Dr. Nicolas Maurice Arthus was born on January 9, 1862, in Angers, France.
He was a French immunologist, physiologist, and author. He studied medicine in Paris and received his doctorate in 1886. In 1896, he became a Professor of Physiology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He returned to France to work at the Pasteur Institute in 1900 and later taught at the Ecole de Médecine de Marseilles (currently integrated in the University of the Mediterranean). In 1907, he was appointed the Chair of Physiology at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, where he remained for twenty-five years. Apart from the reaction named after him (the Arthus reaction, a localized inflammatory response), he is best known for his work on anaphylaxis. Arthus also studied snake venom and the role of calcium in the coagulation of blood. He is the author of numerous books on his field of study.
In 1893, he married Marie-Thérèse Weissenbach (1869–1942). He died on February 24, 1945, in Fribourg, Switzerland.