Kiyoshi Shiga (Fig. 1) was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. After studies on agents of epidemics in Kitasato’s laboratory, he detected already in 1897 the agent of the bacterial dysentery (Bacillus dysenteriae) and developed 3 years later (1900) an antiserum against this disease. In the year 1901, he went as his famous colleagues Hata and Kitasato did to Germany and joined there the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich, where he stayed until 1903, when he went back to Kitasato’s institute in Tokyo. Together with Paul Ehrlich, Kiyoshi Shiga developed the so-called trypan red as medicament against African trypanosomiasis. Honoring his broad research, the former Bacillus dysenteriae was named Shigella dysenteriae and the toxin produced by this bacterium and others (e.g., EHEC) is now described as Shiga toxin. His relations to Germany were always tight and thus he was elected as member of the historic Scientific Society Leopoldina (Leipzig).
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Mehlhorn, H. (2016). Shiga, Kiyoshi (1871–1957). In: Mehlhorn, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Parasitology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43978-4_4485
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