A Brief History Of Microbiology Pathogens and Control

Agostino Bassi (1773 - 1856) M. J. Berkeley (1845)

showed that a silkworm disease was caused by a fungus

demonstrated that the Great Potato Blight of Ireland was caused by a Fungus

Iwanowsky (1892) demonstrated that Mosaic disease of

tobacco was caused by an agent which could pass through the filter, which withholds bacteria. He showe the sap from infected leaves still retained infectivity when applied to healthy leaves. Beijerinck (1898) gave the term Virusto this infectious agent.

Ignaz Semmelweiss:
Semmelweis was a physician began requiring medical students to wash hands with chlorinated lime water. Demonstrated that childbed fever (puerperal fever), caused by streptococcal infections, was transmitted to patients by doctors hands Pioneer of antisepsis.

Joseph Lister: Father of antiseptic surgery

developed a system of surgery designed to prevent microorganisms from entering wounds phenol sprayed in air around surgical incision & applied dressings soaked in phenol on wounds.

Decreased number of post-operative infections in patients

his published findings (1867) transformed the practice of surgery

A young milkmaid informed the physician Edward Jenner that she could not get smallpox because she had already been sick from cowpox.
1796: Edward Jenner inoculated a person with cowpox virus. The person was then protected from smallpox. Called Vaccination (from vacca for cow)

Chemotherapy treatment with chemicals

Chemotherapeutic agents used to treat infectious disease can be synthetic drugs or antibiotics.
Antibiotics are chemicals produced by bacteria and fungi that inhibit or kill other microbes. Quinine from tree bark was long used to treat malaria. 1910: Paul Ehrlich developed a synthetic arsenic drug, Salvarsan, to treat syphilis. Ehrlich found that chemicals could be used to kill microorganisms. His discoveries began the branch of chemotherapy.- Magic Bullets

1928: Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic.

He observed that Penicillium notatum fungus made an antibiotic, penicillin, that killed S. aureus 1940s: Penicillin was tested clinically and mass produced.
In 1945, Flemming, Florey and Chain shared the nobel prize in physiology and medicine for the discovery of penicillin.

To enable the isolation of pure cultures (only one type of organism)

Gelatin not useful as solidifying agent (melts at >28 degrees Celsius and some bacteria hydrolyze it with enzymes) Fannie Hesse, the wife of one of Kochs assistants, proposed using Agar Obtained from dried sea weeds (Gelidium Sp.) Not digested by most bacteria Used today in solid media solidifies at 45C and melts at 90C, Richard Petri, another of Kochs assistants, developed the Petri dish