HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Extract Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Birden, H. Articles by Frerichs, R. R. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Birden, H. Articles by Frerichs, R. R.

Hudson Birden, MPH

The author is with the Department of Community Medicine, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington; the Department of Epidemiology, University of Hartford; and the New Britain Health Department, New Britain, Conn.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Hudson Birden, New Britain Health Department, 31 High St, New Britain, CT 06051 (e-mail: birden{at}mail.hartford.edu).

As a professor both of history and of public health, I appreciated the Images of Health article "Cholera in Paris."¹ However, it perpetuated a historical inaccuracy that I wish to correct. Despite what we were all taught, it was not Robert Koch who discovered the causative agent of cholera, but Filippo Pacini, professor of anatomy at the University of Florence from 1849 to 1883. It was he who discovered the bacillus, characterized it as a Vibrio, stated that this Vibrio was the cause of cholera, and published his results.² Pacini died the year before the bacterium was re-"discovered" by Koch.

References

1. Helfand WH, Lazarus J, Theerman P. Cholera in Paris. Am J Public Health.2000;90:1530.[Free Full Text]

2. Bentivoglio M, Pacini P. Filippo Pacini: a determined observer. Brain Res Bull. 1995;38:161–165.[Medline]

Ralph R. Frerichs, DVM, DrPH

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Ralph R. Frerichs, DVM, DrPH, University of California, School of Public Health, Center for the Health Sciences, 10833 Le Conte Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772. (e-mail: frerichs{at}ucla.edu)

I enjoyed reading Helfand et al.'s brief article on cholera in Paris.¹ The illustration included provides a dramatic view of the impact that this disease had on 19th-century society. I have one correction, which only recently was brought to my attention as well, that has to do with Robert Koch. He did not discover Vibrio cholerae. This honor goes to Filippo Pacini, an Italian physician and anatomist who reported the agent in 1854, as finally acknowledged by the International Committee on Nomenclature in 1965 when it adopted Vibrio cholerae Pacini 1854 as the correct name of the cholera-causing organism. More details can be found at the UCLA Department of Epidemiology School of Public Health Web site.²

Koch rediscovered Vibrio cholerae in 1884 and was the first to isolate and culture the organism. Because most scientists in France and England were not aware of Pacini's work, Helfand et al.'s point that the agent was unknown in the mid-1800s remains valid.

References

1. Helfand WH, Lazarus J, Theerman P. Cholera in Paris. Am J Public Health.2000;90:1530.

2. UCLA Dept of Epidemiology School of Public Health Web site. Who first discovered Vibrio cholera? Available at: http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html. Accessed March 2, 2001.

This Article Extract Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Birden, H. Articles by Frerichs, R. R. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Birden, H. Articles by Frerichs, R. R.