Who's Who in China (3rd edition)/Wu Lien-te

Dr. Wu Lien Teh

吳連德

(Wu Lien-teh)

Dr. Wu Lien-teh was born of Cantonese parentage in 1879 and received his early education in the Straits Settlements. Later he was sent to England. He studied at Cambridge. He was then known as G. L. Tuck. From that University he obtained the degrees B. A., M. B., B. C., and M. D. He won a great reputation both as a student and an original investigator, and was awarded a long list of prizes and honors in general science, surgery, clinical medicine pathology and bacteriology. His old college gave him a travelling scholarship for two years to prosecute research work in Liverpool, Parlis, Germany and the Maalay States, as a result of which he contributed much scientific information to the literature of tetanus, beri-beri, aortic worms and malaria. He was engaged in private practise in Penang from 1907 to 1908, after which he joined the Chines government service at the invitation of Yuan Shih-kai, and became Vice-director of the Peiyang Army Medical College. Later he became its Director. The sudden outbreak of pneumonic plague in Manchuria in February 1911, gave Dr. Wu a fine opportunity to display his constructive gifts, and the success with which he accomplished that difficult and dangerous task won for him an international reputation. In April 1911 the Chinese government called an International Plague Conference to sit at Mukden, and Dr. Wu was elected chairman of that noted assembly of world scientists. Since that time, up to the present, he has been the Director and Chief Medical Officer of the Manchurian Plague Prevention Service. Dr. Wu also represented China at two Hague Opium Conferences (1912 and 1918), the International Congress of Medicine, and the Congress of School Hygiene, Buffalo (1914). The successful establishment of the Peking Central Hospital in 1918 was largely due to the unstinted efforts of Dr. Wu, supported by staunch friends like S. T. Sze, Chou Hsueh-hsi, Tsao Ju-lin, Liang Chi-chao and others. Dr. Wu also possesses the Honorary Degees of LL.D. (Hongkong), Litt. D. (Peking), and is a Fellow of the British Royal Institute of Public Health, Society of Tropical Medicine, and a member of other learned societies in Great Britain, China and Japan. The Chinese government awarded him the 3rd Class Paokuang Chiaho, May 1919; the 2nd Class Tashou Chiaho September 1920, the 2nd Class Paokuang Chiaho, October 1921. He is at present at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, M. D. Dr. Wu is the author of many books of Plague and other medical subjects.