Tang Feifan was a Chinese medicalmicrobiologist best known for culturing the Chlamydia trachomatis agent in the yolk sacs of eggs. Tang was persecuted during the "Pulling Out Bourgeois White Flag Movement" and committed suicide in 1958.
Biography
Early life
Tang was born Tang Ruizhao in Tangjiaping Village of Liling, Hunan, on July 23, 1897, to a relatively poor gentry family, during the Qing Empire. He was the second of three children. He had a younger brother, Tang Qiufan. His father Tang Luquan taught at a family friend He Zhongshan's old-style private school, in which Tang Feifan studied poetry, history, philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. His son, He Jian, became Tang Feifan's close friend. "Learning from the West with its advanced science and technology；Invigorating the Chinese nation", Tang had often heard the hometown folks talk about reform and revolution in his childhood. When China was often called the "sick man of Asia", Tang determined to study medicine science.
After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938, he founded the Central Epidemic Prevention Laboratory in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan province, and served as its director. He made China's first batch of penicillin and serum with his team for the soldiers at the front. After war he established China's first antibiotic research and penicillin production workshop, as well as normal BCG vaccine laboratory. In 1947 he paid a fact-finding visit to the United Kingdom, attended the 4th World Conference of International Union of Microbiological Societies in the Kingdom of Denmark, and became its standing committee.
People's Republic era
After the establishment of the Communist State, Tang successively served as director of Institute of Biological Products of the Ministry of Health, director of Chinese Medical Association, and director general of Chinese Society for Microbiology. In 1950 he joined the newly created National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products, working as its director. During his time in office, he directed to develop China's first biological products specification - Verification Regulation of Biological Products. That same year, a terrible plague hit the whole north China, he developed China's own yellow fever vaccine. In the mid 1950s, he first cultured the Chlamydia trachomatis agent in the yolk sacs of eggs. In 1958, the "Pulling Out Bourgeois White Flag Movement" broke out. Tang was denounced and labeled as "capitalist academic authority", "scum of the nation", "a faithful running dog for the Kuomintang reactionaries", "American spy", "International spy", "a large white flag on the socialist positions", "ride on the backs of the people", "pseudo scientist", "sell the interests of his own country". Because of the unbearable insult he killed himself on September 30, 1958. In 1978, the Communist Party rehabilitated many victims who suffered political persecution or died in the mass socialism political movements except Tang Feifan. In June 1979, the Ministry of Health held a memorial service for him. In 1981, the International Organization Against Trachoma bestowed its gold medal upon him. He was held in high esteem by British sinologist Joseph Needham. On 20 November 1992, China Post issued a stamp commemorating Tang Feifan as part of the third set of its "Modern Chinese Scientists" stamp series. 55 million copies were printed.
