Louis Manceaux

Biography

Manceaux's life is not well known, but he was physician-scientist recruited by Charles Nicolle to study at the Pasteur Institute of Tunis. He assisted Nicolle with capturing gundi in the Djerid Desert to study a parasite associated with a disease known as oriental sore in North Africa. The parasite observed in the tissue samples rodents was originally named Leishmania gondii in 1908. Upon further analysis, they concluded that the parasite was a newly discovered genus, so it was renamed to Toxoplasma gondii in 1909. After his discovery, Manceaux served as a French military doctor and was on active duty with medical corps during World War I. After retiring from the Army, he went on to work for the Pasteur Intstitute of Paris and practice medicine in Paris.