Principles of Medical Microbiology

• The history of Microbiology includes the belief that epidemic diseases are a way of punishment by gods, the ways to prevent epidemics was praying and sacrificing animals, the importance of washing and cleaning for protection from infectious diseases, and the advice not to go around the swamps since small unvisible creatures in the air can enter human body by respiration and can cause serious diseases.
• Avicenna (Ibn Sina) was a Turkish philosopher and physician, born in Afshana, near Boukhara (presently, Pakistan), who wrote an early tenth-century medical encyclopedia, al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, known as Canons of Medicine in the West.
• Avicenna was a pioneer in the recognition of the contagious nature of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, the first to describe the symptoms and natural history of meningitis, and developed the hypothesis of infectious diseases being transmitted through water, food and soil contamination.
• Roger Bacon, an English scientist and philosopher, stated that reality can be found by wisdom and research, and that little creatures may be the cause of diseases.
• Giralamo Fracastoro, an Italian physician, is the one who named the disease syphilis and described its symptoms.
• Nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and polysaccharides are found in Procaryotic and Eucaryotic cells.
• Microbiological instruments include a Microscope, Incubator, Pasteur Oven (Dry sterilization), and Autoclave (Sterilization with pressurized steam).
• The modern era of antimicrobial chemotherapy began in 1929 with Fleming's discovery of the powerful bactericidal substance penicillin, and Domagk's discovery in 1935 of synthetic chemicals (sulfonamides) with broad antimicrobial activity.
• Yeasts and Molds are examples of Fungi.
• In 1952, Hershey and Chase proposed that viral nucleic acid includes all the information needed for replication.
• In the 1960s, Nirenberg and Ochoa proposed Translation.
• In 1983, Karry Mullis proposed the Polymerase Chain Reaction.
• Bacteria, Fungi, Protozoa, and Viruses are classified as Procaryotic, Eucaryotic, Protozoa, and Viruses respectively.
• In 1952, Watson and Crick proposed the structure of DNA.
• The name for syphilis is derived from Fracastoro's 1530 epic poem in three books, Syphilis sive morbus gallicus ("Syphilis or The French Disease"), about a shepherd boy named Syphilus who insulted mythological god Apollo and was punished by that god with a horrible disease.
• Fracastoro's 1546 book ( De contagione -- "On Contagion") also gave the first description for typhus.
• Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch scientist, using his handcrafted microscopes, was the first to observe and describe single-celled organisms, which he originally referred to as animalcules, and which we now refer to as microorganisms.
• Leeuwenhoek was also the first to record microscopic observations of muscle fibers, bacteria, spermatozoa, and blood flow in capillaries.
• Robert Hooke, an English scientist, used a compound microscope (two lenses) to observe microorganisms.
• Aristotle stated that animals can be made from earth.
• Robert Koch (1843 - 1910) isolated pure bacterial cultures.
• In 1898, Beijernick used the term "virus" (toxin in Latin).
• Ignaz Semmelweiz insisted on the importance of washing hands to eliminate puerperal fever and tried to convince health workers to wash hands by antiseptics.
• In 1800, Agostino Bassi identified a fungus (Botrytis bassi) as the cause of infection in silkworm.
• In 1892, Ivanowsky filtered a tobacco mosaic virus through a ceramic filter.
• Pasteur ended these discussions.
• After the discovery of microorganisms, spontaneous generation discussions restarted.
• Samson and Virgil: Bees from honey and Dirty sucks put in bags of wheat turn into mice and Worms from meat left at sunDisproval of Spontaneous Generation.
• The golden age of microbiology: 20 years following Koch, many important infectious agents such as Corynebacterium diphteria, Typhi, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Clostridium perfringens, Clostridium tetani, Shigella dysenteria, Treponema pallidum were defined until 1900.
• In 1870, Joseph Lister showed the importance of spraying phenol into surgery rooms to eliminate surgical infections.
• John Tyndall (1820 - 1893) stated that microorganisms are carried by dust.
• Robert Koch isolated Bacillus anthracis in 1877, Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1882, Vibrio cholera in 1883.
• Rous defined sarcoma virus which causes cancer in chicken in 1911.
• Griffith identified capsule types in pneumococci in 1920.
• Francesco Redi (1626 - 1697) from Pisa
• Twort and d' Herelle discovered bacterial virus (bacteriophage) in 1914-1918.
• Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895)
• Avery defined transforming agent: DNA in 1940.
• In 1940, Elektron microscopy was developed and eucaryotic cell cultures were established.
• Oliver Wendel Holmes defined puerperal fever in mothers after giving birth to their children and indicated that this must be by transfer of microorganisms.