Tang Fei-fan

Tang Fei-fan
Tang Fei-fan in 1944 in Kunming, Yunnan.
Native name	湯飛凡 (Tāng Fēifán)
Born	(1897-07-23)July 23, 1897 Liling, Hunan, Qing Empire
Died	September 30, 1958(1958-09-30) (aged 61) Beijing, People's Republic of China Suicide
Other names	Tang Ruizhao (湯瑞昭)
Nationality	Chinese
Fields	Medical microbiology
Institutions	Central Epidemic Prevention Laboratory
Education	Chengnan School
Alma mater	Xiangya College of Medicine Yale University Peking Union Medical College Harvard University
Doctoral advisor	Hans Zinsser
Known for	Chlamydia trachomatis
Influences	Hans Zinsser
Spouse	He Lian (何璉) (m. 1925–58) (Tang Fei-fan died in 1958.)

Tang Fei-fan (simplified Chinese: 汤飞凡; traditional Chinese: 湯飛凡; pinyin: Tāng Fēifán; July 23, 1897 - September 30, 1958) was a Chinese medical microbiologist best known for culturing the Chlamydia trachomatis agent in the yolk sacs of eggs.

During the "Pulling Out Bourgeois White Flag Movement", Tang was brought to be persecuted and suffered political persecution in 1957, he fully demonstrated the attitude not to compromise with the Communist Party at all by suicide to end his own life.

Tang was born Tang Ruizhao (湯瑞昭) 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 (湯秋凡). His father Tang Luquan (湯麓泉) taught at a family friend He Zhongshan's (何忠善) old-style private school, in which Tang Fei-fan studied poetry, history, philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. He's son, He Jian, became Tang Fei-fan's close friend. "Learning from the West with its advanced science and technology；Invigorating the Chinese nation", Tang Fei-fan had often heard the hometown folks talk about reform and revolution in his childhood. When the Chinese were called "sick man of Asia", Tang fei-fan determined to study medicine science.

At the age of twelve, he attended Chengnan School in Changsha, capital of Hunan province. After graduating from the Xiangya College of Medicine (now Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University) in 1921, he earned his doctor's degree in medical science from Yale University. He went back to China in 1921 and that year studied, then taught at Peking Union Medical College. In 1925 he went to the United States again to study bacteriology under Professor Hans Zinsser at Harvard University. He returned to China in 1929 and in the meantime became professor at Medical School of National Central University. In 1935 he was recruited as a researcher at the British National Institute for Medical Research, a position in which he remained until 1937. One day, a Japanese visitor want to shake hands with Tang Fei-fan, he refused and sternly said: "My motherland is being invaded by you country. It's a pity that I can't shake hands with you, please ask your country to stop the invasion of my motherland!"