1873-1949

Canadian-French physician who, independently of Frederic William Twort, discovered the existence of bacterial viruses. He published his observations on "an invisible microbe that is antagonistic to the dysentery bacillus" in 1917. (He obtained the invisible microbe from the stools of patients recovering from bacillary dysentery.) D'Hérelle concluded that the antidysentery microbe was an "obligate bacteriophage," that is, an "eater of bacteria," and he predicted that viruses would be found for other pathogenic bacteria.