MIC125 GENERAL MICROBIOLOGY

Chapter 1
The Development of Microbiology

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 LEARNING OUTCOMES
 At the end of this lecture, you will be able to:
 develop a broad perspective of microorganisms and
recognize their place in the spectrum of living things
 highlight some of the important events and
personalities in the history and development of
microbiology
 briefly discuss the theory of spontaneous
generation and the germ theory of disease as
they relate to general and medical microbiology

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 MICROBIOLOGY
 The study of organisms too small to be seen without
magnification
 Microorganisms include:
Bacteria
Viruses
Fungi /yeast
Protozoa
Algae

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 BRANCHES OF STUDY WITHIN
MICROBIOLOGY

 Immunology
 Public health microbiology and epidemiology
 Food, dairy and aquatic microbiology
 Biotechnology

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 HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS IN
MICROBIOLOGY

 300 years of contributions by many

 Prominent discoveries include:
microscopy
scientific method
development of medical microbiology
microbiology techniques

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 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)

•Dutch linen
merchant
•First to observe
living microbes
•Single-lens
magnified up to
300X
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 FIRST
MICROSCOPE
BY
ANTONIE VAN
LEEUWENHOEK

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 LEEUWENHOEK OBSERVATION…
 He could see the clarity of the threads in his fabrics
 He took rainwater and placed it at the specimen holder and
peered through its finest lens. He found “animals appearing
to me ten thousand times less than those which may be
perceived in the water with the naked eyes”
 He scraped the plaque from his teeth and volunteers that
never cleaned their teeth in their lives and took a good close
look at that.
 He said the matter there were very little living animalcules ,
very prettily moving and in enormous numbers, seemed to
be alive.
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  For thousands of years, people believed that
certain living things arose from vital forces
present in nonliving or decomposing matter.
 People observed that
Meat left out in open soon produced
maggots
Mushrooms appeared on rotting wood
Rats and mice emerged from piles of litter

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 This ancient belief known as

“SPONTANEOUS GENERATION”
It was once believed that life could come from nonliving things,
such as mice from corn, flies from bovine manure, maggots from
rotting meat, and fish from the mud of previously dry lakes.

- Spontaneous generation is the incorrect hypothesis that

nonliving things are capable of producing life. Several
experiments have been conducted to disprove spontaneous
generation; a few of them are covered in the sections that follow.

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  One of the first people to test the spontaneous
generation theory was Francesco Redi from Italy
 He conducted a simple experiment in which he
placed meat in a jar and covered with fine gauze.
 Flies gathering at the jar were blocked from
entering and laid their eggs on the outside of the
gauze.
 The maggots subsequently developed without
access to the meat, indicating that the maggots were
the offspring of the flies
 And did not arise from “vital force” in the meat.

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 REDI’S EXPERIMENT
1. One jar was
left open.
The second jar
was covered with fine gauze.

2. The open jar contained maggots,

whereas the covered jar contained no
maggots. He did note that maggots
were found on the exterior surface of
the gauze that covered the jar.

3. Redi concluded
that meat did
not produce
maggots. The maggots came from fly
eggs and thereby helped to disprove
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spontaneous generation
 Germ Theory of Disease
 Many diseases are caused by the growth of microbes in the
body and not by sins, bad character, or poverty, etc.
 The germ theory of disease states that some diseases are
caused by microorganisms. These small organisms, too small
to see without magnification, invade humans, animals, and
other living hosts. Their growth and reproduction within
their hosts can cause a disease.

