Abstract
Plague resulted in three pandemics in history; however, its causative pathogen was isolated until the third pandemic in Hong Kong in 1894. At that time, two famous researchers, Dr. Alexandre Yersin and Dr. Shibasaburo Kitasato, went to HK, in order to identify the pathogen. The two great researchers had done a lot of work to isolate and identify the causative pathogen. However, Dr. Alexandre Yersin reported the real pathogen for plague, and we now acknowledge his work by nominating the pathogen’s genus as Yersinia. In this chapter, we discussed the lessons learned from the two researchers’ experience on isolation and identification of plague pathogen.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Kaufmann SH, Schaible UE. 100th anniversary of Robert Koch’s nobel prize for the discovery of the tubercle bacillus. Trends Microbiol. 2005;13(10):469–75.
Bibel DJ, Chen TH. Diagnosis of plaque: an analysis of the Yersin-Kitasato controversy. Bacteriol Rev. 1976;40(3):633–51.
Editorial. The epidemic of plague in Hong Kong. BMJ. 1894;1(1746):1326.
Solomon T. Hong Kong, 1894: the role of James A Lowson in the controversial discovery of the plague bacillus. Lancet. 1997;350(9070):59–62.
Hawgood BJ. Alexandre Yersin (1863–1943): discoverer of the plague bacillus, explorer and agronomist. J Med Biogr. 2008;16(3):167–72.
Yersin A. La peste bubonique a Hong-Kong. Ann Inst Pasteur Paris. 1894;8:662–7.
Editorial. The plague at Hong-Kong. Lancet. 1894;2:325.
Kitasato S. The bacillus of bubonic plague. Lancet. 1894;2:428–30.
Zhang WY, Chen Y, Kamara A, Chen ZL, Chang GH, Wurie I, Kargbo D, Kargbo B, Liu C. Field labs in action for Ebola control in Sierra Leone. Infect Dis Trans Med. 2015;1(1):2–5.
Rohde H, Qin J, Cui Y, Li D, Loman NJ, Hentschke M, Chen W, Pu F, Peng Y, Li J, et al. Open-source genomic analysis of Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli O104:H4. N Engl J Med. 2011;365(8):718–24.
Butler T. Yersinia infections: centennial of the discovery of the plague bacillus. Clin Infect Dis. 1994;19(4):655–61; quiz 662–653.
Butler T. Plague history: Yersin’s discovery of the causative bacterium in 1894 enabled, in the subsequent century, scientific progress in understanding the disease and the development of treatments and vaccines. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2014;20:202–9.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Yang, R., Butler, T. (2016). Discovery of the Plague Pathogen: Lessons Learned. In: Yang, R., Anisimov, A. (eds) Yersinia pestis: Retrospective and Perspective. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 918. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0890-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0890-4_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-0888-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-0890-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)