On 1st of November 1894 Dr Emile Roux, France, announced the development of a vaccine for diphtheria.

Dr Pierre Paul Emile Roux was a brilliant French bacteriologist who collaborated with many other researchers to develop vaccines.

In 1888 he was working at the newly formed Pasteur Institute with Alexander Yersin.

You may not ever think about diphtheria because you will have been vaccinated against it when you were a baby. But before the vaccine was developed diphtheria was a killer. It is a highly contagious and potentially fatal infection that can affect the nose and throat, and sometimes the skin.

Roux discovered that the symptoms of diphtheria were caused by a toxin secreted by the diphtheria bacillus.

Finding and developing the vaccine was the work of an international team of scientists including Kitasato Shibasaburo and Emil von Behring.

In 1901 Emil von Behring won the very first Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on the diphtheria vaccine.

Emile Roux took over at the head of the Pasteur Institute in 1904 and was there till his death in 1933.