Jean Danysz (1860–1928) was a Polish pathologist with a considerable career in France, having spent much of his adult life at the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Th ...

in Paris. In 1890 he isolated

Salmonella typhimurium ''Salmonella enterica'' subsp. ''enterica'' is a subspecies of ''Salmonella enterica'', the rod-shaped, flagellated, aerobic, Gram-negative bacterium. Many of the pathogenic serovars of the ''S. enterica'' species are in this subspecies, includin ...

. In 1893, he was involved in research into the flour moth, "scourge of the flour mill", Ephestia kuehniella. In 1898, he was working on

rinderpest Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic water buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, African Buffalo, buffaloes, large antelope, deer, giraffes, wilde ...

. In 1903, he worked on a way to control the

vole Voles are small rodents that are relatives of lemmings and hamsters, but with a stouter body; a longer, hairy tail; a slightly rounder head; smaller eyes and ears; and differently formed molars (high-crowned with angular cusps instead of lo ...

plague in France. He was, in 1903, the first person to use

radium Radium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in alkaline earth metal, group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, ...

to treat malignant diseases. He was contacted in 1905 regarding Australia's rabbit plagues and responding to the

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

government's offer of £25,000 for a novel solution to the country's rabbit pest problem, he arrived in Australia the following year to advise on biological control measures. He brought a strain of

Pasteurella __NOTOC__ ''Pasteurella'' is a genus of Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic bacteria. ''Pasteurella'' species are non motile and pleomorphic, and often exhibit bipolar staining ("safety pin" appearance). Most species are catalase- and oxidas ...

bacteria which he had developed to selectively kill feral rabbits and conducted a series of trials on Broughton Island, New South Wales coast with his team. He left in May 1907 after a series of inconclusive trials, leaving his assistant A. Latapie with Dr. Tidswell of the NSW Health Department to continue trials. His organism was eventually proved to be identical to one already known to science, and although it was not found to be injurious to other animals, it was ineffective as a control. The Danysz phenomenon, where a toxin added to antitoxin in an equal amount at once is non-toxic but when added at intervals in a fraction results in a generally toxic mixture, was named for him.

Family

* He was the father of physicist Jean Casimir Danysz (11 March 1884 – 4 November 1914), born in Paris and a colleague of

Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...

, made important advances in the field of beta spectroscopy in 1913. He was killed in action near Cormicy."Bulletin littéraire et scientifique" ''(Association des anciens élèves de l'Ecole polonaise)'' 1914/12/15 (Année 39, N°316) * He was the grandfather of physicist

Marian Danysz Marian Danysz (March 17, 1909 – February 9, 1983) was a Polish physicist, Professor of Physics at Warsaw University. Son of Jan Kazimierz Danysz. In 1952, he co-discovered with Jerzy Pniewski a new kind of matter, an atomic nucleus, which ...

(1909–1983), son of Jean Casimir.

References

External links

*
''Institut Pasteur'' archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Danysz, Jean French pathologists Polish pathologists Polish scientists 1860 births 1928 deaths Immigrants to France