Yersin
| Alexandre Yersin | |
|---|---|
Alexandre Yersin
|
|
| Born |
22 September 1863 Aubonne, Vaud, Switzerland |
| Died | 1 March 1943 (aged 79) Nha Trang, Annam, French Indochina |
| Nationality | Swiss and French |
| Known for | Yersinia pestis |
| Awards | Leconte Prize (1927) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Bacteriologist |
| Institutions | École Normale Supérieure, Institut Pasteur |
| Influences | Kitasato Shibasaburō |
Alexandre Emile Jean Yersin (22 September 1863 – 1 March 1943) was a Swiss and naturalized French physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered as the discoverer of the bacillus responsible for the bubonic plague or pest, which was later named in his honour (Yersinia pestis).
Yersin was born in 1863 in Aubonne, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland, to a family originally from France. From 1883 to 1884, Yersin studied medicine at Lausanne, Switzerland; and then at Marburg, Germany and Paris (1884–1886). In 1886, he entered Louis Pasteur's research laboratory at the École Normale Supérieure, by invitation of Emile Roux, and participated in the development of the anti-rabies serum. In 1888 he received his doctorate with a dissertation titled Étude sur le Développement du Tubercule Expérimental and spent two months with Robert Koch in Germany. He joined the recently created Pasteur Institute in 1889 as Roux's collaborator and discovered with him the diphtheric toxin (produced by the Corynebacterium diphtheriae bacillus).
To practice medicine in France, Yersin applied for and obtained French nationality in 1888. Soon afterwards (1890), he left for French Indochina in Southeast Asia as a physician for the Messageries Maritimes company, on the Saigon-Manila line and then on the Saigon-Haiphong line. He participated in one of the Auguste Pavie missions. In 1894 Yersin was sent by request of the French government and the Pasteur Institute to Hong Kong, to investigate the Manchurian pneumonic plague epidemic.
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