Maybe five years ago, we couldn't imagine that everyone's daily life is inseparable from masks. Of course, many people have not noticed that this humble rectangular cover has saved many lives.
It was in 1910, when the plague broke out in Harbin, Heilongjiang, and many people were infected with the virus and lost their lives.
At the critical moment, a young man stepped forward, and he saved many lives with the first mask he invented in China, and was also nominated for the Nobel Prize.
So who is he? Everything has to start with a strange incident in that year.
There is a virus that spreads
There was a hotel in Fujiadian, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, and one day in early November 1910, Xiao Er, the hotel's shopkeeper, found two bodies in the store. The owner of the hotel saw the situation, did not dare to delay a little, and immediately reported to the official.
The magistrate did not pay attention to the matter, but only sent a trick to find out. The autopsy for the two men was strange, and the two deceased were physically strong and had no obvious trauma. In this way, the two may have had some accident.
When the local officials were preparing to learn about the matter with the headless case, they did not expect to have other incidents. It turned out that the four guests who lived with the two deceased actually died one after another! Before long, the other guests in the hotel, including the innkeeper, also had a strange appearance.
Many people have the same symptoms, fever, cough, coughing up blood. It was also at this time that the magistrate finally began to get nervous. In the area of Fujiadian in Harbin, there have also begun to circulate frightening rumors, some people say that this is a bad thing to do too much, and the little devil has come out to ask for his life.
When the people around Fu Jiadian heard the rumors, they were all panicked. The crowd didn't know the ins and outs of the matter, so the rumors spread more and more evil. The people are looking for ways to bless themselves with peace of mind, such as praying to God and worshiping Buddha.
Modern people know that at that time, what the common people did was nothing more than psychological comfort. At that time, the Qing government and Tsarist Russia jointly built a railway, and under the impetus of the railway, the economy of the three northeastern provinces flourished.
It was also at this time that Japan quietly began to covet the fertile land of the three eastern provinces. Some cultured people believe that the Area around Fujiadian may have been poisoned by the Japanese. It was also at this time that more and more people died mysteriously.
Among those who died were not only Chinese, but also Japanese and Russians. That being the case, is it really the Japanese who are behind the scenes? Although Yu Sixing was a parent official in the Harbin area, he had no authority over all the areas of Harbin.
For the sake of safety, Yu Sixing immediately wrote to his own superior, hoping that he could write to the Qing court and ask the Qing court to send officials to Harbin to solve the problem. The Qing government finally sent officials to Harbin, and when Yu Sixing rushed to the railway station to pick up the station, his heart suddenly cooled.
He was greeted by two young men, one of whom was Woollend, who was in his early thirties. Although wu liande's face was Chinese, he would not even say a word of Chinese. It turned out that Woollen De was a British Malaysian overseas Chinese.
Can Wu Liande take on this big responsibility and discover the truth that led to the inexplicable death of the people in the Harbin area?
Young MD
Woollen De was born on 10 March 1879 in Penang, Malaysia. He has been talented since he was a child and is a good seedling to learn. When Woollend was 17 years old, he was admitted to the Queen's Scholarship and went to Cambridge University to study.
Woollender enrolled in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he completed all his undergraduate and doctoral programs in just 7 years. Eventually, Woollend received his Doctor of Medicine degree. There were 30 MD graduates from major schools in the UK that year, and Woollend was the youngest.
Soon after, Wu Liande came to China. Although there were many highly respected doctors in the Qing court at that time, as soon as they heard that many people had died in the Harbin area, many doctors began to flinch. The Qing government really couldn't find anyone else, so it could only let Wu Liande give it a go.
After Wu Liande received the order, he took the Baker microscope that had followed him for many years and stepped on the train to Harbin with his student Lin Jiarui.
Wu Liande stepped off the train, and the atmosphere of Harbin was swept away. The day Wu Liande arrived in Harbin was Christmas Eve. According to the past tradition of Harbin, this day must be full of lights, and the streets are not busy.
But the death caused by unknown causes shrouded Harbin with an indescribable silence. Unlike the rest of Harbin, the Fujiadian area is home to a large number of gold-digging laborers from various provinces, and once they step on the train back home, perhaps the unexplained deaths will spread across the country.
