ABSTRACT
I. BACKGROUND In 1883, Malassez and Vignal reported a disease in guinea pigs they called tuberculose zoogloeique (1). Their description matched that of an epizootic tuberculosis-like disease which Eberth subsequently termed pseudotuberculosis (2). From 1889, the suspected causative of this condition was assigned a series of name changes that reflected its uncertain taxonomic status. These included Bacillus pseudotuberculosis rodentium (3) and Bacillus parapestis (4), the latter reflecting the biological similarity of this organism to the plague bacillus. In 1944, van Loghen indicated that Pasteurella pseudotuberculosis, as it was then known, and the closely related Pasteurella pestis were sufficiently distinct from the pasteurellae of hemorrhagic septicemia to warrant their own generic status (5). He proposed the name Yersinia after Alexandre Yersin, who first described the plague bacillus and had named it in honor of Louis Pasteur.
