By Robert L. Moore, MD, MPH, MBA, Chief Medical Officer

“This dramatic escalation of global travel highlighted the perils of emerging infectious diseases.”

–Dr. Wu Lien-teh, talking about the role of railroads on the spread of the Manchurian pneumonic plague of 1910

Born in Malaysia and trained at Cambridge, London, and Paris, Dr. Wu Lien-teh was sent by the Chinese government to control an outbreak of almost universally-fatal pneumonic plague in Manchuria in 1910. He determined that this form of plague was transmitted from person to person by respiratory droplets and developed cloth masks to protect health care workers. European infectious disease physicians initially did not believe Dr. Lien-teh’s findings, partly due to bias against him for being ethnic Chinese. French physician Dr. Gerard Mesny and Scottish physician Arthur Jackson both refused to wear a mask in the hospital treating patients with pneumonic plague, to demonstrate their disagreement with Dr. Lien-teh’s hypotheses. Both contracted pneumonic plague and died.

Refusal to wear masks as a statement of what the person believes, with deadly consequences, is not new to COVID-19. Sadly it has a long history. Luckily, the masks initially used in Manchuria were adapted over the years into the N95 mask and associated personal protective equipment (PPE) we use today.

Dr. Wu Lien-Teh eventually traced the source of the pneumonic plague to trappers of the Mongolian Marmot, which was an endemic carrier of plague. He used a number of measures to study and control the outbreak, including mass cremation of individuals who died, which were unpopular among local officials and the local population. He had to appeal directly to the Chinese emperor for support. Like COVID-19 today, the support of the most senior leader ultimately determined if public health measures would be embraced or not, against resistance of the population.

After COVID-19 is under control, we need to think about how we train not only public health experts, but also non-scientists who may be future political leaders, about the leadership lessons and ethical tradeoffs of past epidemics to try to prevent repeating deadly mistakes of the past in the next pandemic.