Dr. Wu Lien-teh's 142nd Birthday March 10, 2021

Today’s Doodle celebrates the 142nd birthday of Chinese-Malaysian epidemiologist Dr. Wu Lien-teh, who invented a surgical face covering that is widely considered the precursor to the N95 mask.

Born into a family of Chinese immigrants in Penang, Malaya (modern-day Malaysia) on this day in 1879, Wu went on to become the first student of Chinese descent to earn his MD from Cambridge University. Following his doctoral studies, he accepted a position as the vice director for China's Imperial Army Medical College in 1908. When an unknown epidemic afflicted north-western China in 1910, the Chinese government appointed Wu to investigate the disease, which he identified as the highly contagious pneumonic plague that spread from human to human through respiratory transmission.

To combat the disease, Wu designed and produced a special surgical mask with cotton and gauze, adding several layers of cloth to filter inhalations. He advised people to wear his newly invented mask and worked with government officials to establish quarantine stations and hospitals, restrict travel, and apply progressive sterilization techniques; his leadership contributed greatly to the end of the pandemic (known as the Manchurian plague) by April 1911—within four months of being tasked with controlling its spread. In 1915, Wu founded the Chinese Medical Association, the country’s largest and oldest non-governmental medical organization. In 1935, he was the first Malaysian—and the first person of Chinese descent–nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work to control the pneumonic plague. A devoted advocate and practitioner of medical advancement, Wu’s efforts not only changed public health in China but that of the entire world. Happy birthday to the man behind the mask, Dr. Wu Lien-teh! Special thanks to the family of Dr. Wu Lien-teh, including his great-granddaughters, Dr. Shan Woo Liu and Ling Woo Liu, for their partnership on this project. Dr. Shan Woo Liu, M.D., S.D., is an attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of a forthcoming children’s book, Masked Hero: The Story of Wu Lien-Teh. Below she shares her thoughts on the Doodle and her great-grandfather’s legacy.

We are honored that Google is celebrating our great-grandfather’s birthday. Just over a century ago, he helped fight off a plague in China and developed techniques such as mask-wearing, that we still use today in our battle against COVID-19. Growing up, we heard our father’s stories about our great-grandfather—that he was famous for controlling the Manchurian pneumonic plague, a disease that was deadly for nearly everyone who contracted it, and that he held a position in China equivalent to Surgeon General in the U.S. A book on our coffee table with a tattered cover, Plague Fighter, reminded us daily of his achievements.

His story stirred something in me, and from an early age, I dreamed of becoming a doctor. Yet it wasn’t until 1995, when I attended the 80th anniversary celebration of his founding of the Chinese Medical Association, that I truly appreciated his legacy. Hundreds of doctors and scientists crowded a Shanghai conference room to hear lectures about his life and career. I learned that he was considered by many to be the father of modern medicine in China. In 2018, I traveled with my family to Harbin, in Northeast China, to visit a museum and research institute built in my great grandfather’s honor. It was humbling to walk in his footsteps in the very same city where he suppressed the plague outbreak a century earlier. Today, as an emergency physician treating COVID-19 patients, I appreciate his bravery all the more. A year ago, I was terrified by how little we knew about the coronavirus. Even now, I struggle to imagine how my great-grandfather must have felt as he cared for patients who had contracted the plague. But I also feel closer to him than ever as I urge my patients to practice social distancing and to wear a mask—the very techniques he pioneered as he rescued China, and possibly the world, from a scourge. Wu Lien-teh remains as much of a hero now as he was then. Pictured: Dr. Wu Lien-Teh Photo credit: Courtesy of the family of Wu Yu-lin, daughter of Wu Lien-teh Pictured: Dr. Wu Lien-Teh in the laboratory, Harbin, Jan 1901 Photo credit: Courtesy of the family of Wu Yu-lin, daughter of Wu Lien-teh