Paul-Louis Simond
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Paul-Louis Simond (July 30, 1858 - 1947) was a French bacteriologist who was born in Beaufort-sur-Gervanne. He studied medicine in Bordeaux and later joined the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He is primarily remembered for his association with the Pasteur Institute and his travels worldwide conducting research on pestilent diseases.
Simond joined the Pasteur Institute in 1895, and in 1898 during a mission throughout Asia, discovered the mechanism for transmission of bubonic plague. He demonstrated that the plague was a disease of rats, spread by Xenopsylla cheopis (rat fleas) which transmit the disease to humans. Earlier, in 1894 Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), also of the Pasteur Institute, identified the plague bacillus as yersinia pestis. Later Simond travelled to Brazil and Martinique where he studied yellow fever and its transmission by mosquitoes.
Simond had a keen interest in botany; during his stay as a colonial doctor in Indochina from 1914 until 1917, he collected orchids and had a local artist create watercolor paintings of them. He amassed a collection of 226 watercolor paintings of orchids which were presented to the Phanerogamie of the Museum National d'Histoire naturelle in 1947. Simond was also a co-founder of the Pharo School of Tropical Medicine in Marseilles.
