History of Microbiology

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History of Microbiology

• 1500s -1900s

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What is microbiology

• Study of any organism too small to be seen with
  the human eye.
• Microorganisms -- Oldest life form on earth. (3.5
  billion years ago)

3
1500s

• Before the 1500s most theories of disease were
  based on superstition.
• No knowledge of microorganisms.
• Thought that you can get disease from another
  person who was sick, but didnt know why.

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1600s

• Robert Hooke and Anton van Leeuwenhoek started
  using crude microscopes

Hookes microscope
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1600s

• Van Leeuwenhoek observed what we now call
  bacteria and protists, he called them
  animalcules. Called Father of Microbio.

van Leeuwenhoeks microscope
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1600s

• Francesco Redi 1668 Disproved Spontaneous
  Generation.
• It was thought that organisms arose from
  inorganic or rotting organic material.
• His experimentFrancesco took eight jars, placed
  meat in all the jars, but covered four of the
  jars with muslin. Maggots developed in the open
  jars but did not develop in the muslin-covered
  jars.
• Proving that organisms arose from parental
  organisms- biogenesis

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1700s

• John Fisher- Studied venereal diseases - found it
  was caused by a single bacteria, meisseria
  gonorrhoeae.
• Edward Jenner 1789- Developed small pox
  vaccination by using a milder disease, cowpox.
  He took liquid from the sores a patient with
  cowpox and put it into a healthy person. Then
  gave that healthy person liquid from a patient
  with small pox and discoved that the healthy
  person didnt get sick. Risky experiment gave us
  the first way to prevent disease.

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1800s More prevention

• Ignaz Semmelweis, hand washing before surgery
  could prevent childbirth fever ie. Strep. Drs.
  would deliver babies w/o washing hands, or after
  performing autopsies on women who had died from
  childbirth fever.
• Joseph Lister father of antiseptic surgery
  concept, sanitation/hygene procedure (food
  handlers, water). Connected work of Semmelweis
  and Pasteur to develop and popularize the
  chemical inhibition of infection during surgery.
  (washed surgical wounds with phenol (carbolic
  acid))
• AKA Listerine

9
1800s

• Louis Pasteur (1864)-demonstrated that
  microorganisms are present in air not created by
  the air- further disproving spontaneous
  generation. Helped developed the germ theory of
  disease (microorganisms may be the cause of some
  or all disease).

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Germ Theory of Disease

• Robert Koch
• Bacillus antraxis- caused anthrax- could take the
  blood of infected animals and injected blood to
  healthy sheep and healthy sheet got the disease.
• Kochs postulates- proves specific bacteria cause
  a specific disease.
• 1876

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Kochs postulates

• 1. Microorganism must be present in every case of
  the disease.
• 2. The microorganism must be isolated from the
  diseased host and grown in pure culture.
• 3. The disease must be reproduced when the pure
  culture of the microorganism is inoculated into a
  healthy animal.
• 4. The organism must be recoverable from the
  experimental infected host.

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1500-1800s

• Disease was caught from someone who was sick.
• Microorganisms exist!
• Disease was caused by a microorganism, that can
  be transferred from another person.

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The Golden Age of Bacteriology

• 1877-1900 -diseases found caused by bacteria.
• Tuberculosis
• Typhoid
• Staphlococcal disease
• Strep
• Tetnus
• Diptheria
• Pneumococcus
• Cholera
• Gonococcus
• Meningeococcus

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Viruses!

• Dimitri Iwanowski (1890-1900) first to discover
  viruses.
• Tobacco mosaic virus

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1900s

• Alexander Fleming 1920s- First antibiotics
  (penicillin)
• Fleming discovered that a mold accidentally
  growing on one of his petri dishes had
  anti-bacterial activity.