Dr. Louis Martin

Abstract

BY the death of Dr. Louis Martin on June 13, one of the last remaining links with Pasteur has been severed. Martin was born on September 20, 1864. In 1892, when he was a young doctor at the hospital for children's diseases in Paris, he became associated with Roux in a remarkable series of investigations which showed the immense possibilities of the newly discovered antitoxin for the control and treatment of diphtheria. The results of their work were communicated at an International Medical Congress at Budapest in 1894 by Roux, Chaillou and Martin in a paper the importance and high quality of which has been recognized for half a century. This was Martin's introduction to diphtheria, a subject in which his interest remained unabated to the end of his life. He was appointed to the staff of the Pasteur Institute in 1892, where he remained for the rest of his working life, occupying positions of increasing importance and finally becoming director in 1934. He made notable contributions to the bacteriology of the diphtheria bacillus and closely related organisms, devised a culture medium for the production of diphtheria toxin which is widely used to-day, extended his researches on the prophylaxis and treatment of diphtheria, and studied the problems presented by the ‘carrier’. For many years he was responsible for the production of the antitoxins and antisera required in France, and later he found solutions to the technical and administrative problems created by the enormously increased demand for these materials during the First World War.