Victor Babeș

Victor Babeș (1854 to 1926) was a Romanian physician, bacteriologist and professor, born in Vienna and active in Bucharest, where he died. He is counted among the founders of modern microbiology. With the French scientist Victor André Cornil he wrote one of the first treatises on bacteriology, Bacteria and their role in pathological anatomy and histology of infectious diseases, published in 1885. In 1888 he stated the principle of passive immunity, and a few years later the principle of antibiosis. He made early and significant contributions to the study of rabies, leprosy, diphtheria and tuberculosis, described more than fifty previously unknown germs, and foresaw new ways of staining bacteria and fungi. He introduced rabies vaccination and founded serotherapy in Romania. Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca and the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Timișoara bear his name.