[War & Business] The Chinese Doctor Who Invented the Mask

Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a Chinese doctor who developed the world's first medical mask in 1910. [Image source: U.S. Library of Congress website]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] Although medical masks, which have become essential goods worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are generally thought to have been invented in Europe or the United States, the first person to invent them was a Chinese doctor named Wu Liande. He played a crucial role in ending the Manchurian plague, the world's first pandemic, which broke out in Manchuria, China, in 1910, and is regarded as a medical hero in modern China.

The Manchurian plague is known to have spread mainly as hunters caught rodents such as marmots. At that time, the entire Manchurian region was crowded with numerous construction workers building the Manchurian section of the Trans-Siberian Railway under Russian leadership. Since the concept of quarantine did not even exist then, the plague spread rapidly, and as construction workers fled to their hometowns to escape the disease, it spread throughout China.

When more than 100,000 deaths occurred within less than two weeks in China alone, the Russian and Japanese governments pressured the Qing Dynasty government to consider exercising quarantine rights. Quarantine rights referred to the authority to dispatch medical resources and troops to the host country to protect the health and safety of their nationals residing abroad. In reality, it was a threat by Russia and Japan to militarily divide and occupy the Manchurian region under the pretext of quarantine rights.

In this predicament, the then ruler Yuan Shikai gathered a list of Chinese infectious disease experts abroad and invited Dr. Wu Liande, known as the most outstanding talent. He had studied medicine at the University of Cambridge in the UK and had lived in Britain for a long time since childhood, so he was even somewhat unskilled in Chinese. Yuan Shikai gave him full authority and requested him to resolve the plague.

Dr. Wu Liande first stated that this pandemic was a problem that could never be solved by China alone, disclosed all data to the international community, and immediately shared the findings from autopsies of plague patients with the global medical community. He was the first to discover that the plague was transmitted through inhalation of air and developed the first modern form of medical masks and protective suits to prevent airborne transmission.

The medical masks he developed saved the world eight years later during the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the globe. The International Manchurian Plague Research Council he established to promote international cooperation later became the foundation for the establishment of the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, China's current behavior in the COVID-19 situation is far more backward than during the Qing Dynasty 100 years ago. The suspicion that the name of the COVID-19 variant was decided as Omicron after China pressured the WHO to avoid using the surname of Chinese President Xi Jinping starkly reveals the Chinese government's closed nature. If Dr. Wu Liande, who prioritized international cooperation and information sharing, were to see this, it would be a lamentable sight.