Chapter 5 Section 2: Tong Di Zhou who went to the wild to catch frogs

Joseph Needham and his party entered the palace of Li Zhuangyu, and were warmly welcomed and received by the leadership of Tongji University with Ding Wenyuan as the axis. The temple is not dedicated to Confucius, but to Dayu, a legendary irrigation engineer. He taught the Chinese people the knowledge of water conservancy and flood prevention in ancient times. From the podium, people can overlook the swirling brown torrential river below. In the open-air hall, students gathered to listen to special lectures." During the visit, Li and his party made a more detailed inspection of the colleges of Tongji University and learned about the teaching equipment and the situation of teachers and students. Li witnessed the wartime Chinese education. The state of the world: “Here, Tongji’s physics and chemistry departments are struggling because, like Wuhan University, most of their instruments were damaged in bombing and transported from the east, but the engineering departments are thriving. The The school has its own power plant, and students spend a lot of time assembling and erecting a large amount of equipment brought from downstream. There is also assistance from the Allies here, because the professor who studies steel structures is a Polish. It is particularly impressive What impresses me is that the Department of Surveying and Mapping, led by the capable Dr. Ye Xue’an, is well-equipped and almost monopolizes the training of surveyors and cartographers in China.”

Although the other departments of Tongji University are not as prosperous as the School of Engineering, especially the Department of Surveying and Mapping, they have still made a lot of achievements that have attracted the attention of the academic circle under extremely difficult conditions.Before Tongda moved to Lizhuang, there was a disease called "ma foot plague" by the locals in southern Sichuan. The sensation spreads above the person's chest, causing immediate death.The local people fell ill for some unknown reason, so they turned pale when they talked about "hemp".Not long after Tongda Medical College moved to Lizhuang, 37 teachers and students of Yibin Middle School who moved to Lizhuang suddenly fell ill after dinner one day.After preliminary consultation, Professor Tang thought it was poisoning caused by a barium or phosphorus chemical substance.After repeated experiments and researches on animals by Professor Du Gongzhen and Assistant Professor Deng Ruilin in the same hospital, they finally found out that the cause of "ma foot plague" was chronic poisoning caused by the chemical component of barium chloride contained in edible salt.The source of the disease was found, and the disease was quickly subdued.When the news came out, the people of Lizhuang rushed to tell each other and clapped their hands to celebrate.The research achievement "Study on Arthralgia" by professors Tang and Du and assistant professor Deng Ruilin won the first prize of the 1943 National Applied Science Invention Award from the Ministry of Education of the Nationalist Government.A research achievement has saved tens of thousands of lives, and the people in southern Sichuan are very grateful for it. The Yibin Special Administrative Council specially organized villagers to dance lion and dragon lanterns to Tongji University to congratulate. The red sign reads: "Remarkable achievements, The people have benefited a lot; the praise spreads, and the reputation of Tongji is growing day by day." When Joseph Needham heard the story, he felt the love for the working people shown by the professors of Tongji Medical College just like Li Zhuang and the people in southern Sichuan who benefited from it. His spirit and outstanding medical research results gave birth to a feeling of admiration and gratitude from the heart.

During this trip to Lizhuang, Needham also called on Tong Dizhou, a friend he met in Belgium many years ago, and "had a very rare long talk in French".Judging from Needham's records, Tong Dizhou's working environment and work enthusiasm at that time made him admire in surprise. Tong Dizhou was born in the countryside of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in 1902. After graduating from Fudan University in Shanghai, he entered Nanjing Central University as an assistant professor. In 1931, he entered the laboratory of Professor Brasher of Bijing University in Belgium to study biology, and soon transferred to Dalcp. ) assistant to the professor.According to Tong Dizhou’s recollection, after Professor Brasher fell ill, Professor Darke was in charge of the laboratory work, “He asked me to try, and I successfully peeled off the frog’s egg membrane, and Professor Darke let the Americans come to see it. , everyone was very happy and congratulated me. From now on, Professor Duck asked me to do any work, such as dyeing, experimental drawing, etc. In the summer vacation of 1931, Professor Duck took us to a seaside laboratory in France to do experiments on sea squirts. Sea squirts It is more difficult to peel off the egg membrane of the ascidian (compared to that of the frog). He asked me to remove the egg membrane of the sea squirt, and I removed it smoothly. The technical work of doing experiments there is all my business. A year later, I designed I set up a laboratory to work, and the experimental results are very good. There are many people who work in the seaside laboratory every year, including Dr. Needham from the UK. Every year after the experiment, an exhibition will be held on the experimental results, and my experimental results will also be exhibited , made a deep impression on Dr. Needham".

At several exhibitions held on this beach, Needham and Tong Dizhou met and became friends. When Needham saw Tong Dizhou’s experiment, he praised the thin foreign student from the East: “Young Chinese, Talented Chinese!" In 1933, Tong Dizhou received his Ph.D., but Professor Dake asked him to wait another year to write a thesis, and he could get another special Ph.D.But at this time, Tong Dizhou was eager to return to China to work, and replied: "I don't want the special doctor, I want to go back to China." In 1937, when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out, Shandong University moved to Wuwen, then to Shashi, and then went into exile in Wanxian, Sichuan. Due to lack of funds, the Nationalist government adopted an attitude of abandoning it. The school was forced to announce its dissolution. Tong Dizhou and his wife Then he became a homeless street vagabond.After a lot of hard work, the couple first got a position as a translator at the Chongqing National Compilation Center, then taught at the School of Medicine of Central University, and finally moved to Lizhuang Tongji University as a professor of biology.

