But the benefits of competition are great. If it hastens the discovery of a way to fix muscular dystrophy, prevent AIDS, or detect cancer, fewer people will die early deaths. To take an example relevant to these days, the Japanese bacteriologist Kitasato Shibasaburō and his Swiss rival Alexandre Yersin both rushed to Hong Kong in 1894 to investigate the pneumonic plague epidemic and, working with different methods, discovered the responsible bacteria within days of each other.
