[Pioneers of the plague, colonial and pasteurian doctors: Yersin, Simond, Girard et Robic].

On the one-hundredth anniversary of Alexandre Yersin's discovery of the plague bacillus, in Hong-Kong in 1894, the work of the Pasteur Institute in this field through the labors of the naval and colonies doctors formed by Roux at the Institute's headquarters, is evoked. After personal recollections of the 1944 plague epidemic in Tunisia, the author describes the role of the pioneer Albert Calmette who created the first microbiological laboratory in Saïgon, as well as the discoveries of Alexandre Yersin, Paul-Louis Simond, Georges Girard et Jean Robic.