A disease affecting silkworms that causes paralysis and weakening, historically important in European silk production.
From French 'flacherie,' derived from 'flache' meaning soft or flabby, describing the characteristic weakening of infected silkworms that occurred in 19th-century European sericulture.
This obscure disease nearly destroyed the French silk industry in the 1850s and led Louis Pasteur to invent microbiology as we know it—he proved germs cause disease by studying these dying silkworms, revolutionizing medicine forever.
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