Alexandre Emile John Yersin (September 22, 1863 - March 1, 1943) was a Swiss physician and bacteriologist. One owes to him the discovery of the bacillus of the bubonic plague or pest, which was renamed in his honour (Yersinia pestis). Image File history File links Alexandre Yersin, Swiss bacteriologist and physician, discoverer of the pest bacillus. ... September 22 is the 265th day of the year (266th in leap years). ... 1863 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... March 1 is the 60th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (61st in leap years). ... 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ... A physician is a person who practices medicine. ... Microbiology (in Greek micron = small and biologia = studying life) is the study of microorganisms, including unicellular (single-celled) eukaryotes and prokaryotes, fungi, and viruses. ... Species Bacillus anthracis Bacillus cereus Bacillus coagulans Bacillus natto Bacillus subtilis Bacillus thuringiensis etc. ... Bubonic plague is an infectious disease that is believed to have caused several epidemics or pandemics throughout history. ... Yersinia pestis under fluorescent staining, 2000x. ...

Yersin was born in 1863 in Lavaux, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland. From 1883 to 1884, Yersin studied medicine at Lausanne, Switzerland; and then at Marburg, Germany and Paris, France (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 in the anti-rabies serum. In 1888 he received his doctoral dissertation with a thesis on 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 collborator, and discovered with him the diphtheric toxin (produced by the Corynebacterium diphtheriae bacillus). 1863 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Lavaux is the northern shore of the Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) in the canton of Vaud in French-speaking Switzerland. ... The Canton of Vaud is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland located in the southwestern part of the country. ... NLM (National Library of Medicine, contains resources for patients and healthcare professionals) Virtual Hospital (digital health sciences library by the University of Iowa) Online Medical Dictionary Collection of links to free medical resources Wikicities has a wiki about medicine: Medicine Categories: Medicine | Health ... Lausanne (46° 31′ 10″ N 6° 37′ 56″ E) is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman), and facing Évian-les-Bains (France). ... Marburg is a city in Hesse, Germany, on the Lahn river. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French microbiologist and chemist. ... The quadrangle at the main ENS building on rue dUlm is known as the Cour aux Ernests – the Ernests being the goldfish in the pond. ... Emile Roux Pierre Paul Emile Roux (b. ... For the American lobbyist, see Bobby Koch. ... The Pasteur Institute (French: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, microorganisms, diseases and vaccines. ... 1889 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness characterized by sore throat, low-grade fever, and an adherent membrane of the tonsil(s), pharynx, and/or nose. ... Binomial name Corynebacterium diphtheriae Corynebacterium diphtheriae is a pathogenic bacterium that causes diphtheria. ...

In order to practice medicine in France, Yersin applied to and obtained the French nationality in 1888. Soon afterwards (1890), he left for French Indochina in Southeast Asia as a physician to the Messageries Maritimes company, in the Saigon-Manila line and then in the Saigon-Haiphong line. In 1894 Yersin was sent by request of the French government and the Pasteur Institute to Hong-Kong, to investigate the ongoing Manchurian Pneumonic Plague epidemic, and there, in a small hut next to the institute ( from "Plague" by Wendy Orent) along with his co-discoverer Shibasaburo Kitasato, he makes his greatest discovery, that of the pathogen which causes the disease. He was also able to demonstrate for the first time that the same bacillus was present in the rodent as well as in the human disease, thus underlining the possible mean of transmission. The important discovery is communicated to the French Academy of Sciences in the same year, by his colleague Emil Duclaux, in a classic paper titled La Peste Bubonique de Hong-Kong. NLM (National Library of Medicine, contains resources for patients and healthcare professionals) Virtual Hospital (digital health sciences library by the University of Iowa) Online Medical Dictionary Collection of links to free medical resources Wikicities has a wiki about medicine: Medicine Categories: Medicine | Health ... French Indochina was a federation of French colonies and protectorates in Southeast Asia, part of the French colonial empire. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... A physician is a person who practices medicine. ... Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh) is the largest city in Vietnam and, as Saigon (Vietnamese: Sài Gòn), was the capital of South Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. ... Manila (Maynila in Filipino) is the capital city of the Philippines. ... Haiphong (Vietnamese: Hải Phòng, Chinese 海防) is the third most populous city in Vietnam. ... 1894 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Wikicities has a wiki about Hong Kong: Hong Kong Travel guide to Hong Kong from Wikitravel Government Hong Kong District Councils Hong Kong Fact Sheets - Quick facts about Hong Kong Hong Kong Legislative Council Hong Kong SAR Government Information Centre - official site of the Government of Hong Kong News Metro... Shibasaburo Kitasato (北里 柴三郎) (1852-1931) was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. ... A pathogen (literally birth of pain from the Greek παθογένεια) is a biological agent that can cause disease to its host. ... A disease is any abnormal condition of the body or mind that causes discomfort, dysfunction, or distress to the person affected or those in contact with the person. ... Families Many, see text The order Rodentia is the most numerous of all the branches on the mammal family tree. ... The French Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. ...

