Mathurin-Joseph Fordos (3 November 1816 – 1 July 1878) was a French pharmaceutical chemist who was the first to examine what he named as pyocyanin, the blue pigment in pus produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
He also collaborated with Louis Daguerre and is thought to have been involved in producing one of the first photographs in 1837 of the Pont Neuf in Paris.
In 1843, the Fordos and Gélis synthesized sodium aurothiosuphate which had an application for fixing daguerreotypes.
In 1860 he examine the blue colour of pus and extracted the compound in crystalline form using chloroform and called in pyocyanine.
[5] He examined its physical properties and it was only in 1882 that it was found by Carle Gessard that it was produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa[6] and functioned to kill other competing micro-organisms.