Dr Wu Lien-teh
Today's Google doodles celebrate Boo Lin Te, an epidemiologist who pioneered the use of face masks to control the epidemic more than a century before the emergence of COVID-19.
Wu was born in Penang, Malaysia, on this day in 1879 and educated in the United Kingdom, and was recruited to work on a deadly disease outbreak in northeastern China in December 1910. The first people to be affected were badger hunters and fur traders, part of a boom. Trade in marmot leather in the region.
From an autopsy examination - the first to be conducted in China - Wu successfully isolated and cultured the bacteria responsible for the disease, identifying it as Yersinia pestis, which was known from previous bubonic plague epidemics.
Wu realized that the disease could be spread by respiratory droplets, and it was not only caught from rats or fleas as many believed at the time.
Wu produced a mask made of cotton and gauze, with additional layers of fabric and safer bands to improve upon earlier designs. He encouraged medical staff and others to wear it to protect themselves, and it was the first time that the use of masks on a large scale was part of an epidemic control strategy. However, it was met with some resistance: a fellow Frenchman died from the plague after refusing to wear a mask.
Wu advised authorities to impose restrictions on movement, including stopping trains, to curb the spread of the disease and direct patients to self-isolate. He also persuaded officials to impose penalties for cremation, which was not usually accepted in China.
The last case of the disease was recorded in March 1911. It became known as the Manchurian Plague, and killed an estimated 60,000 people.
Source:
New Scientist
