Lecture 2: History of Infectious Diseases

What did Girolamo Fracastoro publish?

“De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis” = Of Contagion and Deadly Diseases

Who first proposed germ theory (before Pasteur and Koch)?

Girolamo Fracastoro

Who invented the microscope?

Hans Lippershey or Hans and Zacharias Janssen

Occhiolino

little eye

Who created the occhiolino?

Galileo Galilei

Who coined the term “cell”?

Robert Hooke

Who created the single lens high-powered microscope?

Anton von Leeuwenhoek

Who built the first electron microscope?

Ernst Ruska and Dr. Max Knoll

What is the spontaneous generation debate about and what were the two sides?

Argument on where life came from. Abiogenesists believed life came from nonliving things. Biogenesists believed life came from life.

Was Francesco Redi a abiogenesist or biogenesist?

Abiogenesist converted to biogenesist

What was Francesco Redi’s experiment for the spontaneous generation debate?

3 containers of raw meat that is open, tightly sealed, and covered to let air in. Found that flies laid eggs to produce more flies.

Was John Needham an abiogenesist or biogenesist?

Abiogenesist

What was John Needham’s experiment for the spontaneous generation debate?

Briefly boiled broth in an open container then sealed it where the broth became cloudy after it cooled

Was Lazzaro Spallanzani an abiogenesist or biogenesist?

Biogenesist

What was Lazzaro Spallanzani’s experiment for the spontaneous generation debate?

Disputed Needham’s findings by tightly sealing flask and boiling longer

Was Rudolf Virchow an abiogenesist or biogenesist?

Biogenesist but did not believe in germ theory

Who is the father of modern pathology?

Rudolf Virchow

Who came up with the term every cell comes from another cell?

Rudolf Virchow

Who ended the spontaneous generation debate?

Louis Pasteur

What was Louis Pasteur’s experiment for the spontaneous generation debate?

Heated broth in swan-necked flask to let oxygen in at the same time. No microbial growth

What did John Tyndall create to establish a germ free environment?

Germ box

John Tyndall developed tyndalization which was?

Media is heated to boiling point at normal atmospheric pressures over several days to destroy all spores

What period is the golden age of microbiology?

1857 to 1914

What is Louis Pasteur most famous for today?

Realization that fermentation is an anaerobic process and development of heat pasteurization

Who discovered that an agent was the cause of silkworm disease leading to Pasteur’s discovery of another agent and other scientists’ investigation of disease causing agents?

Agostino Bassi

Who found that patients treated by student physicians had a higher rate of puerperal fever because they did not wash their hands but nurse midwives did?

Ignacio Philip Semmelweis

Who revolutionized surgery by cleaning wounds first with phenol and supported the association between germs and infection?

Joseph Lister

What contributions did Robert Koch make to microbiology?

Developed the concept of pure culture, methods for growing microorganisms in vitro, staining methods, vaccines

Who demonstrated the association between disease and microbes, supporting germ theory?

Robert Koch

Who suggested to use agar instead of gelatin as a medium to grow organisms?

Fanny Hess

Who developed the Petri dish?

Julius R. Petri

What discoveries were both made in Koch’s lab?

Development of Petri dish and use of agar as a medium

What is Koch’s Postulates used for?

Set of guidelines to determine if an organism is etiologic agent of disease

What are the 4 Koch’s Postulates?

Organism should be constantly present in diseased animal and not the healthy animal

Must be able to isolate the organism in pure culture

Inoculation of healthy animal with pure culture of organism must initiate disease symptoms

Must be able to reisolate organism from experimental animal, culture organism, and see the same organism again

What are the exceptions to Koch’s Postulates?

Many bacteria part of human flora can cause disease if they end up in the wrong parts of the body

Viruses can cause disease but can’t be grown in pure culture. Some bacteria require presence of other bacteria to grow

Organism may have had disease before and is immune

Who developed the smallpox vaccine before Koch by using cowpox blisters?

Edward Jenner

Variolation

Method of inoculation used to immunize individuals against smallpox by infecting them with smallpox scabs

Variola

Name for smallpox virus

What was responsible for most deaths of the 19th to early 20th century?

Infectious diseases

Who discovered that the immune system could be stimulated by weak organisms and provide protection from disease leading to the discovery of immunology?

Louis Pasteur

Who is the father of chemotherapy?

Paul Ehrlich

Who discovered a fungus with no bacterial growth that led to the discovery of penicillin as an antibiotic?

Alexander Fleming

Who developed penicillin as an antibiotic?

Howard Florey and Ernst Chain

What disciplines have branched off from the general field of microbiology?

Bacteriology, Mycology, Parasitology, Virology, Immunology

Who created “Lancefield groups” and what was its purpose?

Rebecca Lancefield. To distinguish between types of streptococci

Who produced the first recombinant organism?

Paul Berg

Who showed genes encode a cell’s enzymes?

George Beadle and Edward Tatum

Who demonstrated that DNA was a hereditary material using viral vectors?

Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, Maclyn McCarty

Who discovered the role of mRNA in protein synthesis and that enzyme levels are regulated in the cell by transcription?

Francois Jacob and Jacque Monod