11 Facts About Wu Lien-teh

Wu Lien-teh is the inventor of the Wu mask, which is the forerunner of today's N95 respirator.

Wu Lien-teh was the first Malayan nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in 1935.

Wu Lien-teh's father was a recent immigrant from Taishan, China, and worked as a goldsmith.

Wu Lien-teh had a successful career at university, winning virtually all the available prizes and scholarships.

Wu Lien-teh joined them in editing The Straits Chinese Magazine.

Wu Lien-teh organised a nationwide anti-opium conference in the spring of 1906 that was attended by approximately 3000 people.

Wu Lien-teh later published a work arguing that the traditional Mongol and Buryat hunters had established practices that kept their communities safe and he blamed more recent Shandong immigrants to the area for using hunting methods that captured more sick animals and increased risk of exposure.

Wu Lien-teh was a founder member and first president of the Chinese Medical Association.

Wu Lien-teh was given awards by the Czar of Russia and the President of France, and was awarded honorary degrees by Johns Hopkins University, Peking University, University of Hong Kong, and University of Tokyo.

Wu Lien-teh had bought a new house in Penang for his retirement and had just completed his 667-page autobiography, Plague Fighter, the Autobiography of a Modern Chinese Physician.

Dr Wu Lien-teh is regarded as the first person to modernise China's medical services and medical education.