any difficulty in December of the same year, and thereupon commenced that enthusiasm for science which has continued until the present day. In June 1897, he passed both parts of the first examination for Medical and Surgical Degrees, and in the succeeding December the first part of the second MB Examination. He was classed in the "First Class" in the Intercollegiate examination in Natural Sciences, June 1897, and was elected to an exhibition of £40. The next December he sent in his name for the second part of the second MB Examination (Anatomy and Physiology), which was and still is perhaps the most crucial point in a Cambridge medical student's career. It was an unusually early period for this difficult attempt, and Mr Tuck earned the well-deserved congratulations of his friends and teachers when he got through it easily.

This success enabled our future Doctor to devote the remaining two Terms entirely to science, and when the Tripos lists appeared in June 1899 nobody was surprised at his name being placed amongst the "First Class Honours' Men." He graduated BA a few days afterwards amidst much cheering from the Undergraduates' Gallery in the Senate House, as he was the first Chinaman who had attained that distinction. The four subjects he chose for his Tripos were Chemistry, Zoology, Human Anatomy and Physiology. The authorities of Emmanuel College honoured him by electing him to a Foundation Scholarship of £50 a year.

It was now the end of his third year. In the following September he competed for and won one of the two University Scholarships (value 55 guineas), at St Mary's Hospital London. This scholarship just covered the expenses in fees during the next three years. Mr Tuck's brilliant career was continued in London, and he carried off the most important prizes, namely, the special prize in clinical surgery (1900), the special prize in clinical medicine (1901), the Cheadle Gold Medal in clinical medicine (1902), the Kerslake Scholarship in Pathology and Bacteriology (1902), a record which had never been accomplished by any St Mary's student before.

He passed the first part of the final examination in April 1901, and the second part in the following December.

He had thus taken five and a quarter years altogether in finishing his students' course, and when he graduated MB he was the first and only one to do so out of over 120 students who entered the University in 1896.

At the expiration of the Queen's Scholarship in his fifth year, his old College elected him to the Research Studentship (value £150.) This enabled Tuck to take instruction in Tropical Diseases under Major R Ross, FRS at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and to devote his spare time in the preparation of his MB Thesis on "Certain clinical features of the Blood in Malarial Fever," which degree he obtained in March 1901.

Dr Tuck left England for Germany in April and joined the Hygienic Institute of Halle under Prof Carl Fraenkel. Here he made some important observations on the occurrence of Tetanus Spores in gelatin. The subject of Bacteriology interested him immensely, and he occupied the next six months in this way. He next visited Leipzig, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Munich, Zurich and Berne in succession, but only for short periods, and early in September joined the voluntary staff of the Institute Pasteur at Paris under Prof Metchnikoff. This famous home of research, where Pasteur Roux and others had done such marvellous work for so many years, is the most wonderful institution of its kind in the world, and the large number of excellent workers turned out from it have spread its name, fame and benefits to all parts of the earth's surface.

Dr Tuck returned to England at Christmas of last year, and was early this January appointed House Physician to the well-known Brompton Hospital for Consumption, London, after having graduated MA, a few days previously. Here he served under Dr Percy Kidd, Dr Robert Maguire and Dr Samuel Habershon, all famous London consultants. During this time he completed the Thesis for the MD degree, which he had begun in Germany and continued in France. It was duly presented to and accepted by the Regius Professor last March, so he will now only have to wait another one and a half years for his full degree.

The appointment of House Physician terminated in July, and after a brief holiday in North Wales and some farewell calls on old friends, he left London on August 28th and reached here last night via Singapore, where he was for five days the guest of the Hon Lim Boon Keng. 

It should be added here that Dr Gnoh Lean Tuck's popularity in England and elsewhere was great, and the regret in leaving that country was mutual on both sides. The farewell dinner given in his honour by his many friends in England and presided over by his old Tutor, now chief of the Meteorological Office, London, was a result of the great esteem in which he was held by many English scholars.

To Mr Hargreaves particularly, we are sure, Dr Tuck's return will give the greatest pleasure, since it was he who was mainly responsible for moulding his old pupil's character, and thus fitting him for the honour which he has brought back to those who are near and dear to him, to his admiring countrymen, and to a host of friends of various nationalities.