[Malaria and the work of two writer-physicians: Louis Ferdinand Celine and Carlo Levi].

Malaria rarely mentioned in literary works has been dealt with by the two writers, both physicians, studied here. Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (1894-1961) alias Celine, studied medicine in Rennes and Paris from 1921 to 1924. He had been previously engaged by the Rockefeller Foundation to lecture on tuberculosis in Brittany.

[Tholozan and Persia].

Tholozan arrived in Persia in 1858 and remained there until his death in 1897. Personal physician of Nasreddin Shah with the title of hakim bachi, he was also appointed director of the Medical School of Teheran founded in 1850. He trained many Persian physicians and wrote medical treatises printed in persian.

[Tholozan: military physician].

Born in 1820 Joseph-Desire Tholozan joined in 1841 as "chirurgien sous-aide auxiliaire" the French military Health Service, being still a medical student in Marseille where the School of Medicine was directed by his uncle F. Cauviere. He was later appointed at the hospital of Bastia, obtained his M.

[A great Franco-Mauritian epidemiologist: Joseph Désiré Tholozan (1820-18970].

Born in 1820 from French parents in Diego Garcia, an islet then linked to Mauritius where he started in Port-Louis his school years, Joseph Désiré Tholozan was an original personality. He undertook medical studies in France (M. D.

[A challenged Nobel Prize: Johannes Fibiger, 1926].

Johannes Fibiger born in Denmark in 1867 died in 1928 from a cancer of the colon. First interested in bacteriology he became later (1900) professor of pathological anatomy. His chief work on the alleged cancerigenous role of a nematode Gonglyonema neoplasticum in some species of rats allowed him to receive the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1926.

[Rayer's influence on parasitology (with unpublished documents)].

The important contribution of P. Rayer to parasitology (human and animal) had never been studied so far. It includes chiefly a dozen papers published in Archives de Médecine comparée (1842-43), a creation of Rayer.

[Francesco Redi and the birth of experimental parasitology].

Francesco Redi (1626-1697) born in Arezzo (Tuscany, Italy), an encyclopedic mind simultaneously naturalist, physician and poet is the founder of scientific and experimental parasitology by his works published in 1668 and 1684. In the first he showed the impossibility of spontaneous generation of insects (flies) and in the second are described over hundred species of parasites (helminths, mites, insects) from vertebrates and invertebrates with excellent illustrations. He has also recommended various antiparasitic remedies and specified their pharmacological action.

[Historical note on the discovery of cutaneous leishmaniasis transmission by Phlebotomus].

In the last edition of Morton's medical Bibliography (1991) the discovery of the transmission of old world cutaneous leishmaniasis by phlebotomes is attributed to english-speaking authors having published between 1924 and 1942. In fact this discovery resulting from researches undertaken since 1904 is due to the team of the Institut Pasteur d'Algerie (E. & E.

[Historical brief on the fever of Malta].

Malta fever (brucellosis) is an infectious disease of cattle (chiefly goats) which can infect man. Although the disease is not limited to Malta, occurring also in other mediterranean countries as well as in Asia and America, it was originally described in 1863 in Malta where the responsible bacteria (Brucella melitensis) was discovered in 1887 by D. Bruce.

Pierre François Olive Rayer (1793-1867).

Pierre François Olive Rayer is an important figure in French medicine and medical biology of the second half of the nineteenth century, although he is scarcely recognized as such even in his own country.

[Charcot in Rayer's wake].

Charcot occupies an important place among Rayer's disciples although they did not publish any work together. They met for the first time in 1848 and later at the Société de Biologie. From 1853 to 1855 Charcot was Piorry's chef de Clinique" near Rayer's department at the Charité hospital.

[Former observations of urinary bilharziasis and wuchereriosis].

On the occasion of a book near completion on the great clinician Pierre Rayer (1793-1867), a pioneer of infectious pathology, are presented here two of his works concerning parasitic tropical pathology. The first (1838) signed by Rayer alone deals with an hematuria observed in patients from Mauritius. He distinguished several forms of the disease and described 15 observations which he compared to Egyptian hematuria of which the parasitic agent (Bilharzia (= Schistosoma) haematobium) will not be described before 1852 by Th.