Guoshi invisible , don t forget Tang Feifan

We call some great people.

It is often used as "national treasure", or "national scholar".

But there are some of them.

Not everyone knows.

On July 23, 1897, Tang Feifan was born in Liling, Hunan.

The Tang family's family is not well-off. Tang Feifan's father, Tang Luquan, was originally a squire, but because his family was in the middle of the road, he could only go to a private school to teach in exchange for some meager income to support his family.

When Tang Feifan was born, it was after the fiasco of China's First Sino-Japanese War, and the whole country was seeking change, so the people on the high-quality author list did not expect him to continue to take the pedantic road of the imperial examination, and finally let him go to study "new learning" - in 1912, 15-year-old Tang Feifan was admitted to Hunan A Industrial School to study metal engineering. If he hadn't met someone in the summer vacation two years later, Tang Feifan would probably have gone all the way down the road of engineering.

In the summer of 1914, Tang Feifan went to the Pingxian Coal Mine in his neighboring township to observe and study, and met a "strange" person - he and his assistant carried a suitcase with a strange instrument in it, saying that they would check the workers for an invisible insect.

Tang Feifan watched with interest as the man used the magical instrument called the "microscope" to find the eggs of the hookworm on the slice. Soon, with the encouragement and guidance of the "weirdo", he learned to make his own slices and saw the wonderful world of microorganisms under the microscope.

This "weirdo" is called Yan Fuqing, a doctor who returned from studying at Yale University in the United States, and he had an important task at that time: to establish Xiangya Medical College. Because he likes Tang Feifan very much, Yan Fuqing told him the news, hoping that he would be able to apply for the exam at that time.

Yan Fuqing was born in Shanghai. He graduated from St. John's University in Shanghai and Yale University with a Ph.D., and is a well-known medical educator and public health scientist in modern China. It has successively established Hunan Xiangya Medical College, National Fourth Sun Yat-sen University School of Medicine, Zhongshan Hospital and other medical education and medical institutions, and has made outstanding contributions to China's medical education. He is one of the founders of the Chinese Medical Association.

But when it came time to take the exam, Tang Feifan was dumbfounded: as a school co-founded with the Yale-China Association of America, the entrance exam was to test English - Tang Feifan didn't even recognize the 26 English letters.

In a hurry, Tang Feifan found the chief examiner, Hu Mei, a medical doctor from the United States, and made a request:

Can I be exempted from the English test and if I can take it, will I be allowed to retake it at that time? ”

Tang Feifan's sincerity moved Hu Mei, coupled with Yan Fuqing's recommendation, he successfully passed the exam.

After entering the school, Tang Feifan kept his promise, bought a copy of "Merriam-Webster English Dictionary", and read and memorized it every day without sleep or food until the dictionary was completely "broken". But it is precisely because of this that Tang Feifan has been able to understand the foreign teacher's class without any obstacles, and his two long-form graduation articles were finally written in English.

At that time, the school gate of Xiangya Medical College. In 1921, the school had 13 full-time teachers, all but one of whom were medical doctors, including 8 foreign teachers. All the teachers were full-time, and none of them started their own businesses, which was also rare among medical schools in China at that time.

After graduation, many people persuaded Tang Feifan to start a medical practice, so that he could keep food and clothing without worry, and even many wealthy businessmen were willing to invest in him, but Tang Feifan refused. Because he developed a strong interest in microbiology under the microscope during his school studies, he believed that it was a fundamental solution to human diseases

How many patients can a doctor cure in a lifetime? If a method of prevention is invented, hundreds of millions of people can be prevented from getting sick! ”

At this time, Tang Feifan had already decided to embark on the road of microbiology.

In 1925, 28-year-old Tang Feifan embarked on the road to study in the United States.

Prior to that, he was admitted to the Department of Bacteriology of Peking Union Medical College, where he studied bacteriology for three years under the guidance of Professor Tian Bailu, a German-American.

Before going to the United States, Tang Feifan solved a major life event: getting married.

His new wife's name is He Lian, who is 9 years younger than him.

