Microbes Timeline

How did we discover that microbes caused disease??

Pre-historic times Cracking the skull to let the demons out that caused disease was a common
practice. Leeches were first used to get rid of ‘bad blood’.
3000 BC The Chinese stuffed powdered small pox scabs up the noses of children to make them
immune to it. They had no idea how it worked.

1666 The Great Plague kills over 100,000 people in Britain alone. People think
that it is spread because of bad or dirty air so carry around posies of
flowers to keep the air around them smelling sweet. This picture shows
how the doctors tried to protect themselves. They wore long leather
gowns, hoods and gloves. The 'beak' was stuffed with herbs and the
eyes were made of glass.
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1683 Antony van Leeuwenhoek made the first microscope and saw
microbes. He doesn’t know what they are and that they can
cause disease.

1796 Edward Jenner uses the first vaccination. He uses cowpox to prevent smallpox (a disease
which killed millions of people worldwide every year). He doesn’t understand how this works
though.
1854 John Snow discovers how cholera is spread – and its not by bad air.
Florence Nightingale saves the lives of thousands of injured soldiers by insisting on
clean wards and instruments in army hospitals.
1865 Joseph Lister realises that invisible living things get into wounds to make people
sick and die. He uses carbolic acid to clean up wounds – the first antiseptic.
1879 Louis Pasteur uses scientific investigations to work out that microbes cause decay.
He later discovers the vaccine for cholera (by accident!) but he is the first to
understand how vaccines work. He then uses this information to create vaccines
for anthrax and rabies. He also finds time to invent pasteurisation!
1882 Robert Koch discovers the TB bacterium by looking at the blood of animals with TB.
1929 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin (another accident!)
1974 Worldwide vaccination wipes out smallpox.

Questions
1. When did people realise that microbes caused disease?
2. What different things did they think caused disease before this?
3. What do you think was the most important discovery? Give reasons for your choice.