1.2 Microbes Shape Human History

yeasts and bacteria

helped make foods such bread and cheese, as well as alcoholic beverages

lithotrophs

“rock-eating” bacteria that leached copper and other metals from ores exposed by mining

ancient monuments

undergo decay from lithotrophic microbes, and is accelerated by acid rain

10,000 BCE

food and drinks begin to be produced through microbial fermentation

Avicenna

first to establish a quarantine system

1300-1400

bubonic plague hits Europe and Asia

Edward Jenner

creates a cowpox vaccination that prevents smallpox

Florence Nightingale

found statistics that show poor sanitation leads to increased mortality

Robert Koch

finds that bacteria are a causative agent in developing anthrax. First pure isolate (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) is cultured on a solid medium.

Koch postulates

demonstrated the microbial causes of disease

more soldiers have died of microbial infections that wounds in battle

true

Yersinia pestis

name of the bacteria that caused the bubonic plague, which wiped out one-third of Europe’s population

antibiotics

chemicals that kill or slow the growth of bacterial pathogens

Multidrug resistant (MDR)

strains of disease causing microbes that have become immune to different treatments

Catherine of Sienna

when bubonic plague struck in their city, they stayed behind with their followers to care for the ill and bury the dead; became canonized after death as the patron saint of nurses

spontaneous generation

the theory that living microbes can arise spontaneously, without parental organisms

Lazzaro Spallanzani

Italian priest who sought to disprove the theory of spontaneous generation; Did an experiment where a sealed flask of sterilized broth was tested for microbes and failed to grow; microbes often appear in pairs; people argued that lack of oxygen invalidated his findings

Louis Pasteur

discovered fermentation is caused by a living yeast (single-celled fungus); in absence in oxygen, yeast produces alcohol, but when contaminated with bacteria it produces acetic acid; created “swan necked” flask to test spontaneous generation and disproved it

autoclave

device that uses pressurized steam to sterilize materials by raising the temperature above the boiling point of water at STP

John Tyndall

showed that repeated cycles of heat are necessary to eliminate spores formed by certain kinds of bacteria