On December 11, the famous movie star Chen Chong revealed the news of the death of his mother Zhang Anzhong through his personal Weibo, and the eulogy was sincere and heartfelt, which made people cry. Nandu reporter learned that Zhang Anzhong was a professor at Shanghai First Medical College (now Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University) and was one of the "older generation pharmacologists who have made outstanding contributions to China's drug development" commended by the Chinese Pharmacological Society. Many of the graduate students she supervised later became famous scholars, including Rao Yi, president of Capital Medical University, and Xia Ying, a professor at Fudan University who won the International Traditional Medicine Award with Tu Youyou.
Zhang Anzhong (first from left) with daughter Chen Chong.
According to the data of Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Zhang Anzhong is the eldest daughter of Zhang Changshao, the founder of pharmacology in China, a famous pharmacologist and a first-class professor of pharmacology. In 1941, Shanghai was invaded by the Japanese army, zhang Changshao, who was studying at Harvard University in the United States, returned to China with a strong desire to serve the country and taught at the National Shanghai Medical College that moved inland to Chongqing, and Zhang Anzhong also lived with his father in Chongqing until 1946, when the family returned to Shanghai.
In 1951, Zhang Anzhong followed in his father's footsteps and became an undergraduate student at Shanghai Medical College. Here, she was carefully cultivated by many well-known national basic medicine and clinical medical experts, and also met her husband, Chen Xingrong, who later became the president of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University and a tenured professor. After graduation, Zhang Anzhong took to the podium of his alma mater and devoted himself to research in the fields of neuropharmacology.
Zhang Anzhong in his youth.
Chen Xingrong and Zhang Anzhong had a son and a daughter, born in 1961, and Zhang Changshao named "Chen Chong", which means "the second Azhong" like Zhang Anzhong.
However, after growing up, Chen Chong did not embark on the road of medical research, but devoted himself to acting, at the age of 19, he won the best actress of the 3rd Popular Film Hundred Flowers Awards with the movie "Little Flower", and the movie "The Last Emperor" in the 1980s swept the 60th American Academy Awards, and gradually grew into a filmmaker who played the role of actor, director, screenwriter and so on.
Despite this, Chen Chong has a close relationship with his mother, Zhang Anzhong. She recalls: "A former classmate and colleague of my mother told me that what stood out most about your mother was her imagination, her creative thinking. As soon as she was assigned to the teaching and research team, she compiled a script of "Outgoing Neuropharmacology" and collaborated with another classmate to make an animation film. Because it was filmed well, it was later used throughout China. Maybe my growing interest in storytelling with sound painting was the seed that my mother planted in my soul from an early age. ”
As a scientist, Zhang Anzhong's achievements and contributions have been written into the history of the development of the Department of Integrative Medicine of Shanghai First Medical College, and based on this, the discipline of integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine in Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University has become a national key discipline; in 2009, the Chinese Pharmacological Society commended 86 "older generation pharmacologists who have made outstanding contributions to the development of Chinese medicine", zhang Anzhong is one of them.
As an educator, Zhang Anzhong has also achieved remarkable results. Rao Yi, a well-known scholar and president of Capital Medical University, once wrote that Zhang Anzhong was a graduate tutor during his studies at Shanghai First Medical College from 1983 to 1985, and under her influence, he developed a strong interest in medicine. In 1999, Yan Yiping, a doctoral student supervised by Zhang Anzhong, won the honor of the national Baiyou doctoral dissertation. Xia Ying, another phD student she supervised at the Shanghai School of Medicine at Fudan University, was awarded the Gold Medal of the inaugural Sheikh Zayed International Award for Traditional Medicine in 2020 along with Tu Youyou, a professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
In his later years, Zhang Anzhong settled in Shanghai and often cooked porridge on the phone with a pair of children. Daughter Chen Chong recalled: "She would tell me about the songs she was playing or the books she was reading. My mother read a wide range of books, Chinese and English— from medical literature to best-selling novels. However, from about 8 years ago, she gradually lost her memory, to a deeper degree. On the day of their 85th birthday, Chen Chong and his brother were accompanied by each other in Shanghai, playing old Soviet and American songs on their mobile phones, but their mother, who had a beautiful singing voice, could sing them with a straight face.
In February this year, Zhang Anzhong was diagnosed with lymphoma and his condition improved after receiving chemotherapy; but by the end of September, he was re-admitted to the hospital with a serious infection and mild heart failure, and finally could not be recovered.
After his mother's death, Chen Chong wrote with deep affection, "Her incorruptible purity and truthfulness are more 'girlish' than many young girls I have seen." I prefer to imagine that my mother has gone to the beautiful dimension where love and music are located, with the soul and the dream."
Written by: Nandu reporter Hou Jingjing