Alexandre Yersin

Alexandre Émile John Yersin (1863 to 1943) was a Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist, remembered as a pioneer in microbiology and immunology. He is the co-discoverer of both the diphtheria and tetanus toxins, in 1890 with Émile Roux, and of the bacillus responsible for bubonic plague, in 1894 with Kitasato Shibasaburo. The bacterium was later named Yersinia pestis in his honour. Yersin also demonstrated for the first time that the same bacillus was present in the rodent as well as in the human disease, which underlined a possible means of transmission. The source lead for this entry is short, so his later life and institutional posts are left to further research.