[b. Kumamoto, Japan, December 20, 1856, d. Nakanojo, Japan, June 13, 1931]

In 1889, while working with Robert Koch in Berlin, Germany, Kitasato became the first person to grow a pure culture of Clostridium tetani, the bacillus that causes tetanus. The following year he and Emil von Behring showed that animals injected with dilute tetanus toxin develop antitoxins that protect them against the disease. In 1894, after returning to Japan, Kitasato discovered Yersinia pestis, the bacillus that causes bubonic plague, also discovered independently by Alexandre Yersin.

(shĭbä'säbūrō kē'täsä'tō) , 1852–1931, Japanese physician. He worked with Robert Koch in Germany (1885–91), and with Emil Behring he studied the tetanus bacillus and developed (1890) an antitoxin for diphtheria. After returning to Japan he founded an institute for the study of infectious diseases and became its director in 1891. His most noted contribution to bacteriology was the discovery (1894) of the infectious agent of bubonic plague, which he described simultaneously with Alexandre Yersin.

(kē'tä-zä'tō), Shibasaburo 1852–1931.

Japanese bacteriologist. Among his achievements are the isolation (1889) of the causative bacillus of tetanus, the development of vaccines to protect against tetanus and anthrax, and the isolation (1894) of the bacillus of bubonic plague.