Doctor Ton That Tung and his world-class discoveries.

(Baonghean.vn) - At the young age of 27-28, Ton That Tung had already been awarded a silver medal by the French Union and a silver medal by the University of Paris Medical School. He became head of the Surgery Department at Hanoi Medical School at the age of 28. Before the August Revolution, he had published 62 works in French medical journals in Paris and the Far East.

Establishing a prominent position in medicine.

Professor and Doctor Ton That Tung was born on May 10, 1912, in Thanh Hoa province. He passed away on May 7, 1982, in Hanoi at the age of 70. His father was the Governor-General of Thanh Hoa province. His father died when Tung was only three months old; his mother took him back to Hue, where he lived in a house with a large garden on the banks of the Perfume River, near Bach Ho Bridge. At the age of nine, Ton That Tung moved to Hanoi and lived with Dr. Ho Dac Di (at that time the only indigenous surgeon in all of Indochina) to attend Buoi School and then Hanoi Medical University.

Doctor Ton That Tung.

Caught between a weak medical system dominated by the French, but through hard work, a thirst for knowledge, observation, and practice, Dr. Ton brought glory to his country's medicine, and earned the admiration of his colleagues worldwide.

Overcoming all the difficulties, both in terms of medical infrastructure and the excessive complacency of the French medical community in Vietnam, Dr. Ton That Tung gradually affirmed his position in the country's medical field, and his name was recognized in the world of medicine.

In 1932, he studied at the School of Medicine and Pharmacy, a member of the University of Indochina, located in Hanoi, believing it to be a "free" profession, independent of officials or the colonial government. At that time, there was only one medical school in all of Indochina, located in Hanoi, and native Vietnamese were not allowed to take the residency exams.

From 1935, Ton That Tung, along with 10 other students, was recruited to work as an outpatient at Phu Doan Hospital. This medical student was the first to fight to force the colonial government to organize residency exams for Hanoi hospitals. In 1935, he was the only one accepted to work in the surgical department of the School of Medicine and Pharmacy, which is now Viet-Duc Hospital.

Under difficult learning conditions, with French teachers primarily focusing on textbook knowledge and paying little attention to the local climate and people, and with outdated and inadequate equipment, Dr. Ton That Tung had to set his own principles for studying and working, considering daily practical work as paramount and the driving force behind his scientific research.

Through studying and exchanging ideas with colleagues, and especially through his observational and deductive abilities, Dr. Ton That Tung discovered dozens of worms burrowing into the bile ducts of a patient's liver. Using a rudimentary tool, a simple scraper, he meticulously dissected the liver's structure. Using this method, from 1935 to 1939, he dissected over 200 livers from cadavers to study the blood vessels. He then drew diagrams, comparing them to each other to find common features.

Based on that, he wrote and successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "The Classification of Blood Vessels in the Liver". For this dissertation, he was awarded the Silver Medal of the University of Paris (which was then part of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Hanoi). The dissertation was highly regarded and became the foundation for his many famous scientific works.

Professor Ton That Tung giving a lecture to students at the Medical University (1947), (Photo: Internet)

During the resistance war against the French, he, along with Professor Ho Dac Di, Professor Hoang Tich Tri, Professor Dang Van Ngu, and several other doctors, established the Medical University in Ai village, Chiem Hoa district, Tuyen Quang province. As Deputy Minister of Health and Surgical Advisor to the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army, he was present on the battlefield and directly participated in surgeries for hundreds of severely wounded soldiers at Dien Bien Phu.

During the resistance war against the French, Professor Ton That Tung saved many critical cases. Together with Professor Dang Van Ngu, he produced penicillin, an extremely valuable antibiotic, to treat soldiers and civilian workers – a miraculous achievement that no other country had accomplished under guerrilla warfare conditions.

In 1947, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Health. In his role as Deputy Minister of Health of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, he, along with Professor Ho Dac Di, organized teaching and training at the Medical University in the Viet Bac war zone. Alongside this, he continued to participate in organizing treatment, developing the medical sector, conducting scientific research, training students, and building the foundation of Vietnamese medical schools.