 Two major contributors:

Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch

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 Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

 Showed microbes caused

fermentation and spoilage
 Disproved spontaneous
generation of
microorganisms
 Developed pasteurization
 Demonstrated what is now
known as Germ Theory of
Disease
 Developed a rabies vaccine

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  Studying the roles of microorganisms in the fermentation of
beer and wine.
 To further clarify that air and dust were the source of
microbes, he did an experiments to prove it.
 He filled flasks with broth and fashioned their openings into
elongate, swan neck-shaped tubes.
 The flasks’ openings were freely open to the air but were
curved so that gravity would cause any airborne dust
particles to deposit in the lower part of the neck.
 He heated the flasks to sterilise the broth and then incubated
them
 When the neck was broken off, the dust fell directly down
into the container – microbial growth.
 Pasteur concluded that bacteria do not spontaneously
arise from broth
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 Robert Koch (1843-1910)
 Established Koch’s
postulates - a sequence of
experimental steps that
verified the germ theory
 Identified cause of anthrax,
TB, and cholera
 Developed pure culture
methods

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 Koch’s work
 1876: Studied Anthrax bacillus
 1882: Discovered Tubercle bacillus
 1883: First to isolate the gram-negative rod Haemophilus
aegypticus
 *Koch-Weeks bacillus- confirmed to be the cause of
 conjunctivitis
 1883: First to cultivate Vibro cholerae (Asiatic cholera)
 1896: Studied the origin of rinderpest (cattle-plague)

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 Germ theory of infectious disease
(Koch postulate)
 the pathogen must be present in every case of
the disease
 the pathogen must be isolated from the
diseased host & grown in pure culture in the
laboratory
 the specific disease must be reproduced
when a pure culture of the pathogen is
inoculated into a healthy susceptible host
 the pathogen must be recoverable from the
experimentally infected host
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 KOCH POSTULATE

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-Scientists develop
system for classifying
living things.

-Classification is sorting
out all organisms into
groups according to the
similarities between
them,
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 THE FIVE KINGDOMS OF LIFE ARE:

1. Kingdom: Monera (prokaryotic organisms)

2. Kingdom: Protista (primitive eukaryotic

organisms)

3. Kingdom: Fungi ( including yeast)

4. Kingdom: Plantae (advanced eukaryotic

plants)

5. Kingdom: Animalia (all multicellular animals)

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 WHITTAKER CLASSIFICATION

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 WHITTAKER CLASSIFICATION

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Comparison Of The 5 Kingdoms
 KINGDOM MONERA
 single-celled prokaryotes (organisms that lack membrane-
bound nuclei).
 Members of this kingdom are bacteria, cyanobacteria or
blue-green algae and spirochetes. Some members of the
same organism join together to form chains.
 Cyanobacteria is a type of organism, which is intermediate
between algae and bacteria . Their mode of nutrition is by
absorbing food through the cell wall.

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 KINGDOM PROTISA
 Protista includes single-celled eukaryotic organisms, which
contain membrane-bound cell organelles.
 It includes organisms that are neither plants nor animals.
 In simpler terms, the living things classified under Protista
are unusual and diverse forms, which cannot be grouped in
any of the four remaining kingdoms.
 For example, the simplest organisms on Earth, amoeba (a
protozoan) and giant sea kelp belong to this kingdom.
 The members of Protista obtain nutrition by absorption,
ingestion and photosynthesis.

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 KINGDOM FUNGI
 multi-cellular, eukaryotic, non-motile organisms that form
hyphae and mycelium.
 Members belonging to this kingdom lack chlorophyll, hence
they are differentiated from plants.
 The type of organisms classified under Fungi include molds,
yeasts, mildews, smuts and mushrooms.
 Their size may range from small microscopic yeasts to large
mushrooms.
 Fungi derive their nutrients by absorption from dead and
decaying organic materials.

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 KINGDOM PLANTAE
 multi-cellular, eukaryotic, non-motile living things.
 The type of organisms included in this kingdom are
algae, mosses, ferns, flowering and non-flowering plants.
 These organisms contain the photosynthetic pigment,
called chlorophyll.
 They synthesize their own food by means of
photosynthesis, which takes place in the presence of
carbon dioxide, water and sunlight.

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 KINGDOM ANIMALIA
 Animalia are group of multi-cellular, eukaryotic and motile
living things.
 Members belonging to Animalia are insects, worms, fish,
reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals.
 They cannot synthesize food and their mode of nutrition is
by ingesting food.
 They can feed either on plants or other living things.

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Prokaryotic Cell Vs Eukaryotic Cell
Difference Between Prokaryotic & Eukaryotic Cells