Spallanzanis Experiments

Lazzaro spallanzani 1729-1799.

Conclusions:
1. Needham had either failed to heat his vials sufficiently to kill all microbes, or
he had not sealed them tightly enough
2. Microorganisms exist in the air and can contaminate experiments
3. Spontaneous generation of microorganisms does not occur; all living things
arise from other living things.
Pasteurs Experiments
Louis Pasteur 1822-1895- he was an indefatigable worker who pushed himself as
hard as he pushed others
He developed pasteurization, the process of heating the grape juice just enough to
kill most contaminating bacteria without changing the juices basic qualities
He thus begun he field of industrial microbiology (biotechnology)

Buchners Experiments
Eduard Buchner (1860-1917) resurrected the chemical explanation by showing that
fermenta- tion does not require living cells. Buchners experiments demonstrated
the presence of enzymes, which are cell-produced proteins that promote chemical
reactions. Buchners work began the field of biochemistry and the study of
metabolism, a term that refers to the sum of all chemical reactions within an
organism
kochs Experiments
Koch was a country doctor in Germany when he began a race with Pasteur to
discover the cause of anthrax, which is a potentially fatal disease, primarily of
animals, in which toxins produce ulceration of the skin. Anthrax, which can spread
to humans, caused untold financial losses to farmers and ranchers in the 1800s.
Kochs Postulates
He announced that the cause of tuberculosis was a rod-shaped bacterium,
Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
1. The suspected causative agent must be found in every case of the disease and
be absent from healthy hosts.
2. The agent must be isolated and grown outside the host.
3. When the agent is introduced to a healthy, susceptible host, the host must get
the disease.

4. The same agent must be found in the diseased experimental host.

Grams Stain
The first of Kochs postulates demands that the suspected agent be found in every
case of a given disease, which presupposes that minute microbes can be seen and
identified. However, because most microbes are colorless and difficult to see,
scientists began to use dyes to stain them and make them more visible under the
microscope.
Though Koch reported a simple staining technique in 1877, the Danish scientist
Hans Christian Gram (18531938) developed a more important staining technique
in 1884. His procedure, which involves the application of a series of dyes, leaves
some microbes purple and others pink. We now label the first group of cells as Gram
positive and the second as Gram negative, and we use the Gram procedure to
separate bacteria into these two large groups
The Gram stain is still the most widely used staining technique. It is one of the first
steps carried out when bacteria are being identified, and it is one of the procedures
you will learn in microbiology lab.

Semmelweis and Handwashing

Ignaz Semmelweis (18181865) was a physician on the obstetric ward of a teaching
hospital in Vienna.
Streptococcus, which is usually harmless on the skin or in the mouth but causes
severe complications when it enters the blood.

Listers Antiseptic Technique

Joseph Lister (18271912) modified and advanced the idea of antisepsis in health
care settings.
He began spraying wounds, surgical incisions, and dressings with carbolic acid
(phenol), a chemical that had previously proven effective in reducing odor and
decay in sewage.

Nightingale and Nursing

Florence Nightingale (18201910), was a dedicated English nurse who introduced
cleanliness and other antiseptic techniques into nursing practice.
She was instrumental in set- ting standards of hygiene that saved innumerable lives
during the Crimean War of 18541856.

Snow and Epidemiology

John Snow (18131858), also played a key role in setting standards for good public
hygiene to pre- vent the spread of infectious diseases. Snow had been studying the
propagation of cholera and suspected that the disease was spread by a
contaminating agent in water.
In 1854, he mapped the occurrence of cholera cases during an epidemic in London.
Jenners Vaccine
In 1796, the English physician Edward Jenner (17491823) tested the hypothesis
that a mild disease called cowpox pro- vided protection against potentially fatal
smallpox.
Jenner began the field of immunology the study of the bodys specific defenses
against pathogens.
Ehrlichs Magic Bullets
Grams discovery that stained bacteria could be differentiated into two types
suggested to the German microbiologist Paul Ehrlich (18541915) that chemicals
could be used to kill micro- organisms differentially.
His discoveries began the branch of medical microbiology known as
chemotherapy.

MICROBIOLOGY
ROBERT W. BAUMAN
4TH EDITION