Tu Youyou devotes herself to work and life, and her husband contracts for housework (Figure)
Author: "Biography of Tu Youyou" writing group.
Publishing House: People’s Publishing House
Publication date: December 2015
Biography of Tu Youyou is the first biography that comprehensively and completely records Ms. Tu Youyou’s life experience. The book shows readers an outstanding female scientist by visiting her and her family, colleagues, classmates and students, as well as more than 130 photos collected by her.
As the only doctoral student in Tu Youyou, Manyuan Wang’s greatest feeling was "complexity" after learning that his teacher had won the prize, but not entirely excitement. During the interview with the reporter of Legal Evening News, he recalled the valuable experience of studying with Teacher Tu.
What kind of learning path did Tu Youyou go through before "determined to find Artemisia"? What unknown story has her love and family experienced? Before "determined to find Artemisia", she had already made all the preparations silently …
be worthy of the name of teacher
The "gifts" for students are two master’s theses.
"Is Teacher Tu a Western doctor or a Chinese doctor?" Every time someone asks her this question, she smiles and doesn’t answer. Manyuan Wang said that Tu Youyou did not care about the dispute between traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine.
"Teacher Tu does not pay attention to the attribution of her research in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, nor does she pay attention to the debate on whether traditional Chinese medicine is scientific. She firmly believes in her heart that traditional medicine is a treasure house, and modern technology can improve the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine." Tu Youyou in Manyuan Wang’s eyes is a medical scientist who takes the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine as his lifelong pursuit in his scientific research career.
"The head of teacher Tu’s lifelong scientific research is to use science and technology to explore the better efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine. She also adheres to this belief in my training." As soon as Manyuan Wang entered the school, she received a "gift" from her teacher-the master’s thesis of Wu Chongming and Gu Yucheng, graduate students from Tu Youyou. These two papers on traditional Chinese medicine have inherited Tu Youyou’s method of artemisinin research. Manyuan Wang believes that this gift is not only intended for him to ponder the research ideas, but also a study of the tradition of his teacher.
During his doctoral studies, Mr. Tu also funded him to go to Peking University Medical Center and Union Medical College to study Chinese herbal medicine chemistry, spectrum analysis and other courses.
"Teacher Tu is a person who is particularly persistent, firm and enterprising, and has no distractions." Manyuan Wang said that Mr. Tu usually has the habit of newspaper clippings, paying special attention to major events and news in the field of health and hygiene, and often asking Manyuan Wang to look for relevant information to supplement his knowledge.
Love division of labor
"Things like shopping are basically done by my old Li."
In 1955, after four years of study, Tu Youyou graduated from Peking University Pharmacy Department and was assigned to work in the Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
In life, Tu Youyou is a down-to-earth "thick line". He doesn’t take care of himself very well and devotes himself to his work. Once, she couldn’t find her identity certificate, so I asked my colleagues to help me find it. When I opened her box, I found that the contents were in a mess, and everyone joked: "It’s not like a girl to clean it up so improperly."
Tu Youyou himself now says that he wants to keep the trivial things around him in order. "I’m still not smart. After I get married, things like buying food and shopping are basically done by my old Li." Tu Youyou’s "Lao Li" is her husband Li Tingzhao.
Li Tingzhao and Tu Youyou are fellow villagers, and they were classmates of Xiaoshi Middle School. In 1951, Li Tingzhao went to Beijing Foreign Studies School to study foreign languages. At this time, it was the time to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and he and many students in his class proposed to go to the Korean battlefield. The news reached Premier Zhou Enlai, and Premier Zhou said, "Don’t go to the Korean battlefield. The country is in urgent need of a large number of outstanding talents. You should continue your studies." Therefore, Li Tingzhao did not go to North Korea, but went to the cram school of Agricultural University to study.
After returning from studying in the Soviet Union, Li Tingzhao was assigned to work in Beiman Steel Plant in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province, and then worked in Maanshan Iron and Steel Plant, Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel and Metallurgical Department.
During her stay at Maanshan Iron and Steel Plant, Li Tingzhao had a sister who happened to work in Beijing. Because they are both fellow villagers, Tu Youyou often meets Li Tingzhao’s sister. When Li Tingzhao visited her sister from Maanshan, she often met her old classmate Tu Youyou. My sister saw what they meant and took the initiative to be a matchmaker. In the long run, two young hearts gradually came together.
