The N95 respirator masks in use today have long historical roots. What many do not know is that the design of this essential medical protective equipment was born from the hands of a Malaysian native.
This technology was pioneered by Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a physician born in Penang, Malaysia. In 1935, he became the primary Southeast Asian to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The Manchuria Plague of 1910
History records that the event of the respirator dates back to the winter of 1910 in Manchuria, northern China. A mysterious pneumonia plague swept through the region, causing a 100% mortality rate.
The Qing court, panicking at this emergency, summoned Dr. Wu from Malaysia as their last hope. Wu arrived on the epicenter of the outbreak in town of Harbin in late December 1910.
Upon arrival, Dr. Wu needed to confront the strong beliefs of senior Russian and French doctors. The medical community on the time insisted that the plague was transmitted only by the bites of rat fleas and rodents.
Wu independently verified his suspicions through a dangerous, secret autopsy. He found clinical evidence that the bacteria had attacked the lungs, meaning that the plague was transmitted from individual to individual directly through airborne droplets.
The first invention of the respiratory mask
Dr. Wu’s airborne disease hypothesis was tragically confirmed by a field incident in early January 1911. A senior French physician, Gérald Mesny, ridiculed Wu’s findings and refused to wear a face shield when examining patients.
Mesny contracted pneumonic plague and died just six days later. This real-world event immediately dispelled the doubts of the international medical community.
To treatment this example, Dr. Wu designed a face covering using his research knowledge gained at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. He used low cost materials, easily available to the local population.
He used several layers of sterilized gauze, reinforced with a sheet of thick cotton weighing about 10 grams in the middle. He equipped the device with long ribbons due to which the mask fit well to the anatomy of the face, covering the nose and mouth.
From the 1911 prototype to the fashionable N95 mask
Success in suppressing the plague of 1911 brought Dr. Wu’s layered gauze mask design to the international stage. His basic concepts of close facial fit and multi-layer filtration have grow to be fundamental principles emulated by the world’s scientists.
This exact design was later adopted on a large, global scale in the course of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic to guard hundreds of thousands of residents. For the subsequent several many years, the medical world used Wu’s design as the usual template for respiratory protection.
The mechanical principle of particle retention developed by Dr. Wu was repeatedly developed within the medical world over the next many years. This physical innovation served as the premise for the event of electrostatic filters in modern N95 masks.
Over the next many years, the healthcare industry integrated Dr. Wu’s mechanical filtration system with synthetic polymers and electrostatic charges. This evolution allowed the masks to dam 95% of microscopic particles while remaining breathable.
This technological change ultimately led to the event of melt-blown polypropylene fibers, the core material utilized in modern N95 production. While the fabric has modified from cotton to charged plastic, the mechanical reliance on a good, continuous facial seal stays equivalent to Wu’s original plan.