In Tang Feifan's hometown, the Tang family and the He family are world friends. Although someone in the He family was only ten years older than Tang Feifan, he liked his hard work very much, so he always taught him arithmetic and science when he was a child. When Tang Feifan grew up, he married his daughter He Lianxu to him.

Tang Feifan's father-in-law was a brigade commander at the time, and his name was He Jian.

He Jian, later chairman of Hunan Province, Minister of the Interior of the Kuomintang, and second-class army general of the Kuomintang. After Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary coup, he had a large number of Communists, including his wife Yang Kaihui.

Since 1898, when mankind first recognized that there may be a life form in nature that is smaller than bacteria, the study of "viruses" has immediately become a popular subject. However, before the advent of the electron microscope, no one knew what the "virus" looked like, so when Tang Feifan came into contact with the "virus", this discipline was still in a "pioneering development period".

Tang Feifan, who is full of research spirit, has made rapid progress in virus research, and his "Herpes Virus and Encephalitis Problems" and "Research on Ultrafiltration" have been published in the American journals "Experimental Medicine", "Bacteriology", "Immunology" and other journals, becoming a rising star in the American microbiology community.

Tang Feifan

But at this time, Tang Feifan received a letter.

The letter was sent from China by his mentor Yan Fuqing. Yan Fuqing was the dean of the medical school of the National ** University at the time, and he wrote to his former ** to invite him to return to China to help him.

On the one hand, the favorable treatment and superior living conditions, on the other hand, the almost poor motherland and the lack of various necessary support for the microbiology research discipline, Tang Feifan made his choice almost without hesitation

China's scientific undertaking is very backward, and I hope to do my part. ”

In the spring of 1929, Tang Feifan gave up everything he had in the United States and flew back to China to become an associate professor of bacteriology at the Faculty of Medicine of the National ** University, presiding over the work of the entire bacteriology department.

Although Yan Fuqing had admitted in the letter that "the level of teaching and research is very difficult", the poverty of the entire so-called "Department of Bacteriology" was still beyond Tang Feifan's expectations: even the microscope used in experiments also needed him to donate.

But it was with these rudimentary equipment that Tang Feifan took the lead in the construction of bacteriology in China. In 1932, Tang Feifan, who had been promoted to professor, was part-time the director of the bacteriology department of the British-run Shanghai Leisted Institute, and began to conduct research on trachoma, mumps, meningitis, influenza, pathogenic coliform intestines, bovine pleurisy, etc., and published more than 20 valuable articles, which attracted attention in the industry.

At that time, Koch in Germany and Pasteur in France were respected idols in the microbiology community all over the world, and the Japanese bacteriologist Shibazaburo Kitasato was called the "Koch of the East" for his research contributions in serology. And Tang Feifan set a goal for himself: to become the "Pasteur of the East".

In fact, if Tang Feifan is given a few more years, it is possible to achieve this goal.

If it weren't for the sudden arrival of that war.

On July 7, 1937, the Japanese army launched the "Lugou Bridge Incident" and began a full-scale invasion of China.

In fact, since 1931, Tang Feifan has always been full of anger against the Japanese invaders. In 1935, Tang Feifan went to England for a short-term project cooperation. On a visiting occasion, several Japanese wanted to shake hands with Tang Feifan, but he flatly refused:

You Japan are invading China, and I am sorry that I cannot shake hands with you, please tell your country to stop its aggression against our country! ”

On August 13, 1937, the tragic Battle of Songhu broke out, and Tang Feifan and his wife lived in the concession of Shanghai, temporarily safe. But he didn't have the heart to sit down and do his research, he said to his wife

Research, research, research, research out of something no matter how good it is, what is the use of being a slave to the country?! ”

So, he joined the frontline medical ambulance team with his wife. In the days when the war was stalemate, the ambulance station where Tang Feifan worked was almost hit by Japanese artillery fire several times, but he was 1.6 meters tall and comforted others with a smile

Actually, I did this most suitably, because my target was small, and the artillery fire couldn't hit me. ”

Tang Feifan may be able to save the lives of soldiers, but he can't change the tide of the war: Shanghai has fallen, Nanjing has fallen, and the southeast half of the wall is in danger. In 1938, Tang Feifan was invited by a British research institute: a monthly salary of 600 oceans to do research on microorganisms.

