Appendix 4
Reading to Learn
4A ‧ Ch.8 Infectious and Non-infectious Diseases ‧ p.71
Celebrity Stories The Story of Tu Youyou
Malaria is a terrible infectious disease spread by mosquitoes. It is common in tropical places, such as Africa and South America. The disease has taken hundreds of millions of lives. In 2015, a Chinese scientist called Tu Youyou received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her achievement in developing a medicine for malaria. Tu spent most of her life studying malaria treatment. She and her team studied many old Chinese medical books and traditional healing methods. They examined over 2000 kinds of herbal treatments before they got the idea of using a herb called sweet wormwood from a book written by a medical scientist in the Jin dynasty. This herb seemed to be the key to malaria treatment. They tested the new medicine on themselves to make sure that it was safe for humans. After much hard work, they developed an effective new medicine to treat malaria. sweet wormwood
When Tu received her Nobel Prize, she said, ‘sweet wormwood is a gift from traditional Chinese medicine to the world.’ Her discovery gave new hope to malaria patients and saved more than a million of them.
Tu Youyou
Let’s Think
1. How does malaria spread? In what environment is malaria more common? 2. What can we learn from Tu Youyou? What do you think about the way she used to test the new medicine?
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