Charles Jules Henry Nicole

The discovery that I soon made that the guinea pig was also susceptible to infection made it possible for me, from the third year on, to preserve the virus on this animal.

At the time when I was conducting my research there was no known method for taking the guinea pig's temperature. I demonstrated a technique which is now widely used.

I was less successful in my attempts to effect preventive vaccination against typhus by using the virus and in trying to produce large quantities of serum using large animals.

Just as the only reservoir for the typhus virus in nature is provided by man, so the only vector of infection is the louse. The bite of the louse is not virulent immediately after the infecting meal. It becomes so only towards the 7th day following infection.

I demonstrated the characteristics of experimental fever. It appears after an incubation period which is never less than five days. It follows the same pattern as natural fever in man, but is of shorter duration and less pronounced.