Louis Herbert Manceaux (1865–1934) was a French physician,

parasitologist Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question but by their way of life. This means it f ...

, and co-discover of ''

Toxoplasma gondii ''Toxoplasma gondii'' () is an obligate intracellular parasitic protozoan (specifically an apicomplexan) that causes toxoplasmosis. Found worldwide, ''T. gondii'' is capable of infecting virtually all warm-blooded animals, but felids, such as d ...

'' with

Charles Nicolle Charles Jules Henri Nicolle (21 September 1866 – 28 February 1936) was a French bacteriologist who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his identification of lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus. Family Nicolle was born to Aline L ...

in 1908.

Biography

Manceaux's life is not well known, but he was physician-scientist recruited by

to study at the Pasteur Institute of Tunis. He assisted Nicolle with capturing

gundi Gundis or comb rats (family Ctenodactylidae) are a group of small, stocky rodents found in Africa. They live in rocky deserts across the northern parts of the continent. The family comprises four living genera and five species ( Speke's gundi, ...

in the Djerid Desert to study a parasite associated with a disease known as

oriental sore The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the c ...

in North Africa. The parasite observed in the tissue samples rodents was originally named Leishmania gondii in 1908. Upon further analysis, they concluded that the parasite was a newly discovered genus, so it was renamed to

in 1909. After his discovery, Manceaux served as a French military doctor and was on active duty with medical corps during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After retiring from the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

, he went on to work for the Pastuer Intstitute of Paris and practice medicine in Paris.

Works

1908, Sur une infection a corps de Leishman (on organismes voisons) du gondi, Nicolle C, Manceaux L 1909, Sur un protozoaire nouveau du gondi, Nicolle C, Manceaux L

References

French biologists 1865 births 1934 deaths {{France-biologist-stub