posted on 20 Nov 2023

Masked Hero by Dr Shan Woo Liu and Kaili Liu Gormley, illustrated by Lisa Wee

In the 21st century, we tend to over-use the word ‘hero’ and all too often apply it to modest performers of modest achievements. At the same time, we are often neglectful of the lessons history can teach us and that, in turn, can result in us failing to properly acknowledge or understand the deeds of individuals who do indeed deserve the description of ‘hero’.

This informative and beautifully presented picture book gives us the story of one of those genuine heroes and, in the words of the book’s sub-title, shows us ‘How Wu Lien-teh Invented the Mask That Ended an Epidemic’. 

The book has been written by Wu Lien-teh’s great-grandson, Dr Shan Woo Liu with the help of his school-age daughter, Kaili Liu Gormley who started writing about her great-great-grandfather as part of a school project. And, it’s also significant that the book was written in a time of Covid because a hundred years previously, Wu Lien-teh had confronted an outbreak of pneumonic plague and through his brilliant invention of a mask to protect the wearer from airborne germs, he almost singlehandedly prevented a fearsome outbreak becoming a pandemic. Medical staff today have this breakthrough to thank for the masks that now give them protection from the Covid 19 outbreak.

Lien-teh grew up in British-controlled Malaysia in the late 1800s and was a successful student despite the crowded conditions he lived in. There were no luxuries but he was a creative thinker:

“His school, the Penang Free School, encouraged freedom of thought and belief, and Lien-teh was always thinking quickly and creatively. The school had no equipment for sports, so he and his classmates turned broken bookcases into cricket bats and writing slates into tennis rackets.”

He won a scholarship to attend Cambridge University and was soon becoming an expert in the study of germs. After graduating he returned to Malaysia but found himself having to deal with discrimination from the Europeans who were still the colonial occupiers. Eventually he had the chance to move to China to ‘help lead a new medical college’ but was asked to put himself in great danger to assist with a terrible disease ravaging Northeast China.

Doctors from several countries were drafted in to try and stop the progress of the disease but Lien-teh was the first to spot that this was an illness that wasn’t being spread by fleas and rats but was airborne and was being passed by coughing.

Not everyone agreed with him that his specially designed mask was the answer but he soon proved them all wrong and the disease was stopped in its tracks. It was a breakthrough that would go on to save countless lives – not just in the recent Covid outbreak but in the 1918 flu pandemic too. Understandably, it brought him a nomination for the Nobel Prize in 1935 and he was the first person of Chinese descent to have that accolade.

This is an engaging and inspirational true story of real heroism and demonstrates that science and medicine have no international boundaries. It’s a story that has been beautifully illustrated by Lisa Wee and brought to us by Walker Books under the MIT Kids Press banner and can be obtained from your local independent bookshop – who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have it on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

November 2023