Born 1863 in Lavaux, Switzerland. Died 1943 in Suoi Giao, French Indochina (present-day) Vietnam.

Swiss microbiologist who isolated the etiologic agent of bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, in 1894.

For a detailed description of Yersin's process of discovery, refer to:

How the plague bacillus and its transmission through fleas were discovered: reminiscences from my years at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, by Ludwik Gross (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 92, pp. 7609-7611, August 1995), available online at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/92/17/7609.pdf