HISTORY OF THE GERM THEORY OF DISEASE
rvsd 20 July 1992, 6/28/93, 8 July 1994, 5
July 1995, 8 July 1996, 8 July 98, 5 July 2000, 3 July 01, 8 Jan 02, 3
July 02, 9July04, 08July05, 6July08, 9July10
Black 6th: p 8-21, Bauman 2nd: 11-22
Man first thought disease to be punishment from God, then brought on by foul vapors (miasma) (malaria for instance)
| Aristotle | 350 BC | Taught Alexander the Great to boil drinking water & bury feces to prevent disease. |
| Fracastorius | 1546 (1478-1553) | Theory of contagion: disease infection can be caused by minute bodies (“germs”) capable of self-replication, transmitted from infector to infected. Said to have named syphilis. |
| Leeuwenhoek | 1670s | improved microscope,
first to observe
bacteria. |
| Agostino Bassi | 1834 | First to show that a microorganism could cause disease in case of a fungal disease of silkworms: contagious and could be transmitted naturally by direct contact or infected food, or experimentally by means of a pin previously sterilized in a flame |
| Oliver Wendle Holmes | 1843 | Noted that it was safer to give birth at home than in hospital, postulated something present in hospital is causing disease (nosocomial disease) |
| M.J. Berkeley | 1845 | Showed Irish potato blight caused by a fungus |
| Ignaz Semmelweis | 1848 (1818-1865) | In charge of lying-in hospital in Vienna. Childbirth death rate: Ward II midwives = 3%, Ward I, medical faculty: ~10%. Phys. friend died of autopsy wound, S&S same as puerperal fever. Proposed etiology: “cadaveric particles.” Smell not removed by hand washing, but calcium hypochlorite: Ca(OCl)2 did. Chloride of lime washing reduced puerperal fever death rate 12.4% to 1.27%. Iatrogenic disease. |
| John Snow | 1854 (1813-1858) | deduced contaminated Broad Street Pump caused cholera epidemic in London |
| Joseph Lister | 1860s (1827-1912) |
Introduced use of antiseptic during surgery: phenol in surgical dressings and sprayed into the air. Wound infections dropped dramatically, thus due to bacteria. |
| Louis Pasteur | 1865 | Demonstrated that spoilage of wine was due to abnormal microorganisms. Then asked by French gov to study PEBRINE: (pa-breen) another disease of silkworms, caused by a protozoan. Could be halted by identifying diseased worms, removing and destroying. |
| Davaine | 1850 | observed little thread-like bodies in blood of anthrax-killed animals |
| Henle | proposed that diseases might be directly caused by microorganisms. His student, Robert Koch: | |
| Robert Koch | 1876 (1843-1910) | Rival of Pasteur, raced to find the cause of anthrax (coal, burning
coal, from
pustules & carbuncles in affected animals) disease of sheep and cattle. First
to demonstrate bacillary agent to be pathogen:
Used criteria suggested by his teacher, Henle, now called Koch's postulates: (in study of etiology of anthrax)
|
| KOCH’S POSTULATES are criteria by which a bacterium may be said
to cause a disease. 1 microscopic examination found bacillus in blood of all animals with anthrax. 2 single colony-isolated bacillus on solid media. The idea for isolating pure cultures came from his observation of a spoiling cut potato. Also required, as developed in his lab: Loeffler developed nutrient broth and stains. Walter Hesse's wife suggested using agar to solidify. Petri developed shallow dishes for culture. 3 injected pure culture into healthy animals, they got anthrax. 4 isolated same organism from animals experimentally given anthrax. |
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| Chamberland | 1884 | Showed that tobacco mosaic disease was caused by "filterable' agent (i.e., not bacteria) therefore. called virus. |
| PREVENTION, CURE OF DISEASE: vaccination, therapeutic agents: | ||
| Edward Jenner | 1798 | Saw peasants do this in Turkey. Inoculated susceptible person with pus from cowpox lesion, conferred resistance to Small Pox. Vaccination comes from vache, cow in French. |
| Pasteur | 1880 | Cultured chicken cholera repeatedly, it lost its virulence but could still confer immunity when injected. Attenuated [towards thinness] strain = vaccine |
| Erlich | 1910 | Searched for "magic bullet" would poison pathogen but not patient. Developed salvarsan, an arsenic compound against syphilis. |
| Flemming | 1928 (1881-1955) | Noted inhibition of Staphylococcus growth on plate contaminated with Penicillium notatum. Discovered penicillin. |
