History of Microbiology

Microbiolog
y

Discovery Transition
Era Era Golden Era Modern Era
 Discovery Era
• Greek’s believed that living things could originate from nonliving matter

Aristotle
• Discarded this notion, but he still held that animals could arise
spontaneously from dissimilar organisms or from soil.
• Spontaneous generation
Antonie van leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)
• Father of microbiology
• Invented the first practical microscope
• He discovered blood cells
• The first bacteria observed by man
• Described basic Bacteria, Protozoa
• Father or Bacteriology
 Transition Era
Germ Theory of Disease
• During the 1600s, the concept of spontaneous generation of diseases
was proved wrong by the experiments performed by Francesco Redi.
• In his experiments, he placed a loaf of meat and an egg in three distinct jars:
• Thus Redi refuted the concept of spontaneous generation
• Founder of ‘experimental biology’
• Challenged spontaneous generation
theory
Lazzaro spallanzai (1729- 1799)
• Air carried germs to the culture medium
• Boiled broth did not give rise to microscopic form of life
 Golden Era
Louis Pasteur Discovers Germ Theory, 1861
• Modern germ theory
• He proved that food spoiled because of contamination by invisible bacteria, not
because of spontaneous generation
• Father of medical Microbiology
• Invented the process of Pasteurization, fermentation
Development of various vaccines
Lord Joseph lister (1827-1912)
• Father of Antiseptic Surgery
• Concluded that wound infections were due to microorganism
• Devised a method to destroy the microorganism in operation theatre by spraying
carbolic acid.
Robert Koch
• 1876, established that microbes can cause disease.
• He found that the blood of cattle who were infected with
anthrax always had large numbers of Bacillus anthracis.
• Koch found that he could transmit anthrax from one animal to another by taking a
small sample of blood from the infected animal and injecting it into a healthy one,
and this caused the healthy animal to become sick.
• Perfected technique to isolate pure bacteria
• Gelatine to prepare media
Fanne Eilshemius Hesse (1850-1934)

• Kochs assistant proposed use of agar in culture media

• It was not attacked by most bacteria
• High melting point then gelatine

Richard Petri (1887)

• Developed Petri dish to culture