Charles-Jules-Henri Nicolle

sia. Nicolle's many accomplishments include the discovery that epidemic typhus is transmitted by body lice (Pediculus humanis corporis), discovery of the phenomenon of inap-parent infection, and possibly the first isolation of human influenza virus after experimental transmission. Nicolle made many other fundamental contributions to knowledge of infectious diseases. This year is the centenary of his discovery about typhus transmission, made in the summer of 1909, for which he was awarded the 1928 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Nicolle was born on September 21, 1866, in Rouen, the ancient capital of Normandy, France. He obtained a classical education and was greatly attracted to literature, history, and the arts, interests he nurtured throughout his life. Bowing to the wish of his physician father, however , Nicolle studied medicine. After 3 years at the medical school in Rouen, he proceeded to Paris for further training and received a medical degree from the Institut Pas-teur in 1893. At 27 years of age, Nicolle returned to his hometown, where he served as a member of the medical faculty and as Director of the Bacteriological Laboratory at L'École préparatoire de médecine et pharmacie de Rouen. His 8 years in Rouen were difficult: his position was un-tenured, his colleagues were reluctant to accept his modern ideas about bacteriology, and he experienced a hearing loss that prevented him from effectively using a stethoscope. These challenges may have motivated him to take a leap that he might otherwise not have taken when the post of directorship of the Institut Pasteur in Tunis became open. It was offered to his elder brother, Maurice (1862–1932), an established experimental scientist, who refused it. Charles then applied and obtained the position. Nicolle arrived in Tunis in 1902, when he was 36 years old. North Africa was a good place to study infectious dis-all the problems Nicolle faced in Tunis, however, epidemic typhus was, in his words, " the most important and the least explored. " He studied it for the next 7 years. He was well aware of the clinical presentation of typhus—its triad of fever , rash, and stupor—and of its link to poverty. Throughout history, typhus had been a highly communicable and frequently fatal disease. Before it began to be understood as a single infectious disease distinguished epidemiologically from typhoid (in the mid to late 19th century), typhus had been considered a collection of distinctive diseases that affected specific populations. …