Charles J. H. Nicolle, the recipient of the 1928 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, was recognized by the Swedish Academy for his research into the cause of typhus, a severe and widespread disease during the early twentieth century. Nicolle's discovery that typhus is transmitted by the human body louse--and therefore can be readily prevented--was of great benefit to both military and civilian medicine.

Born September 21, 1866, in Rouen, France, Charles Jules Henri Nicolle was the son of physician Eugène Nicolle. Charles's father was a medical doctor at the municipal hospital, as well as a professor of natural history at the École des Sciences et des Art. Encouraged by his brother, the noted bacteriologist Maurice Nicolle, Charles took a course in bacteriology at the Institute Pasteur in Paris, studying under the renowned bacteriologists, Émile Roux and Eacute;lie Metchnikoff. For his doctoral dissertation, Nicolle investigated the...