History of
Microbiology
In Antiquity
Ordinances
of Manu (1300 BCE)
& Avicenna
(1020 CE) warns of contagious tuberculosis
Bhagavata
Purana (500 BCE) associate transmission of bubonic
plague with rats
Mosaic Pentateuch (Numbers, Deuteronomy) (1000
~ 650 BCE)
Dietary laws recognize
trichinosis via pork
Ritual washing (Mikveh)
prevents transmission
Muslim preparatory
practices similar
Nero (ruled 14 - 37 CE) banned
kissing to prevent oral herpes
Contagion
G Fracastoro (1476 -
1533)
"Syphilus Suffering from the French
Disease" (1530)
Described symptoms in
Italian shepherd "Syphilus"
"About Contagion and Contagious
Diseases" (1546)
transferable fomites
bx humans, animals, objects
airborne tuberculosis
dog-borne rabies
milk-borne syphilis?
[Not]
Variolation (& Vaccination)
Anticipated 1000 BCE in India
Injection of pus from
blisters (variolation) attenuates smallpox (usually)
"Live"
vaccine introduced from Arabia to Europe (1717)
by Mary
Wortley Montagu (1689 - 1762)
E Jenner
(1749 - 1823) vaccination
uses cowpox blisters against smallpox
(1796)
19th cent: puerperal sepsis (child-bed fever)
I Semmelweiss (1818 -
1865): an example of scientific method
15% mortality from in some
hospital wards
Worst incidence in ward adjacent to
morgue
Iatrogenic sepsis via transfer of "putrefying
organic matter" from cadavers to mothers
Wash
hands, instruments in lime chloride [ Ca(ClO)2
]
8.3% mortality down to 2.3% as in home birth
Subject
to antisemitism (?): Largely ignored, personality disorder
Microorganisms & Germ Theory of Disease
Marcus Terentius Varro speculates on unseen
"animalcules" (1st cent BCE):
"[T]here
are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by
the eyes,
but which float in the air
and enter the body through the mouth and nose and cause
serious diseases."
Nature of Disease (18th cent)
Humoural imbalance:
Blood, phlegm, bile, urine, sweat
corrupted
("peccant") fluids
bloodletting, emetics, heating / cooling, etc
Predisposing &
Exciting factors: innate disposition, weather, etc.
Miasma as noxious
agent: "bad air"
Non-specificity:
Single disease entity has multiple causes:
e.g.,
scarlet fever
measles
A van
Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723)
single double-convex lens
gives 275X magnification (ca. 1670)
Described "animalcules"
in pond water; semen
Connection to disease not
made
F Redi (1626
- 1697) "Omne vivum ex vivo"
Disproof of spontaneous generation
(1665)
Meat in closed
containers does not produce flies
Meat in
containers w/ porous cloth does not produce flies
(gauze right maggoty)
Closed container opened attracts flies ⋙ maggots
flies'
BTW: dead flies or maggots on meat do not produce
flies
[HOMEWORK: what does each
stage prove about maggots?]
Spallanzani & Schwann
used sealed or heated glassware
Objection: lack of air and (or) heat destroys 'vital
principle'
Fungi identified
as plant pathogens >1807
John Snow
(1813 - 1858) & "Broad Street"
Cholera epidemic (1854)
L
Pasteur (1822 - 1895)
1848 experiments
with dextro- & levo forms of tartaric
acid crystals (=> Légion
d'honneur)
1858 experiments
show specific microbes for
wine (ethanol, CH3CH2OH),
beer (carbonic acid, H2CO3),
vinegar (acetic acid, CH3COOH):
"yeasts" grow in vitro
1861 experiment
shows origin of microbial contamination
Flasks
filled with infusion, boiled
Stem
drawn out as "Swan-neck S" trap (Bottle en col de cygne), open to air
Infusion
remains clear, except if tipped into S neck
any 'vital principle' not affected
=> J Lister
(1827 - 1912) 1865 introduces carbolic acid as
surgical antiseptic
Anthrax
vaccine field tested June 1870: only vaccinated
sheep survive (Yea!)
but all cattle (Boo!)
[ Pouilly-le-Fort
demonstration used Chamberland's vaccine based on
Touissant's idea ]
1885 Rabies
vaccine successful on Joseph Meister (Notebooks say,
Maybe not so much ....)
R Koch
(1843 - 1910)
1876 experiments
show anthrax caused by coliform bacterium
coliforms
present in dead animals, not in live ones
coliforms
culturable in vitro (1881) over several
generations
lifecycle: coliform ⋙ spore ⋙ coliform ⋙ spore
coliform passage bx media dilutes out
non-living organics
cultured
coliforms injected into mice virulent
coliforms present in dead mice: Bacillus
anthracis
1881: Koch's Postulates
1.
Etiologic agent always present with disease, never
without
2.
Etiologic agent culturable in vitro
3.
Cultured agent transmissible to new host
4. Same
etiologic agent recoverable in vivo
Golden Age of Microbiology (1875
- 1915)
Technology
Differential
histological staining (1878): P Ehrlich
(1854 - 1915)
Gram stain (1884) & Petri dish (1887)
Microbial Ecology (>1880)
M
Beijerinck (1851 - 1931) & S
Winogradsky (1856 - 1953)
Nitrogen fixation by
non-photosynthetic soil microbes
Immunology
P Ehrlich & E
Metchnikoff (1845 - 1916) on immune response
(Nobel, 1908)
humoral-mediated
antibodies & cell-mediated phagocytes
K
Landsteiner (1868 - 1943) identifies ABO &
other blood types (Nobel, 1930)
Industrial Microbiology
Pasteurization prevents
spoilage
Applicable to wine, beer,
& milk
Virology (>1892)
Twort (1915)
& d'Herelle (1917) identify virus
filterable agents smaller than bacteria; non-culturable
bacteriophage
('phage) destroy bacteria: potential disease
treatment? [not]
Medical Microbiology
E von
Behring & Ehrlich
develop anti-diphtheria vaccine (first Nobel, 1901)
P Ehrlich &
S Hata develop salvarsan
('606') treatment for syphilis
A
Fleming (1881 - 1955) et al. discover (1928)
& develop (1942) antibiotic penicillin
(Nobel, 1945)
See also sulfa,
streptomycin, polio (Nobel prizes 1939, 1952,
1954)
Molecular
Biology (> 1943)
O Avery
identifies of DNA as transforming agent
(1944) in Salmonella
S
Luria - M Delbruck experiment (1943) (Nobel, 1969)
E. coli discovered
(1885), strain K-12 (1922), tamed
Bacteriophage shows genetic variation,
mutability
"Phage
Group" develops bacteriophage as simple
genetic system