Not only that, but not only the local residents but also many foreign envoys settled in Harbin. Once things are not in place, international events can also be triggered. Wu Liande did not dare to delay at all, let alone have a hint of fatigue.
When Wu Liande first arrived in Harbin, the death toll was reported every day. At first, it was a few people, but within half a month, the death toll had risen to dozens of people per day. By a month later, the number of deaths per day had exceeded 100.
Everything is spreading towards unpredictable scope. Some patients who have died in their homes will throw them on the side of the road or on the street in order to avoid harming others. If the situation continues like this, Woollender really can't imagine the terrible consequences.
There are several thorny issues before Woollend today. First, what exactly is the disease that causes death? How is the disease transmitted? Only by solving the first two problems can Wu Liande win the trust and support of the Qing government.
In this way, he can take the most effective measures to stop the spread of the disease. Where will he start solving the many problems in front of Wu Liande?
Wu Liande considered the current situation and finally decided to start at the source of the problem, that is, to examine the two strong men who died of unknown causes in the first place. Wu Liande found out that the two were from Manchuria, in fact, as early as the Earlier Times, there were already cases of unexplained deaths on the Border between China and Russia.
It was just that in order to avoid affecting more people, Tsarist Russia expelled many laborers on the Sino-Russian border. The two strong men took the train that departed from the Border between China and Russia and then bound for Harbin. The invisible lethal virus followed two strong men to Harbin on the Border between China and Russia.
Subsequently, Woollend examined most of the deaths and found that the symptoms of the crowd were very similar to that of the plague. As a MD from the University of Cambridge, Woollend was well aware of the dangers of the plague. It is reported that there is no specific drug for plague, and the fatality rate is extremely high. That is, people infected with the plague have only one consequence: death.
Plague pandemic
In fact, the Black Death that prevailed in Europe was the plague. As early as the history of human development, there have been two major outbreaks of plague. The first large-scale outbreak of plague was in the sixth century AD, because of the plague outbreak, which led to the death of most people in Rome. It was also because of the epidemic of plague that the Roman Empire turned from prosperity to decline.
The second mass outbreak of plague was in medieval Europe, where a plague directly killed 25 million people. It is reported that after this disaster, only 2/3 of the existing population of Europe remains. Woollender knew that if he did not control the development of the plague, perhaps China would become the second medieval Europe.
Although many experts, including Woollender, have determined that the deadly virus at that time was plague. But many people have no idea how to prevent and avoid greater transmission. Through extensive research on deaths, Woollender came to an unusual conclusion: this plague outbreak was not directly transmitted to humans by rats!
However, if Woollinder wants to confirm his conjecture, he still needs pathological experiments. It should be known that the Qing government had not yet perished at that time, and people's cognition was still at the level of "the parents of the body's skin". Who can agree to have themselves or their family dissected?
Even those who have died want to leave a whole body for burial. Not to mention that people at that time could not accept it, even the Qing government also had relevant regulations. If Wu Liande had dissected someone else's body in violation of the law, perhaps he would have been expelled from Harbin.
Dissect or not dissect? In fact, when facing this problem, Wu Liande did not hesitate at all. As a doctor who saves lives and helps the injured, his duty is to find out the truth about the treatment of patients, and the fame and honor next to him are all things outside the body, and Wu Liande does not care very much.
Coincidentally, on December 26, a Japanese woman died suddenly. Woollender immediately dissected the woman with his assistants, and to avoid complications, everything was done in secret.
After simple disinfection and protection, Woollinder examined the body. He then made scrapes from the material extracted from the tissue of the corpse, which he then examined under a microscope.
Eventually, Woollend examined the oval Y. pestis from the dead. This also proves that the disease that is prevalent in Fujiadian in Harbin is the plague. According to the normal route of plague transmission, fleas bite mice, and then contact and bite humans to spread the disease.
But the plague in the Harbin area is another way of transmission. Wu Liande found that the plague virus in the Fujiadian area was spread from person to person. That is, a new plague virus discovered by Woollender.
The virus does not need to go through the mouse link, but is transmitted through droplets from person to person. To distinguish the traditional spread of plague, Woollender named the virus Pneumonic Plague. In order to control the continued spread of pneumonic plague, Wu Liande immediately reported it to the Qing government.
