A hygienic mask: wear it over your mouth (meaning: one says one thing and does another).
衛生口罩:嘴上一套。——An old Chinese pun (Bai Citation2001: 1522)
During the 1910–11 Great Manchurian Plague, which caused as many as 60,000 deaths within the space of afew months, face masks made of two layers of gauze and acotton pad were introduced as standard protocol to protect physicians from inhaling airborne contagions (Lynteris Citation2018; Zhang Citation2021). After being appointed the top official of the North Manchurian Plague Prevention Service (Dongsansheng fangyi shiwu zongchu 東三省防疫事務總處),Footnote1 Wu Liande (Wu Lien-Teh) 伍連德 (1879–1960) realized the importance of wearing amask in plague prevention services could not be overstated. However, he and other physicians who shared the same commitment to the efficacy of masks also admitted that “it will be very difficult to enforce the wearing of masks” among “untrained laymen,” because for people with little knowledge of infectious diseases, the wearing of amask “may appear ridiculous or uncalled for” (Wu Citation1926: 399, 398). Therefore, making indigenous people without medical training utilize amedical device properly became along-lasting issue that confounded public health promoters in modern China.
