Alexandre Yersin

Alexandre Yersin (1863–1943) was a Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist who identified the plague bacterium in 1894 and helped develop antiplague serum.

Émile Roux: A French physician and bacteriologist who helped develop diphtheria antitoxin and directed the Pasteur Institute. Roux mentored Yersin at the Pasteur Institute and collaborated with him on antiplague serum.
Yersinia pestis: A bacterium that causes plague in humans and other mammals. Yersin isolated and described this plague-causing bacterium in Hong Kong in 1894.
Pasteur Institute: A Paris biomedical research institution founded in 1887 to study infectious diseases and develop vaccines. Yersin joined its research community and learned laboratory methods before his plague investigations.
Third plague pandemic: A global plague pandemic that began in China in the nineteenth century and spread widely through the twentieth. Yersin’s 1894 discovery came during the pandemic’s spread through port cities and across Asia.
Louis Pasteur: A French chemist whose work established foundational methods in microbiology and vaccination. Yersin trained in the Pasteur Institute, whose methods and network shaped his bacteriological work.
Plague: A severe infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis, occurring in bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic forms. Plague was the disease whose cause and treatment Yersin investigated.
Hong Kong plague epidemic of 1894: A major outbreak of plague in Hong Kong during 1894, amid the disease’s spread across Asia. Yersin traveled to Hong Kong during this outbreak and isolated the plague bacterium there.
Pasteurization: A heat treatment that reduces harmful microorganisms in food and drink. The shared Pasteurian research tradition links Yersin’s bacteriology with a distinct public-health technology.
Shibasaburo Kitasato: A Japanese physician and bacteriologist who reported isolating the plague bacillus in Hong Kong in 1894. Kitasato investigated plague in Hong Kong at the same time as Yersin, amid disputes over their findings.
Antiplague serum: A preparation of antibodies used historically to treat plague. Yersin helped develop serum therapy against plague after identifying its bacterial cause.

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