Published:  01:48 Friday - December 09, 2011

Alexandre Yersin Memorial Sites was built to commemorate Alexandre Yersin who devoted 50 years of his life to work in Pasteur Institute.

• Discovering the Variety of Nha Trang Beach inside Oceanographic Museum of Vietnam

Location: Alexandre Yersin Memorial Sites includes 3 places:

- Doctor Yersin’s library in Nha Trang Pasteur Institute, Khanh Hoa Province.- Linh Son Pagoda, Suoi Cat Commune, Dien Khanh District, Khanh Hoa Province (the former workroom of the doctor in Suoi Dau).
- Alexandre Yersin’s Grave in Suoi Cat Commune, Dien Khanh District, Khanh Hoa Province.

Characteristic: Alexandre Yersin Memorial Sites was built to commemorate Alexandre Yersin who devoted 50 years of his life to work in Pasteur Institute.

Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943) was born in Switzerland to a Swiss father and a French mother. He studied in Switzerland and later moved to France where he obtained a degree in medicine.

He traveled to Nha Trang for the first time in 1891. At the end of 1899, he came back and established the Pasteur Institute. He devoted 50 years of his life to microbiology, virology, and epidemic research and he was the one to develop a vaccine against the bubonic plague.

Living modestly, he gained the trust of Con hamlet villagers. He traveled in the mountains and recorded his observations. He also recommended to the government to establish a hill station in what is now Da Lat.

Yersin died in Nha Trang on 1 March 1943. According to the instructions in his will, his body was buried with his face touching the ground and facing the sea so that he could forever embrace his second homeland.