At that time, the ** of 600 oceans was definitely not small, and it was also the dream of many people to be able to get out of the war-torn environment.

But it was also at this time that Tang Feifan received another letter from his mentor Yan Fuqing - at that time, Yan Fuqing had been appointed as the director of the National Health Administration. The purpose of the teacher's letter was to hope that he could rebuild the almost paralyzed ** epidemic prevention department.

The "choice of two" similar to that of ten years ago was placed in front of Tang Feifan again, and he once again made a choice without hesitation: to take his wife straight to Changsha and serve as the director of the ** epidemic prevention department.

When Tang Feifan first arrived at the epidemic prevention department, many people were not convinced by him, thinking that he was "opening the back door" to be the director: the director of health, Yan Fuqing, was his teacher, and the Minister of the Interior, He Jian, was his father-in-law. But Tang Feifan quickly made everyone awe with his professional knowledge and style, and then he was even more moved:

In June 1938, the ** Epidemic Prevention Department was moved from Changsha to Kunming due to wartime needs, but the Epidemic Prevention Department was completely "out of food" at that time, and there was no place to stay in Kunming. At the critical moment, Tang Feifan donated his savings, and asked his father-in-law He Jian to ask Yunnan Provincial Chairman Long Yun to set aside a piece of land, and then go to the bank to take out a loan.

In the spring of 1940, the ** epidemic prevention department, which had been about to fall apart, regained its "vitality" under the leadership of Tang Feifan: not only offices and staff dormitories, but also testing institutes, animal rooms, nursery rooms, bacterial seedling rooms, serum rooms and equipment warehouses.

At that time, it was located in Kunming's ** Epidemic Prevention Department Experimental Building

Tang Feifan knows that he and his team are on a mission.

Around 1942, mass production of penicillin became possible.

The Americans quickly recognized the role of this miraculous antimicrobial on the battlefield, and immediately led by the military, began mass production of penicillin, saving the lives of thousands of Allied officers and soldiers on the battlefield.

On the battlefield of China's Anti-Japanese War at that time, penicillin was hard to find - the British and American military strictly controlled all aspects of penicillin production and listed it as a military secret.

In China at that time, a gold bar could only buy a box of penicillin.

What to do? The ** Epidemic Prevention Department led by Tang Feifan decided to develop it itself. In the face of the humble facilities, many people think that Tang Feifan is telling a joke, but his attitude is firm:

Even if there is only one in 10,000 hope, we must do our best to achieve it! ”

This self-reliance began in the winter of 1941. Tang Feifan first led the team to find a strain that could produce penicillin. They searched for all sorts of moldy things: old clothes, fruits, old money, ......Finally, a lump of green mold was found on a pair of leather shoes that had been placed for a long time, and then a strain that could produce penicillin was isolated - this was the first time penicillin was isolated in China at that time.

Early penicillin devices. Since 1929, when American Fleming first published his research on penicillin, the exploration of penicillin has lasted for more than ten years. See [3.]11] He was not the god of medicine, but his discovery changed the world

Joseph Needham was surprised when he visited Tang Feifan's laboratory, which was a penicillin production workshop that didn't even have running water. Tang Feifan and his family took a broken boat to fetch water from the lake and filtered it, using an old and leaky boiler to sterilize the experimental utensils and make distilled water.

Under such conditions, in September 1944, Tang Feifan's team independently developed the first batch of crude penicillin products in China. There were only five bottles in the first batch, and two of them were sent to the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and the University of Wisconsin in the United States for identification – and the test reports showed that there were no problems at all.

After that, penicillin developed by China began to be mass-produced, which not only strongly supported the anti-Japanese battlefield, but even gave some ** to the allies in Europe and the United States. It is worth mentioning that at that time, many wealthy people found Tang Feifan through various channels, and some people were even willing to buy penicillin with gold bars, but all these requests were rejected by Tang Feifan, and he ordered that all penicillin could only be supplied to the soldiers and civilians who really needed it, and the fee was 1 yuan and 1 stick.

