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He was born in Soignies, Belgium, on June 13, 1870. Hewas educated
in Brussels where he graduated as Doctor of Medicine in 1892. In 1894
he went to Paris to work at the Pasteur Institute until 1901 when
he returned to Belgium to found the Pasteur Institute, Brussels. He
has been Director of the Belgian Institute since its inception (honorary
since 1940) and Professor of Bacteriology, University of Brussels,
since 1907 (honorary since 1935).
Bordet's early studies showed that antimicrobic sera include two active
substances, one existing before immunization, known as alexine, and
the other a specific antibody created by vaccination: he developed
a method of diagnosing microbes by sera. In 1898, he discovered haemolytic
sera and showed that the mechanism of their action on foreign blood
is similar to that by which an antimicrobic serum acts on microbes
and, furthermore, that the reactions of the sera are colloidal in
nature. He has contributed much towards the understanding ofthe formation
of coagulin and also anaphylactic poisons. Together with Gengou (in
1906), he cultivated B.pertussis and laid the foundations of
the generally accepted opinion that this organism is the bacterial
cause of whooping cough. In addition to his being an acknowledged
world authority in many branches of bacteriology, Bordet was considered
to be a great exponent and worker on immunology. He was the author
of Traité de l'Immunité dans les Maladies Infectieuses (2nd
ed., 1939) (Treatise on immunity in infectious diseases) and a great
number of medical publications.
Bordet was a permanent member of the Administrative Council of Brussels
University, he was President of the First International Congress of
Microbiology (Paris, 1930), and Past President of the Premier Council
of Hygiene of Belgium, the Scientific Council of the Pasteur Institute
of Paris and the Belgian Academy of Medicine. He was Doctor, honoris
causa, of the Universities of Cambridge, Paris, Strasbourg, Toulouse,
Edinburgh, Nancy, Caen, Montpellier, Cairo, Athens, and Quebec. He
was a member of the Belgian Royal Academy, the Royal Society (London),
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of Medicine (Paris), the
National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), and many other academies and
societies. Bordet gained many awards during his career, including
the Grand Cordon de l'Ordre de la Couronne de Belgique (1930), the
Grand Cordon de l'Ordre de Léopold (1937), the Grand Croix de la Légion
d'Honneur (1938), and public honours of Rumania, Sweden and Luxemburg.
In 1899 Bordet married Marthe Levoz. They had one son, Paul,who succeeded
his father as Chief of the Pasteur Institute in Brussels and also
as Professor of Bacteriology, and two daughters. Jules Bordet died
on April 6, 1961.
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