n 1  cap  :  a genus of aerobic actinomycetous bacteria that form limited mycelia which tend to break up into rod-shaped cells and occas. form spores by fragmentation but develop neither conidia nor endospores and that include various pathogens as well as some soil-dwelling saprophytes  2  :  any bacterium of the genus Nocardia no*car*di*al adj 
 
No•card, Edmond-Isidore-Étienne (1850-1903), French veterinarian and biologist. Nocard was an instructor at a veterinary school near Paris and later became its director. As an assistant to Pasteur, he worked on communicable diseases in mammals. In 1885 he described the organism causing pseudotuberculosis in sheep, cattle, and horses. He developed a method for the early diagnosis of glanders in horses, and in 1888 he published a description of bovine glanders. The genus of fungi now known as Nocardia was named in his honor because the first species to be described was isolated by Nocard from glanders in cattle.
 
 
 
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