Tang Feifan in the experiment

In 1942, the British army fighting on the battlefield of Yunnan and Burma named the cowpox vaccine developed by Tang Feifan's team, and in 1945, a large-scale "** infection" occurred in the US army, and Tang Feifan sent his right-hand man to control it, for which the US military also awarded his assistant the "Medal of Honor for Wartime Merit".

After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Tang Feifan's team moved back to Beiping from Kunming, but the original ** epidemic prevention office had been destroyed by the Japanese army. Tang Feifan once again appealed, and finally on New Year's Day in 1947, a new epidemic prevention department of 10,000 square meters was rebuilt, and China's first antibiotic laboratory and the first laboratory animal breeding farm were established.

However, the epidemic prevention office, which had just been built not long ago, was once again in danger of destruction - in 1948, the Kuomintang was defeated, and the order came: destroy the ** epidemic prevention office to avoid falling into the hands of **.

At the critical moment, Tang Feifan stepped forward: refused to execute!

However, the third major choice in life was also placed in front of Tang Feifan at this time:

You can't go to the epidemic prevention office, so do you go by yourself, or don't you go?

If Tang Feifan did not hesitate to make the first two choices, then when facing the third time, he hesitated.

There were three paths in front of him at that time:

First, go to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek;

Second, accept the invitation of the tutor of Harvard University in the United States, take the whole family to the United States, and teach at the university;

The third is to stay and participate in the construction of New China.

Tang Feifan had no interest in the first one, and quickly vetoed it. But the second point is very powerful for him: it is not because of the good living conditions in the United States, but because it can provide him with an academic and scientific research environment that cannot be provided at home.

Therefore, out of various considerations, he agreed to the invitation of his American mentor, bought a plane ticket, packed all his luggage, and prepared to take his family to Hong Kong at 5 a.m. on April 6, 1949, and then fly to the United States.

But in the middle of the night on April 5, Tang Feifan and his wife couldn't fall asleep looking at the ticket on the table. After pondering for a long time, Tang Feifan finally made a decision:

Leaving my country to send people under the fence, my spirit is unhappy! ”

He Lian, who understood her husband's thoughts, immediately said:

Then let's not go! ”

Tang Feifan with his family

In October 1949, plague broke out in Hebei Province, and when the live attenuated plague vaccine could only be imported from the Soviet Union, Tang Feifan led a team to raid research and development, and rushed to produce more than 9 million ml of live attenuated vaccine in two months, effectively curbing the spread of plague in Hebei;

In 1951, under the suggestion of Tang Feifan, China established the "Biological Products Testing Institute" for the first time, and as the director, he presided over the formulation of the first "Biological Products Manufacturing Inspection Regulations" in New China, and created China's first unified system for biological product quality management;

Under the "ether sterilization" method he established, China produced a large number of high-quality vaccinia vaccines, with a daily output of more than 100,000 – the World Health Organization declared the world "smallpox" virus extinct in 1979, and China achieved this goal as early as 1961.

He used the non-virulent virus strain 17-D obtained from the United States in 1947 to develop an attenuated and inactivated vaccine for yellow fever, which immediately alleviated the problem of inability to vaccinate against yellow fever in Chinese seaports. Under his auspices, the quality and yield of diphtheria toxoid, BCG, pertussis vaccine, gamma globulin and other preparations in China have been greatly improved.

In just five years, from 1949 to 1954, all kinds of virulent diseases in China were effectively controlled, and even the incidence of polio, which causes polio in children, was rapidly declining due to the advent of live measles vaccine.

Behind all this, the Chinese anti-epidemic team led by Tang Feifan is working silently.

At this time, Tang Feifan has been called the "father of Chinese vaccines" by some people.

But there is an even greater achievement that awaits him.

Tang Feifan actually started his research on trachoma very early.

