Yersin, Alexandre Émile Jean

Yersin, Alexandre Émile Jean

(älĕksäN`drə āmēl` zhän yĕrsăN`), 1863–1943, French bacteriologist, of Swiss descent. He studied with Pasteur and worked on diphtheria antitoxin with P. P. E. Roux at the Pasteur Institute, Paris. Yersin discovered (1894) the bacillus of bubonic plague (independently of Shibasaburo KitasatoKitasato, Shibasaburo
, 1852–1931, Japanese physician. He worked with Robert Koch in Germany (1885–91), and with Emil Behring he studied the tetanus bacillus and developed (1890) an antitoxin for diphtheria.
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) and prepared a serum to combat the disease. He was director of the Pasteur Institute at Nhatrang (SE Annam) and inspector general of the Pasteur Institutes at Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), at Hanoi, and at Dalat (S of Nhatrang).