Modern Masks have their origin marked to China in 1911 in Manchuria. During the ‘Black Death’ crisis afflicting north China and Russia there was a race to find a cure or solution between the two countries. China brought in a little known physician Dr Lien-teh Wu who had studied in Cambridge and had seen western Doctors using simple handkerchiefs tied around their faces evolved in 1870 preventing Doctors from sneezing or coughing on patients they were treating or operating. Dr Lien-teh Wu professed that plague was airborne and thus devised a modified version of the handkerchief using gauge and several layers of cloth to act as a filtering device during inhalation. This invention was a breakthrough but the West ignored this development as “What does a Chinaman know” and soon faced unprecedented fatalities.
There are references of masks being worn for fashion and ceremonies as costumes and for religious ceremonies and performances
Dr Line the Wu mask won the race in testing as it was found that it does protect from bacteria. Ironic that Dr Wu resonates with Wuhan the current epi-centre for the Covid 19 virus and the cup like N 95 a new avatar has been sprawled all across print and video media as the ultimate saviour of the present pandemic.
Masks and our future, read more in the next…….
