Google Commemorates Surgical Mask Inventor’s 142nd Birthday On Doodle
Image via Google
It would take over a century before the world would fully acknowledge Dr Wu Lien-teh’s vital contributions to the medical field. On March 10, 2021, on what would be Wu’s 142nd birthday, Google honored the surgical mask inventor with a Doodle on its homepage, created alongside his descendants.
Wu was born on March 10, 1879 to a family of Chinese immigrants in Penang, Malaya, now known as Malaysia. He went on to become the first Chinese student to be awarded a medical degree at Cambridge University, receiving multiple prizes and scholarships along the way.
Wu stepped in as vice director for China’s Imperial Army Medical College in 1908, and when a mysterious epidemic swept over north-western China in 1910, he was tasked to look into the disease. He discovered that the deadly and highly contagious pneumonic Manchurian plague was spread via respiratory transmission.
It was then that Wu devised a protective face covering constructed with layers of cotton and gauze, which he urged medical workers and members of the public to use. This mask is widely credited as the earliest version of the N95 mask.
Wu also helped set up quarantine stations and hospitals, adopted modern sterilization techniques, and made recommendations to restrict travel. In just four months, the disease was contained.
In 1915, Wu founded the Chinese Medical Association. In 1935, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions in containing the 1911 epidemic.
Google got permission from and worked with Wu’s family, including his great-granddaughters Dr Shan Woo Liu and Ling Woo Liu, to create a Doodle commemorating the mask inventor.
Apart from imagery of Wu and the community, the letters of the Google logo appear to be stylized in fabric cutouts, depicting the doctor’s process when constructing face masks.
Dr Shan Woo Liu, MD, SD, an attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said she owes much of her career aspirations to her great-grandfather and thanked Google for the tribute. “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,” she noted.
There are indeed parallels between the plague of 1911 and the COVID-19 outbreak. However, while medical professionals are still working hard to manage and comprehend the coronavirus, it can be said that things would be more disastrous if it hadn’t been for Wu’s understanding of how the Manchurian plague was spread, which resulted in the development of the multi-layered mask used by millions today.
Dr Liu reflected, “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.”
Google accompanied the Doodle with COVID-19 resources, which is imaginably what Dr Wu would have wanted.
Proud of the first Malaysian to be nominated for Nobel Prize for Medicine Dr Wu Lien Teh from Penang.https://t.co/Piy41pC2d7https://t.co/ucyfXjxCKT pic.twitter.com/U0bkHCz0bS
— Lim Guan Eng (@guanenglim) March 10, 2021
The N95 mask has become a symbol of these trying times.
— Nicole Wong 王晓庭 (@nicolewong89) July 6, 2020
Dr Wu Lien Teh was a Malaysian physician renowned for his work in public health and particularly, the Manchurian plague of 1910–11.
He was also the first Malaya’s Nobel Prize nominee and the man N95 mask inventor. pic.twitter.com/BImKwVy9br
Look who's on Google's front page today - Penang-born Dr Wu Lien Teh. The first Malaysian to be nominated for a Nobel Prize and the inventor of the N95 mask, the very thing that has protected millions from Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/emWNcLrYrj
— Brendon Lee (@BrendonWLee) March 9, 2021
[via Mashable, images via Google]
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