A cure for malaria was found in a 1,600-year-old recipe.

340 · 1972 · apart: 1632 years

Hot extracts of sweet wormwood failed, so Tu Youyou followed advice written by Ge Hong around 340: steep the herb in cold water.

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The event

• Tu Youyou discovers artemisinin1972 · Beijing. Working in the secret Project 523, chemist Tu Youyou, guided by an ancient Chinese medical text, isolated the antimalarial compound artemisinin from sweet wormwood. Drugs based on it have saved millions of lives, earning her the 2015 Nobel Prize.

4th century · 20th century

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