In 1963, two years after their reunion in Beijing, they formally entered the marriage hall. Some friends joked that the combination of Li Tingzhao and Tu Youyou is the fusion of tradition (Chinese medicine) and modernity (steel).
The wife of Wang Muzou, a college classmate, is also familiar with Tu Youyou. She said that after marriage, Tu Youyou is not good at housework, and the family affairs are basically covered by her husband. "Tu Youyou has different interests from ordinary girls. She is an open-minded person and her energy is spent on her work."
Children’s feelings
Mother and daughter meet once every three or four years for many years.
Although their roles at home are different, the common theme of Tu Youyou and his wife after marriage is actually only two words-dedication.
"To your task, for us at that time, just work hard and finish the national task. As long as there is a task, the child will leave as soon as he throws it. " Speaking of the past, Tu Youyou seemed very calm. At that time, she was sent to Hainan Island, and her husband, Li Tingzhao, had been sent to the May 7th Cadre School because he had studied metallurgy in the Soviet Union. In order not to affect his work, they gritted their teeth and sent their eldest daughter, who was less than 4 years old, to a full-time nursery, while her youngest daughter was always taken care of by the elderly in her hometown in Ningbo. It is also because of the long separation of flesh and blood that "the eldest daughter didn’t want to call her parents when she took it back."
Li Jun, the youngest daughter, remembers that she had a clear impression of her mother for the first time, and she was over 3 years old. After Li Jun stayed in his hometown in Ningbo for several years, Tu Youyou had a chance to take some time out of his busy scientific research task to see his little daughter who missed him so much. On that day, at the alley in front of my grandparents’ house, Li Jun saw a man coming quickly with his luggage, his hands open, and he kept calling himself: "Xiaojun, Xiaojun …" Li Jun subconsciously stepped back several steps. At that moment, there was no memory of "mother" in the little girl’s mind. She didn’t know that this travel-stained woman was her own imagination. Li Jun still wonders how his mother could recognize herself at that time.
Mother and daughter meet only once every three or four years, and it has been going on for many years. Li Jun, my daughter, also couldn’t understand for a long time. How can a mother abandon her family and even take care of her children for scientific research and career?
Every time a rather "strange" mother and daughter meet, it also makes Tu Youyou secretly doubt his original choice. After many years, she will still say with some regret: "When the children grow up, they even don’t want to go back to Beijing to live with us."
The foreshadowing of life
Learn the processing technology of traditional Chinese medicine from old pharmacists
In 1959, after four years’ work, Tu Youyou became a student of "The Third Session of Chinese Medicine Class for Western Medicine in Chinese Medicine Research Institute" organized by the Ministry of Health, and began to learn Chinese medicine knowledge systematically. For Tu Youyou, it was also the inspiration she found in traditional Chinese medicine, and then she found artemisinin. In the 1950s-1960s, in the medical field of China, it has become a trend for Chinese medicine to learn from Western medicine.
On October 11th, 1958, the Party Group of the Ministry of Health wrote a Summary Report on the Departure Course of Western Medicine and Chinese Medicine to the Central Committee. Mao Zedong made a famous instruction that "China medicine is a great treasure house, which should be explored and improved". Since then, China’s integration of traditional Chinese and western medicine has started rapidly.
In 1959, Tu Youyou became a student of "the third phase of the Chinese medicine class for western medicine in the Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine". During two and a half years of full-time study, she not only mastered theoretical knowledge, but also participated in clinical study. According to his major, Tu Youyou also went deep into the medicinal materials company, learned the identification and processing technology of traditional Chinese medicine from the old pharmacists, and participated in the summary of the experience of processing traditional Chinese medicine in Beijing, so as to have a perceptual understanding of the variety authenticity, authentic quality and processing technology of medicinal materials.
It is precisely because of this groundbreaking off-the-job training that Tu Youyou really began to master the ability to read Chinese medicine and western medicine, and was able to understand their differences in history and ideas, and then linked the empirical knowledge of traditional medicine with the highest level of modern biomedicine, laying a solid foundation for artemisinin research in the future. Finishing/Chen Juanqing