Tu Youyou: A 1,600-Year-Old Book Held the Clue… and Her Discovery Saved Millions

Her team tested hundreds of plants.

Nothing worked well.

Then she read one sentence in a book written about 1,600 years earlier.

This is the story of Tu Youyou.

Welcome to brightlivesenglish.com, where we teach real English using real-life stories.

Malaria. Malaria is a serious disease that mosquitoes spread.

Many people were dying from malaria, and the old medicines no longer worked.

Extract. An extract is a liquid that holds the active part of a plant.

Her team made 380 extracts from about 200 herbs.

Ancient. Ancient means very, very old.

She discovered the answer in an ancient book.

Dose. A dose is the amount of a medicine you take at one time.

They took the first doses themselves.

Treatment. A treatment is a medicine or a way to make a sick person better.

It became the best treatment for the most dangerous type of malaria.

Now, one pattern: the present perfect passive.

Have been, plus a past participle.

Millions of lives have been saved.

We don't say who saved them; the important thing is the lives.

Millions of lives have been saved.

Ready? Let's begin.

Tu Youyou was born in Ningbo, China, in 1930.

At 16, she became ill with tuberculosis and had to stop school for two years.

This made her interested in medicine.

She studied pharmacy, the science of medicines, at Peking University.

Then she worked at an academy of traditional Chinese medicine, and she studied both old and modern ways of healing.

In the 1960s, many people were dying from malaria, and the old medicines no longer worked.

China started a secret project to find a new medicine.

It was called Project 523, after the day it started: 23 May 1967.

In 1969, she became the leader of a team.

She had to send her two young daughters to live with others.

Her team collected more than 2,000 old recipes.

Her team made 380 extracts from about 200 herbs.

One plant, sweet wormwood, looked hopeful, but the results changed from test to test.

What was wrong?

She went back to the old books.

In a handbook written by Ge Hong about 1,600 years earlier, she read, "A handful of qinghao immersed in two litres of water, wring out the juice and drink it all."

No boiling! She discovered the answer in an ancient book.

Maybe heat was destroying the medicine.

So her team made the extract at a low temperature.

In October 1971, sample number 191 worked.

In mice, and later in monkeys, it killed all the malaria parasites.

But was it safe for people?

In 1972, she and members of her team volunteered.

They took the first doses themselves.

It was safe.

Soon, in tests with 21 patients on Hainan Island, all of them got better.

The medicine was called artemisinin.

Today, medicines based on it are used all over the world.

It became the best treatment for the most dangerous type of malaria.

Millions of lives have been saved.

Doctors use these modern medicines, not plant juice or herbal tea.

In 2015, she shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

She was the first Chinese woman to win one.

She had no doctorate, and she had never studied abroad.

She called her discovery "a gift from traditional Chinese medicine to the world".

Let's review. Many people were dying from malaria, and the old medicines no longer worked.

Her team made 380 extracts from about 200 herbs.

She discovered the answer in an ancient book.

They took the first doses themselves.

It became the best treatment for the most dangerous type of malaria.

And remember: millions of lives have been saved.

Tu Youyou's story teaches us: old knowledge and new science can work together.

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