Kitasato Shibasaburo, Japanese Bacteriologist

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Kitasato Shibasaburo (1853-1931) was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist during the prewar period. He is remembered as the co-discoverer of the infectious agent of bubonic plague in Hong Kong in 1894, almost simultaneously with Alexandre Yersin. He studied under Robert Koch from 1885 to 1891. In 1889, he was the first person to grow the tetanus bacillus in pure culture, and in 1890 cooperated with Emil von Behring in developing a serum therapy for tetanus using this pure culture. After returning to Japan in 1891 he founded the Institute for Study of Infectious Diseases. In 1894 during an outbreak of the bubonic plague he identified a bacterium that he concluded was causing the disease. In 1898 Kitasato isolated and described the organism that caused dysentery. He was the first president of the Japan Medical Association and was ennobled with the title of danshaku (baron) in 1924.