Émile Marchoux

Émile Marchoux (1862 to 1943) was a French physician and biologist born in Saint-Amant-de-Boixe, Charente. He studied medicine in Paris, served as a naval doctor in Dahomey, and from 1893 trained in microbiology at the Pasteur Institute under Émile Roux. In Saint-Louis, Senegal, he set up a microbiology laboratory and wrote an influential account of malaria. From 1901 to 1905 he worked in Brazil with Paul-Louis Simond and Alexandre Salimbeni on yellow fever, and with Salimbeni studied avian spirochaetosis and how it is transmitted. In 1905 he headed tropical microbiology at the Pasteur Institute and in 1908 he co-founded the Société de pathologie exotique. He is remembered for prophylaxis and humane treatment of people with leprosy, and in 1931 he co-founded the Institut Central de la Lèpre at Bamako, later named for him. This entry records the history of medicine and is not medical advice.