Pierre-Fidéle Bretonneau ,who first studied the symptoms of diphtheria, named the disease in 1826. Bretonneau was the first to perform a successful surgery on a little girl to cut open her neck and open her airways. Epidemics spread throughout Europe and the United States in the late 19th century and caused many scientists and doctors scramble to find a cure. Two bacteriologists, Edwin Klebs and Friedrich August Loffler, first discovered the bacterium causing the disease. They isolated the bacteria and also tested it on animals. After, Pierre-Paul-Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin detected that the true cause of diphtheria was a toxin formed by the bacillus. When the true cause for the disease was revealed, many scientists like Emil Von Behring