Kitasato Shibasaburō
"Y. pestis" was discovered in 1894 by Alexandre Yersin, a Swiss/French physician and bacteriologist from the Pasteur Institute, during an epidemic of the plague in Hong Kong. Yersin was a member of the Pasteur school of thought. Kitasato Shibasaburō, a Japanese bacteriologist who practised Koch's methodology, was also engaged at the time in finding the causative agent of the plague. However, Yersin actually linked plague with "Y. pestis". Formerly named "Pasteurella pestis", the organism was renamed "Yersinia pestis" in 1944.