Nicolle's discovery of louse transmission of epidemic typhus
Transmisión del tifus exantemático por el piojo (Nicolle)
- Date
- 1909 · confidence high
- Place
- Pasteur Institute of Tunis, Tunisia
- Credited to
- Charles Nicolle
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Noticing that typhus patients ceased to be contagious once stripped and washed, Nicolle showed with monkeys and chimpanzees that the body louse transmits epidemic typhus. The finding led to delousing measures that halted epidemics.
Nicolle made the discovery in Tunis in 1909 with Ernest Conseil and Charles Comte; the bacterium (Rickettsia prowazekii) was identified soon afterwards by Ricketts and von Prowazek.
What it led to
- systematic delousing of armies, prisoners and refugees
- typhus vaccines (Weigl, Cox)
- the 1928 Nobel Prize in Medicine for Nicolle