First, suspend local and other regional rail lines. Second, isolate the Fujiadian area. Finally, more doctors were recruited to focus on fighting the epidemic in the Fujiadian area. It is precisely because of this that a French doctor, Messney, also came to Harbin.
The consequences of unbelief
Because Messney has been practicing medicine in China for many years, he believes that his medical skills are more advanced than Chinese. Therefore, Messney, who had just arrived in Harbin, believed that Wu Liande was not qualified to lead himself. Most importantly, Mesni also did not believe that plague could be transmitted from person to person.
In order to lead the fight against the epidemic in Harbin, Mesni wanted to put pressure on the Qing government through the French consulate. After Wu Liande learned about it, he immediately expressed to the Qing government that he was willing to resign as the chief medical officer of harbin epidemic prevention. Unexpectedly, two days later, Wu Liande received the appointment notice from the Qing government again, and he still presided over the epidemic prevention work in Harbin.
This surprised Wu Liande, according to the practice of the Qing government at that time, if foreign countries put pressure on the imperial court, the Qing government has always compromised, why is the result different this time? Two days later, Woollend finally learned the truth, and it turned out that Mesni was infected with the plague.
When Mesny arrived in Harbin, he immediately went to the Harbin Railway Hospital to visit 4 plague patients. Because Mesni didn't have any protection, two days later his body developed various symptoms. With fever, coughing, coughing up blood, lung pain, and purple body, Mesny, a doctor, finally realized she was infected with the plague.
Although he finally realized that he was wrong, Woollender was right. However, Mesny never had a chance to correct his mistakes, and after 6 days of his illness, Mesny died. Because of Mesny's celebrity effect, his death set off a lot of waves in Harbin.
In order to avoid the widespread spread of pneumonic plague, Wu Liande immediately reported to the government to shut down tobacco pipes, tea houses, taverns, brothels and other business places to avoid more population gatherings and causing infection. In order to let the people in the Fujiadian area better understand the spread and harm of pneumonic plague, Wu Liande ordered the posting of notices on pneumonic plague information in the local streets and alleys.
Not only that, Wu Liande also ordered the implementation of a quarantine policy in the Fujiadian area. In order to avoid the spillover of the epidemic, Wu Liande implemented zoning management in the Fujiadian area. Not only that, but there are also local search teams that go door-to-door every day.
Once a person is found to be infected with plague, it is immediately sent to the epidemic prevention hospital for isolation. Not only that, but the team also thoroughly disinfects the houses where the plague-infected people lived. For example, raw sulfur is used for disinfection with stone carbonate.
Under the simultaneous implementation of Wu Liande's various measures, Fu Jiadian's epidemic prevention work has been quite strict. The epidemic prevention and response measures in the Fujiadian area have also set a good example for the entire northeast region. Other regions have also followed the Fujiadian model and started a strict epidemic prevention work.
After in-depth research on patients, Wu Liande finally discovered the spread of pneumonic plague. It turns out that the virus is incapable of spreading within 72 hours of the patient's infection. After more than 72 hours of infection, the pneumonic plague virus in the body gradually increased, and the patient in turn polluted the surrounding air through coughing.
Before many patients die, the uneasiness of the disease aggravates the spread of the cough. As soon as the infected patient coughed, the air around him seemed to have been sprayed with spray, stained with a large amount of plague bacteria.
To avoid droplet infection among patients, Woollend invented a simple medical object. Woollinder folded the gauze together and placed a cotton pad in the middle of the gauze. As long as you carry this object, you can effectively isolate the patient's droplet transmission.
Don't look at this kind of object is very cheap, but it can effectively isolate the droplet transmission caused by the patient. Later, Wu Liande introduced this medical object to colleagues from all walks of life at the International Plague Research Conference. After seeing it, doctors from all over the world agreed with it.
It was because of Wu Liande's invention that the spread of pneumonic plague in the three eastern provinces was finally effectively controlled. Even today, we still use masks invented by Wu Liande, which medical staff call Wu's masks.