Although the quiet village of Lizhuang avoids the worry of avoiding the alarm all day long and the threat of family ruin, compared with Chongqing and Chengdu, the environmental conditions are too remote and simple, which brings great difficulties to Tong Dizhou, who is focusing on embryology. Big difficulty.Until his later years, Tong Dizhou still had a vivid memory of this period of life: "The conditions in Tongji University are very difficult. They order oil lamps and have no instruments. They can only use the light of snowy days or sunlight to do some experiments under a microscope. What conditions do you have?" I was doing research work, but the school didn’t even have a decent binocular dissecting microscope, so I couldn’t carry out my work. One day, I came home from school and passed by a thrift store in the town, and found a binocular microscope by accident. I was very happy and thought that with this mirror, I could carry out a lot of research work. When I asked the boss how much this German mirror cost, the boss said 60,000 yuan, which shocked me. Although it is not expensive, 60,000 yuan Yuan was equivalent to two years' salary of the two of us at the time. Ye Yufen and I discussed that we should buy this mirror no matter what. After putting together things together, I borrowed some from several relatives and friends who are enthusiastic about science, and finally bought it This binocular microscope."

Now that the microscope is in hand, Tong Dizhou feels like a treasure, and he is ready to do a great job.But to do embryo experiments, there must be relevant supporting facilities, which made Tong Dizhou helpless, so he had to use simple and simple methods.The only consolation is that Lizhuang is surrounded by rice fields and ponds, and there are groups of frogs active in the fields.Every spring and autumn, Tong Dizhou, his wife, children and some students, carrying large and small basins, go out to the wild to catch frogs and collect frog eggs.For a while, people in the field ditches in Lizhuang ran leapfrogs, chasing each other, splashing mud and water, forming a strange landscape.Many years later, the local villagers still remember the scene of a professor and his wife in Tongji catching frogs in paddy fields and ponds with their trouser legs clasped and barefoot.The students at that time also remembered that outside Professor Tong's laboratory, there were often escaped frogs running around, and some croaked while running away. I am afraid that the outside world will not know their whereabouts, which makes people laugh.It was in such a situation that Tong Dizhou and Needham met unexpectedly.

The old acquaintances who had been apart for more than ten years reunited again in Lizhuang, an ancient town far away from the emperor during the war. Hugh, if you want to talk about it, don't have a feeling in your heart."After the two stood in the courtyard and talked for a long time, Needham remembered that he wanted to visit Tong Dizhou's humble laboratory.Prior to this, Tong Dizhou wrote several high-quality papers based on the experimental results and were able to publish them, which attracted the attention of the biological circles at home and abroad.As a world-class expert in biochemistry, Needham knew Tong Dizhou's series of achievements by heart.But this time when he saw all the experimental equipment and materials, even though he was mentally prepared, he still asked in surprise: "Did you use such equipment to complete such a difficult experiment in this open space?"

Tong Dizhou replied softly: "Yes, the conditions in wartime are like this, you can only do your best." Needham was silent for a moment, shook his head, and said respectfully: "Under such arduous conditions, it is incredible to be able to write such a high-level thesis!" Tong Dizhou smiled, but didn't answer, and didn't know how to answer. When the two walked out of the laboratory and were about to part ways, Needham suddenly turned around and asked, "There is such a good laboratory in Brussels, why do you have to conduct experiments in such a remote mountain village?"

Tong Dizhou replied, "Because I am Chinese." Needham nodded: "Yes, yes, the Chinese are ambitious." This visit left an unforgettable impression on Needham, and later he wrote emotionally in the article "Science in Western Sichuan": "Dr. Tong is undoubtedly the most active experimental embryologist in China today. He and his wife Ye Yufen Together with Dr. Tong, they managed to create great results in a crowded and uncomfortable environment. These achievements not only depended on the improvisation of each step, but also because Dr. Tong chose a machine that could use as little dye, wax and microtome as possible. Such an important topic, that is, to determine the polarity of the cilia of the embryo... This discovery coincides with the latest point of view of Dr. Holt Fried, an authoritative person on the other side of the earth. The British Scientific Mission to China is very honored to bring the Tong couple The scientific research reports were submitted to Western Science Journals for publication.”

Just as Needham praised Tong Dizhou's moral articles and perseverance with surprise, Tong himself felt the pressure from all sides.Many years later, Tong Dizhou said in his memory: "Yoseph Needham came to China and came to see me in the small town of Lizhuang, Yibin. At that time, it caused a sensation in the small town, and also attracted the attention of the Kuomintang government. This is one of the reasons why I can’t stay at Tongji University.” A year later, Tong Dizhou finally got the chance to be under the leadership of President Ding Wenyuan, Dean Xue Zhihao, and his immediate boss, the head of the Department of Biology. Under the joint efforts of the Communist Party of China, he abandoned Tongji University and the humble laboratory where dreams and glory were born, left Lizhuang with his wife and children, and went to teach at Fudan University, his alma mater in Beibei, Chongqing.