From 1895 to 1897, Yersin pursued further his studies on the bubonic plague. In 1895 he returned to the Institute Pasteur in Paris and with Émile Roux, Albert Calmette and Armand Borrel, prepared the first antipest serum. In the same year, he returned to Indochina, where he installed a small laboratory at Nha Trang, in order to manufacture the serum (in 1905 this laboratory was to become a branch of the Pasteur Institute). Yersin tried the serum received from Paris in Canton and Amoy, in 1896, and in Bombay, India, in 1897, with disappoint results. Decided to stay in his new country of adoption, he participated actively in the creation of the Medical School of Hanoi in 1902, and was its first director, until 1904. Léon Charles Albert Calmette (July 12, 1863 – October 29, 1933) was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist, and an important officer of the Pasteur Institute. ... 1905 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Guangzhou (Traditional Chinese: 廣州; Simplified Chinese: 广州; pinyin: Guǎngzhōu; Wade_Giles: Kuang_chou; Jyutping: Gwong2zau1; Yale: Gwóngjaū) is the capital of the Guangdong Province in southern China. ... Xiamen (Simplified Chinese: 厦门; Traditional Chinese: 廈門; pinyin: Xiàmén; Wade_Giles: Hsiamen) is a coastal sub_provincial city in Fujian Province, southern China. ... This article or section should be merged with Mumbai Mumbai (previously known as Bombay) is the worlds most populous conurbation, and is the sixth most populous agglomeration in the world. ... Hanoi (Vietnamese: quốc ngữ Hà Ná»™i; chữ nôm 河内), estimated population 4,100,000 (2004), is the capital of Vietnam and was the capital of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. ... 1902 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

Yersin also had his hand in agriculture, and was a pioneer in the culture of rubber trees imported from Brazil (Hevea brasiliensis) into Indochina. For this purpose, he obtained in 1897 a concession from the government to establish an agricultural station at Suoi Dau. He also opened a new station at Hon Ba in 1915, where he tried to acclimatize in that country the quinine tree (Cinchona ledgeriana), which was imported from the Andes in South America by the Spaniards and which produced the first known effective remedy for preventing and treating malaria (a disease which is very much prevalent in Southest Asia to this day). Latex being collected from a wounded rubber tree The Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) is a tree belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. ... 1915 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Molecular structure of quinine Quinine, C20H24N2O2, is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic, anti-malarial and analgesic properties and a bitter taste. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... Red blood cell infected with Malaria (Italian: bad air; formerly called ague or marsh fever in English) is an infectious disease which in humans causes about 350-500 million infections and over 1 million deaths annually, mainly in the tropics. ...

Alexandre Yersin left strong remembrances in Vietnam, where he was affectionely called Ông Năm (Mr. Nam/Fifth) by the people. Not only the streets which were named in his honor were not changed with the country&'s independence, but his tomb in Suoi Dau is accompanied by a pagoda where rites are performed in his worship. Yersin's house in Nha Trang is now a very complete museum, and the epitaph at his tombstone describes him as a "Benefactor and humanist, venerated by the Vietnamese people". At Hanoi, a French Lycée has his name. A tomb is a small building (or vault) for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. ... A pagoda at Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia A pagoda is the general term in the English language for a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in China, Japan, Korea, and other parts of Asia. ... A museum is typically a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment. ... An epitaph (literally: on the grave in ancient Greek) is text honoring the dead, most commonly inscribed on a tombstone or plaque. ... Hanoi (Vietnamese: quốc ngữ Hà Ná»™i; chữ nôm 河内), estimated population 4,100,000 (2004), is the capital of Vietnam and was the capital of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. ...

In 1934 he was nominated a honorary director of Pasteur Institute and a member of its Board of Administration. He died during World War II at his home in Nha Trang, in 1943. 1934 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (over 11 miles) into the air, August 9, 1945 after the Allied atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ... Nha Trang is a coastal city in Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam. ... 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ...

Quotation

"You ask me if I appreciate medical practice. Yes and no. I have a lot of pleasure in taking care of those who come to ask my advice, but I would not like to make medicine a trade, in other words, I could never ask a patient to pay me for care that I can given him. I regard medicine as a priesthood, as much as a pastoral one. To require money in exchange of providing care to a patient, amounts to me as the same as demanding from him his money or his life "

External link

• Alexandre Yersin and his adventures in Vietnam
• Alexandre Yersin. Répéres Chronologiques. Institut Pasteur, Paris (In French).