Do you know... about Malaysia's plague fighter?

dr Wu lien Teh taught China how to quarantine and cremate their dead during the 1910 Manchurian plague.

Born in penang, he went to penang Free school and subsequently studied medicine at Cambridge university in England after he won the Queen's scholarship.

he was top of his class, won all possible prizes and scholarships, and completed his studies two years ahead of his course.

dr Wu was the first Chinese student in Cambridge university's history to earn a medical degree.

he went on pursue a postgraduate study on malaria at liverpool school of Tropical Medicine, and bacteriology at the hygiene institute of halle in Germany and institute of pasteur in paris.

he returned to Malaya and worked at the institute of Medical research to carry out research on beri beri.

he was involved in the anti-opium movement, which he founded, to pit against the powerful forces – the British colonists who approved the distribution of opium and triad-linked Chinese tycoons.

The authorities fixed him up by raiding his clinic and found a small quantity of opium in the premises.

he was prosecuted and lost the case. dr Wu had no choice but to leave the country by accepting China's offer to work at the imperial army Medical College as one of its vice-directors in 1907. When a pneumonic plague, similar to sars and h1N1, hit China, with 60,000 death in 1911, dr Wu was assigned to investigate the disease.

drWu introduced quarantine and cremated the dead to control the plague. he also introduced face masks to prevent human-to-human contact.

The measures suggested by dr Wu helped to eradicate the plague.

dr Wu returned to Malaya after his wife and three sons were killed by the Japanese army when they invaded China in 1937.

he settled in ipoh and set up a private clinic to practise medicine until he died at aged 80 in 1960.