GENERAL MICROBIOLOGY
(MCB 221)
DR. GBEMISOLA O. ONIPEDE
HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF MICROORGANISMS contd.
THE GOLDEN ERA OF MICROBIOLOGY
Pasteur’s work with swan neck flasks ushered in the Golden Age of
Microbiology.
Within 60 years (1857–1914), a number of disease-causing microorganisms
were discovered, great strides in understanding microbial metabolism
were made, and techniques for isolating and characterizing
microorganisms were improved.
Scientists also identified the role of immunity in preventing disease and
controlling microorganisms, developed vaccines, and introduced
techniques used to prevent infection during surgery.
Although Fracastoro and a few others had suggested that invisible
organisms produced disease, most believed that disease was due to causes
such as supernatural forces, poisonous vapours called miasmas, and
imbalances among the four humors thought to be present in the body.
The role of the four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile [choler], and
black bile [melancholy]) in disease had been widely accepted since the
time of the Greek physician Galen (129–199).
Support for the idea that microorganisms cause disease, i.e., the Germ
theory of disease began to accumulate in the early 19th century.
Agostino Bassi (1773–1856) first showed a microorganism could cause
disease when he demonstrated in 1835 that a silkworm disease was due to
a fungal infection. He also suggested that many diseases were due to
microbial infections.
In 1845, M. J. Berkeley proved that the great Potato Blight of Ireland was
caused by a water mould, and in 1853, Heinrich de Bary showed that
smut and rust fungi caused cereal crop diseases.
Following his successes with the study of fermentation, Pasteur was asked
by the French government to investigate the pèbrine disease of silkworms
that was disrupting the silk industry.
After several years of work, he showed that the disease was due to a
protozoan parasite. The disease was controlled by raising caterpillars from
eggs produced by healthy moths.
Indirect evidence for the germ theory of disease came from the work of
the English surgeon, Joseph Lister (1827–1912) on the prevention of
wound infections.
Lister, impressed with Pasteur’s studies on the involvement of
microorganisms in fermentation and putrefaction, developed a system of
antiseptic surgery designed to prevent microorganisms from entering
wounds.
Instruments were heat sterilized, and phenol was used on surgical
dressings and at times sprayed over the surgical area.
The approach was remarkably successful and transformed surgery after
Lister published his findings in 1867.
It also provided strong indirect evidence for the role of microorganisms in
disease because phenol, which kills bacteria, also prevented wound
infections
The first direct demonstration of the role of bacteria in causing disease
came from the study of anthrax by the German physician, Robert Koch
(1843–1910).
Koch used the criteria proposed by his former teacher, Jacob Henle
(1809–1885), to establish the relationship between Bacillus anthracis and
anthrax, and published his findings in 1876.
Koch injected healthy mice with material from diseased animals, and the
mice became ill. After transferring anthrax by inoculation through a series
of 20 mice, he incubated a piece of spleen containing the anthrax bacillus
in beef serum. The bacilli grew, reproduced, and produced endospores.
When the isolated bacilli or their spores were injected into mice, anthrax
developed.
His criteria for proving the causal relationship between a microorganism
and a specific disease are known as Koch’s postulates.
Koch’s proof that B. anthracis caused anthrax was independently
confirmed by Pasteur and his coworkers.
They discovered that after burial of dead animals, anthrax spores survived
and were brought to the surface by earthworms. Healthy animals then
ingested the spores and became ill.
Although Koch used the general approach described in the postulates
during his anthrax studies, he did not outline them fully until his work on
the cause of tuberculosis.
In 1884, he reported that this disease was caused by a rod-shaped
bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis for which he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905 for his work.
Koch’s postulates quickly became the cornerstone of connecting many
diseases to their causative agent. However, their use is at times not
feasible. For instance some organisms, like Mycobacterium leprae, the
causative agent of leprosy, cannot be isolated in pure culture.
KOCH’S POSTULATES
1. The microorganism must be present in every case of the disease but
absent from healthy organisms.
2. The suspected microorganisms must be isolated and grown in a pure
culture.
3. The same disease must result when the isolated microorganism is
inoculated into a healthy host.
4. The same microorganism must be isolated again from the diseased host.