Trachoma is a chronic infectious form of conjunctival keratitis that forms a rough and uneven appearance on the surface of the palpebral conjunctiva that looks like grains of sand. If trachoma is severe, it can cause blindness. In the early 20th century, "trachoma" was a global epidemic, about 25% of the world's people suffer from trachoma, the incidence of trachoma in China is as high as 55%, and in rural areas as high as 80%.

The cause of trachoma has been debated before: Koch in Germany believed that it was caused by bacteria, while others believed that it was caused by viruses. In 1928, the famous Japanese microbiologist Hideyo Noguchi announced that he had isolated "granulobacteria" from trachoma materials, thus proving that "the pathogen of trachoma is bacteria", which caused a sensation in the industry.

Ince Noguchi, a famous Japanese bacteriologist and biologist, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. His main works include "Snake Venom" and "Experimental Diagnosis of Syphilis".

So what exactly triggers trachoma? After 20 years of research interrupted by the war, Tang Feifan led his team to start exploring again after the establishment of New China.

After numerous failures, in 1957, Tang Feifan and his team used a new experimental method to successfully isolate the trachoma pathogen for the first time, which was the world's first trachoma pathogen.

Tang Feifan immediately published his research results in the English edition of the Chinese Medical Journal, which caused a sensation at home and abroad. But questions arise: How do you prove that this pathogen can cause trachoma?

Indeed, Tang Feifan knew that he was facing the same problem as Hideyo Noguchi: if it could not be proved by experiments, then his results would also be wrong.

How to prove it? That's only human experimentation. But trachoma has a probability of causing blindness, so Tang Feifan faced many ** books, regardless of everyone's prevention, and asked his assistant to drip this pathogen into his eyes - he thinks:

If scientific research requires experimentation with human beings, scientific researchers must first start with themselves. ”

After dropping the pathogen, one of Tang Feifan's eyes became red and swollen after a few days, forming a typical trachoma. However, for the accuracy of the experimental results, Tang Feifan insisted on using no medicine, and insisted on working for 40 days with this red, swollen and inflamed eye, and completely recorded the course of trachoma.

Tang Feifan took a photo of his eye at that time, and his left eye was obviously red and swollen (mirrored).

After the pathogen of trachoma was isolated, the world's research on trachoma was pushed to a climax, and the pathogen of trachoma was finally identified as a kind of microorganism between bacteria and viruses, so the classification of the entire human microbiology officially added a body order - chlamydia.

Tang Feifan's research results have made the prevention and development of trachoma have a scientific basis, and new drugs will soon come out. The number of trachoma patients worldwide is rapidly decreasing. In less than two years, the incidence of trachoma in China has dropped to less than 6%, and it is now almost extinct.

In 1957, Tang Feifan was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

That year, he was 60 years old, and with his energy and fighting spirit, he could still do more research and contribution.

No one could have predicted that tragedy would strike suddenly.

In 1958, a huge campaign of "pulling out the white flag and planting the red flag" was launched across the country.

The campaign did not last long, but it was ferocious, and leading figures in various fields, such as Hua Luogeng, Feng Youlan, Chen Yinke, and others were all involved without exception, and as a leader in the domestic microbiology community, Tang Feifan was not immune.

Hua Luogeng was the director of the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the time. In order to protect himself, Hua Luogeng has proposed 12 mathematical indicators to catch up with the United States within 10 years, but he is still criticized: critics say that he advocates the study of the "Gothic conjecture", advocates "ancients, foreigners, and dead people", and poisons young people. Hua Luogeng's transfer of Chen Jingrun to work in the Institute of Mathematics also became a crime, because Chen Jingrun was considered a typical "white specialist" (excellent professional, but wrong political position).

First, his father-in-law is He Jian, an important member of the Kuomintang who has flown to Taiwan, and he is very likely to be a "spy" sent by Taiwan;

Second, it is quite possible that he sold the secrets of chlamydia abroad and is an "international spy".

In this month, as long as Tang Feifan is willing to bow his head and admit his mistakes, his life may be much better. But with his character, he can only allow drops in his eyes for the purpose of scientific research, and he is not used to seeing any "eye medicine", so he insists on refusing to admit his mistake.

