Charles Nicolle
| Charles Jules Henry Nicolle | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 21 September 1866 Rouen, France |
| Died |
28 February 1936 (aged 69) Tunis, French Tunisia |
| Nationality | France |
| Fields | Bacteriology |
| Institutions | Pasteur Institute of Tunis |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Known for | Epidemic typhus |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1928) |
Charles Jules Henry Nicolle (21 September 1866 Rouen – 28 February 1936 Tunis) was a French bacteriologist who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his identification of lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus.
He learned about biology early from his father Eugène Nicolle, a doctor at a Rouen hospital. He was educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen. He received his M.D. in 1893 from the Pasteur Institute. At this point he returned to Rouen, as a member of the Medical Faculty until 1896 and then as Director of the Bacteriological Laboratory.
In 1903 Nicolle became Director of the Pasteur Institute in Tunis, where he did his Nobel Prize-winning work on typhus, bringing Hélène Sparrow with him as laboratory chief. He was still director of the Institute when he died in 1936. He was a key researcher in discovering a deadly organism, Toxoplasma.
He also wrote fiction and philosophy throughout his life, including the books Le Pâtissier de Bellone, Les deux Larrons, and Les Contes de Marmouse.
He married Alice Avice in 1895, and had two children, Marcelle (b. 1896) and Pierre (b. 1898).
Nicolle's major accomplishments in bacteriology and parasitology were:
During his life Nicolle wrote a number of non-fiction and bacteriology books, including Le Destin des Maladies infectieuses; La Nature, conception et morale biologiques; Responsabilités de la Médecine, and La Destinée humaine.
Nicolle's discovery came about first from his observation that, while epidemic typhus patients were able to infect other patients inside and outside the hospital, and their very clothes seemed to spread the disease, they were no longer infectious when they had had a hot bath and a change of clothes. Once he realized this, he reasoned that it was most likely that lice were the vector for epidemic typhus.
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