Despite having to move many times to various locations such as Van Dinh, Ha Dong (1946), Lang Quan, Tuyen Quang (1947), Phu Ninh, Phu Tho (1948), Dai Luc, Phu Tho (1949), Chiem Hoa, Tuyen Quang (1950)... He was also appointed as a surgical advisor in the military medical sector at the Ministry of National Defense. He held the position of Deputy Minister of Health until 1961.

Professor Ton That Tung (wearing a white suit on the left) escorts President Ho Chi Minh on a visit to the Viet-Duc Hospital after the liberation of Hanoi (October 10, 1954).

After the liberation of Hanoi (October 10, 1954), he resigned from his position as Deputy Minister of Health to focus on being the Director of Phu Doan Hospital (later renamed Viet-Duc Hospital) and holding the position of Head of the Department of Surgery at Hanoi Medical University. He advocated for the adoption of Western medicine to build and develop Vietnam's medical system, researching diseases and treating Vietnamese people, and was a pioneer in applying advanced surgical techniques in Vietnam.

He left a profound mark on 20th-century Vietnamese medicine with his talent, intellect, and dedication to medical research in order to find the best solutions for treating patients.

A world-class invention

Speaking of Professor Ton That Tung's contributions, we see that not only did he make significant contributions to the national medical field, but his research and discoveries were of global value. Professor and Doctor Daniel Jaeck from France commented on Professor Ton That Tung in his article "Professor Ton That Tung - A Great Personality, Profound Intellect, and Excellent Surgical Technique" that:

“For us, Professor remains one of the most renowned and exemplary pioneers in modern liver surgery. His work is the source of tremendous advances in the field of surgery. Professor has made the greatest contribution to the establishment and development of modern liver surgery methods that have advanced worldwide.” So, what is that contribution?

Because he had a thorough understanding of the blood vessels in the liver, he focused his research on a new method in liver surgery. In the 1960s, he successfully developed the "planned liver resection" method. This was a completely new and modern method, quite different from previous methods. Previously, due to the lack of precise descriptions of the blood vessels in the liver, people were accustomed to using the "unplanned liver resection" method. He believed that doing so was very dangerous, because if the blood vessels were not properly severed, the patient could die from bleeding or liver necrosis.

Doctor Ton That Tung is conducting research on a specimen (dried liver) (1962). Image source: VNN

To acknowledge the contribution of the first person to discover this method of liver resection, it is called the "Dry Liver Surgery Method" or the "Ton That Tung Method". Therefore, the famous French professor Maleghi, in the journal "Lion Surgery" in 1964, wrote: "Hanoi Medical University can be proud of having two achievements in its history: firstly, the first study on the structure of blood vessels in the liver; secondly, the first successful planned liver resection."

Throughout his scientific career, Professor Ton That Tung produced 123 research papers and numerous articles on scientific research and scientific-technological research methods. He was the first to successfully diagnose and operate on a case of acute pancreatitis caused by worms in the bile duct, and he developed new liver resection methods, from subsegmental to segmental resection, right hepatectomy, left hepatectomy, etc. In 1960, he successfully researched the "planned liver resection" method, also known as the "dry liver resection method" or the "Ton That Tung method".

He also pioneered the treatment of liver cancer using a combination of surgery and immunotherapy… He was also a pioneer in the field of cardiovascular surgery in Vietnam, in 1958, when he was the first person to perform heart surgery in our country. Not only that, Professor Ton also researched the toxic effects of dioxin sprayed by the US during the Vietnam War, using this knowledge to fight against the US's failure to decontaminate defoliants in South Vietnam.

Professor Ton That Tung instructs his students during an anatomy lecture. (Image source: quochoi.org)

Professor Ho Dac Di, also a renowned physician and a relative of his, praised Professor Ton That Tung profusely, saying: “In the world of surgery, the number of people who receive the Lannelongue Prize like him is extremely rare, rarer than the number of physicists who receive the Nobel Prize or the number of mathematicians who receive the Fields Prize…” “A French professor once told me: ‘Ton That Tung is a precious treasure for Vietnam’.”

Hoa Le

(Synthetic)