In order to prevent the spread of pneumonic plague from Harbin to Guannei, Wu Liande immediately reported to the Qing government and requested that the railway from Harbin to various places be suspended. Under the negotiations of the Qing government, all the railway lines in Japan and Russia were suspended. The Qing government also suspended the Beijing-Tianjin train line to avoid the spread of pneumonic plague. Thanks to Wu Liande's efforts, all railways inside and outside the Guanxi Pass were suspended.
However, Wu Liande still did not dare to slacken off. One day, Wu Liande came to the suburban cemetery and found that the cemetery was densely packed with coffins, and some corpses were simply thrown on the ground. Wu Liande was furious, and he asked the epidemic prevention personnel why they did not dig deep and bury as required.
The epidemic prevention personnel picked up the shovel and smashed it vigorously, and the ground on the ground did not move. It turned out that the three eastern provinces were in the cold winter moon, and the snow on the ground was 5-6 inches thick, and it was quite difficult to dig a pit and bury the body! Woolend thought about it, and if he didn't find a way to solve it right away, this would be the biggest source of plague transmission in the future.
Save more lives
At this time, Woollend remembered that when Messney died, the French consulate had burned Messney's clothes. Woollender also wanted to dispose of the exposed bodies in this way, but the people at that time believed in burial. In order to continue to reincarnate as a human being in the next life, everyone wants to keep a whole corpse.
Woollender knew that if he simply appealed, no one would support him. So he drove local officials and squires to the mass graves in the suburbs. The crowd saw the scene of the cemetery and finally agreed with Wu Liande's cremation.
Subsequently, Wu Liande asked Xi Liang, the governor of the three eastern provinces, to write to the Qing government to agree to the practice of burning the corpses. Xi Liang did not dare to be a little sloppy, and immediately reported it to the imperial court. At that time, the new emperor Puyi was still young, and everything was managed by the regent Zaifeng.
Although Zaifeng has always been timid and afraid of things, he quickly replied to Xi Liang's recital: agree to cremation! On January 31, 1911, the first day of the Lunar New Year, Wu Liande took the epidemic prevention personnel to the suburban mass burial post. With an order, the epidemic prevention personnel poured fire oil on the arranged coffins. After a while, all 2,200 bodies were burned to the ground.
With the fire on the first day of the Chinese New Year, the number of deaths due to plague in the Fujiadian area is also decreasing. Initially, the death toll dropped from 183 to 165. In the days that followed, the death toll kept decreasing. With the arrival of the Year of the Pig, the fear of plague in the hearts of people in the Fujiadian area gradually disappeared.
Seeing the effect of Wuliande's cremation, the Russian consulates followed suit. It is reported that the Russian consulate burned nearly 1500 corpses, and the pneumonic plague was finally effectively controlled. It was not until March 1, 1911, that the number of deaths due to the plague finally dropped to zero.
In the days that followed, the number of plague deaths in the Fujiadian area remained at zero. It was also at this time that the quarantine in the Fujiadian area could finally be lifted! After this battle, Wu Liande's reputation was greatly enhanced.
The epidemic prevention work in the Fujiadian area is over, but Wu Liande's research work continues. Although Wu Liande confirmed that the plague can spread from person to person, where did the plague in the Fujiadian area come from?
Woollender suspects that the source of infection is marmots. In the following period, Wu Liande and several medical experts went to the Sino-Russian border to investigate, and finally proved that there can be direct transmission between marmots. That is to say, avoid the medium of fleas, not only that, but also can directly spread germs from person to person.
Because of his outstanding contributions to pneumonic plague, he was elected as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1935. Although Woollender was not successfully elected, his contribution was indelible.
With his rich school hours, Wu Liande single-handedly saved the lives of ordinary people in the Fujiadian area. It was precisely because of his presence that a larger natural disaster was avoided.
Subsequently, Wu Liande extinguished a number of plagues in Shanghai, Northeast China in 1919, 1920, 1926 and 1932. He is a true "plague fighter" and a brave retrograde.
Although Woollinder is some time away from the era in which we live, we should still remember that there was such a healer in the long river of history who once gave the dark society of that time the most brilliant light.
Nowadays, the epidemic is rampant, more and more doctors and nurses are also "retrograde" like Wu Liande, it is with them that our lives have a better guarantee, pay tribute to all medical staff!