The Stamp
This stamp was issued by France to honour three noted veterinarians, Drs Nocard, Bouley and Chauveau. It was released on 11 June 1951 in lilac purple, valued at 12 Francs.
It was designed by Raoul Serres (1881 – 1971) and was printed by Atelier de Fabrication des Timbres-Poste, Paris. Edmond Ducard is depicted alongside Henri Marie Bouley (1814 – 1885) and Jean-Baptiste Auguste Chauveau (1827 – 1917) in front of the gates of the Lyon Veterinary College.
The Subject
Edmond Isidore Etienne Nocard (1850 – 1903), a French veterinarian and microbiologist was born on 29 January 1850 in Provins, Seine-et-Marne, France. In 1880, he began working in the laboratory of Louis Pasteur in Paris as an assistant. There, he helped Pasteur and Emile Roux in their classic experiments of vaccination of animals against anthrax.
He also developed new techniques of harvesting blood serum, and a new culture medium for the bacillus of tuberculosis. He discovered the genre of bacteria which was named, in his honour, Nocardia. He died on 2 August 1903 in Saint-Maurice, Marne.
Urology Connections
In 1902, Edmond Nocard isolated Mycobacterium bovis from a cow with tuberculous mastitis. Unfortunately, the culture had a tendency to clump and was difficult to process. In 1908, two scientists working in the Pasteur Institute in Lille resolved this; they were Calmette and Guérin. Camille Guérin was one of Nocard’s pupils; Calmette and Guérin went on to develop BCG, used against tuberculosis, but also as a non-specific immune stimulator for treating high-grade,non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.
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