science · 28 February 1936 · 88 years ago
death
Died 28 Feb 1936 at age 69 (born 21 Sep 1866).
French physician and bacteriologist who received the 1928 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery (1909) that typhus is transmitted by the body louse. When appointed as Director of the Pasteur Institute at Tunis, Africa, young Dr. Charles Nicolle was immediately brought into contact with the scientific and practical problems that typhus epidemics had created in this country. His solution began with the simple observation that whilst typhus patients continued to spread infection prior to entering the hospital, they were no longer a danger upon being bathed and in new clothing. This fact pointed to a parasite which lives on the patient's body and in his clothing. He subsequently identified the carrier to be the body louse.
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