Pierre Paul Émile Roux, a French researcher in chemistry and medicine, is considered one of the founders of medical bacteriology. He was a student of Duclaux who directed him to the theories and experiments of Pasteur. From 1878-1883, Roux worked as an assistant in Pasteur's laboratory developing vaccines to treat chicken cholera and anthrax. He also succeeded in reproducing rabies cases in the laboratory as well as inducing paralysis in guinea pigs infected with diptheria. With Yersin, he observed that the power of this latter pathogen relied directly on the deployment of a special toxin, functionally analogous to a snake venom, produced by the bacillus. This insight led him to consider the use of antitoxins in serotherapy, particularly in children infected with diptheria. In later life, he set his research aside to manage the projects of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he was appointed director in 1904.
Bibliography
Delaunay, A. "Roux, Pierre Paul Émile." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008, XI, 569.
Created 1 February January 2017
Last modified 16 February 2023