Nicole Charles

September 21, 1866, Mr.. - 28 February 1936
French physician and bacteriologist, Charles Jules Henri Nicolle was born in Rouen and was the youngest of two sons Zhyudena Nicolas, a physician and professor of natural history. Although he felt a calling to literature, and later wrote several novels, H. walked in the footsteps of his father and older brother Maurice, a famous pathologist, devoting himself to medicine. After training in Rouen and Paris, he in 1889, Mr.. passed the exams for medical internships. His brother advised him to enter the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where H. studied in Emil Rauksa, colleagues, Louis Pasteur. In 1893, Mr.. N. defended his doctoral dissertation on the role of germs Dyukreya in the development of chancroid, a sexually transmitted disease.
After receiving medical degree N. returned to Rouen, and worked in a municipal hospital, zaveduya bacteriological laboratory, and has lectured at medical school. N. hoped that Rouen would be a major research medical center, but his hopes were dashed in the face of relentless urban bureaucracy. The progressive deafness, which prevented him in relations with patients and colleagues, made it impossible to participate H. in conversation, turning it into a closed person, so all the forces he had sent to the research work and literary activities.
When in 1902. N. invited to take the post of director of branch of the Pasteur Institute in Tunisia (North Africa), he felt dissatisfied with their lives in France, accepted the invitation. Although this branch does not have an independent status at the time of arrival there of N., he soon transformed it from the department in charge of vaccination against rabies, in the center of medical research and the development of vaccines. When H. Pasteur Institute in Tunis is a leading laboratory for the study of tropical diseases. N. studied leishmaniasis and toxoplasmosis (disease caused by a protozoan), investigated the role of flies in trachoma transmission (typical for North Africa the disease) and showed that influenza is caused by a virus.
. 'Of all the issues which confronted me in the process of working - write N
. later - fever was the most critical and poorly understood problem '. Typhus, notorious in Europe for several centuries was the cause of the extinction of people in the army, prisons, and among the urban poor. Typhoid germs are microorganisms of the genus rickettsia, disease spreads rapidly and often gives a high mortality, reaching up to 30 ... 70% or more. Typhus was a major problem for Napoleon's army at the beginning of XIX century., Forced Napoleon to limit campaigns in Eastern Europe. Before arriving in Tunisia H. observed several cases of typhus, but he knew that his epidemic broke out in North Africa and earlier.
H. began his studies with monitoring the spread of typhus among the population. The local hospital in Tunis, he was struck by the peculiar ways of the spread of the disease within its walls. Prior to admission patients typhus infect their family members, personal physicians and even hospital staff faced when receiving. Once they get into the chamber, the spread of the disease is suspended. 'I took this observation as a guiding principle for his research - said H. - I asked myself what happens between the arrival of the patient in the hospital and its placement in the House. And the following happens: the patient fever takes his clothes, his shave, hair cut and wash. Consequently, contagious object somehow connected with the clothing and skin, and it can remove the soap and water. So infecting agent may be only cootie '.
In some experiments, H. typhus infected chimpanzees and guinea pigs, using an infected louse. Opening spread of typhus lice had great practical importance. For three years the general hygiene measures have saved the people of Tunisia on lice and virtually eliminated typhoid fever in the city, which previously suffered from epidemics for centuries. During the First World War army belligerents conducted sanitization troops to remove the lice from each going into the trenches, or returning from them. As a result, in the armies of Germany, France and Britain was much less loss of typhus, while losses as a result of infection among the less pedantic forces of Russia and Serbia on the eastern front of millions.
. During his studies N
. noticed that some of the animals infected with typhus, they are not ill, but able to transmit it to others. This phenomenon, designated as 'invisible' disease, explained the basic problem in the frequency and distribution of typhus and other diseases.
. People are the primary targets of the classical epidemic (typhus, or European) typhus, a disease spread from human to human body louse
. Epidemics occur in this manner have a tendency to quickly terminate, except in situations in large populations. The reason is that the chain of transmission is interrupted, if there are no people in the population, never bolevshih fever and therefore susceptible to the disease.
. In the case of typhus, but the epidemic is often continue to develop in areas with small populations, then fading away, then spontaneously resuming
. Research H. demonstrated that this distribution is due to the hidden nature of the infection. A small percentage of people contains rickettsia in the blood, not realizing it until it becomes a source of infection, and will not start a new wave of infections, often through a large period of time.
In 1928, Mr.. N. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 'for the establishment of the transmitter of typhus - body lice'. The decision to award H. Nobel Prize was not unanimous, tk. his discovery concerning typhus, did not contain new principles. In his Nobel lecture H. noted that 'a long time it was thought that the primary infection causes fever immunity in humans in almost all cases, and this immunity remains for life'. He proved that the laboratory animals also possess such immunity.
By 1897, Mr.. thanks to research malaria Ronald Ross became aware that insects may be involved in transmitting the disease to humans. Factor, leaning solution of the members of the Nobel Committee in favor of H., was preventing the spread of typhoid fever during the First World War.
In 1932, Mr.. N. was appointed to the prestigious post of head of the department of experimental medicine at the College de France, where he taught for three years. His lectures on science, medicine and human destiny in it, were very popular among French scholars.
Died H. in 1936. in Tunisia, as director of the Pasteur Institute. In addition, he was a distinguished bacteriologist and immunologist, H. was a poet, philosopher and philologist.
In 1895, Mr.. N. married Alice Evays, they had two sons, who have chosen medicine business of his life.
Among the prizes H. It should be noted Prize Orisisa Academy of Sciences (1927). N. - Chevalier Legion of Honor (1920), corresponding member of the Medical Academy and the Academy of Sciences.