In the early morning of September 30, 1958, 61-year-old Tang Feifan chose the most violent way to fight against the humiliation of his personality - hanging himself.

Tang Feifan

In 1962, the Communist Party of China rehabilitated those who were criticized in the "Pull Out the White Flag" movement, of which more than 210,000 party members and cadres were rehabilitated, accounting for about 98% of the total number of party members who were criticized and punished. In addition, the masses who have been criticized and punished have been fully or partially rehabilitated.22More than 90,000 people.

In June 1976, the Ministry of Health held a memorial service for Tang Feifan, restoring Tang Feifan's reputation and giving him high praise.

In 1979, the Ministry of Health completely rehabilitated Tang Feifan.

In 1980, the International Organization for Ophthalmology sent an invitation letter to the Chinese Society of Ophthalmology, hoping to invite Dr. Tang Feifan to attend the International Congress of Ophthalmology held in San Francisco and to recommend him to the Nobel Prize Committee.

But the man is dead, and there is no name for the trachoma virus**. Later, the gold medal issued to him was engraved with the name of another person, and it was ranked before Tang Feifan. After many negotiations and struggles by Tang Feifan's family, the relevant organizations decided to reissue a gold medal, and only the name of "Tang Feifan" was engraved on the back.

In 1992, China issued a commemorative stamp for Tang Feifan.

, the former "** guardian" of China, finally began to be slowly known.

End of this article) Yaqiu said. Do you still remember Hideyo Noguchi, who was overturned by Tang Feifan?

Although he made a mistake in the matter of trachoma pathogen, as a microbiologist, Hideyo Noguchi enjoys a high reputation in Japan, and there is an inspirational manga "The Tale of Hideyo Noguchi" published based on his background, and the famous Japanese writer Junichi Watanabe also spent eight years writing a biography for him "Distant Sunset", which caused a sensation all over Japan.

Today, Noguchi's portrait is printed on Japan's 1,000 yen bill, and his grave in New York has become a must-see memorial site for many Japanese tourists.

In China, by contrast, more people know about Tang Feifan than before, but certainly not enough.

Due to special historical reasons, not only Tang Feifan, but also a large number of Chinese elites have suffered unfair treatment, and some have even paid with their lives for it. Today, their reputations have been restored and their deeds are becoming known, but the lessons they have left behind will need to be remembered for generations to come.

suddenly remembered what Guo Degang said, which is quite interesting:

For example, I said to rocket experts, your rocket fuel is not good, you have to burn wood, it is better to burn coal, coal has to be selected, and coal washing is not good. If the scientist looks me squarely, he's lost. ”

Some people, although we are not familiar with the professional field, but we ordinary people need to remember, and some things, we are not proficient in the industry, we eat melons The masses might as well see more and talk less.

May the true hero never be forgotten. May true experts always be treated kindly.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to all the "** guardians" in this epidemic.

End of full text).This article mainly refers to **:

1. "In Memory of My Grandfather Tang Feifan" (Dong Ling, official ** of the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, October 17, 2014).

2. "China's First Generation Virologist Tang Feifan" (Mei Xingwu, "Yanhuang Chunqiu", Issue 09, 2020).

3. "Penicillin Trial Production Work of the First Epidemic Prevention Department during the Anti-Japanese War" (Xu Dingding, Journal of Chinese Science and Technology History, 2013.03).

4. "Tang Feifan丨The Glory of Chinese Doctors: The World's "Father of Chlamydia"" (Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, "Official Weibo", September 16, 2017).

5. ""Scientific Servant" Tang Feifan (Qiu Peifang, "Archives Spring and Autumn", 2007.03).

6. "The Only Microbiologist on Chinese Stamps - Tang Feifan" (Qing Ningsheng, Acta Microbiologica Sinica, 2006.05).

7. "The Scholar Who Should Not Be Forgotten" (Lin Tianhong, "Evening News", 2016 Issue 03).

8. "Tang Feifan: A Pioneer in Bacterial Research" (Sun Shuo, "Scientific Chinese", Issue 05, 2019).