Order of authorship in the original publication: Raoult, Birg, La Scola. Raoult and colleagues cultured the bacterium causing the systemic digestive tract infection Whipple's disease from a mitral valve of a patient with endocarditis due to the disease. This was the first time that the bacterium causing Whipple's disease was cultured since the Whipple first described the disease in 1907. Digital facsimile from nejm.org at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)