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The Development of Microbiology This

Chapter 1. The Development of Microbiology

This chapter gives the history of the development of microbiology as a science, and names the pioneers in the field and their discoveries. An English scientist, Robert Hooke, published a book called ôMicrographie in 1665 on chemistry and the microscope. The real impetus came from Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch haberdasher who ground lenses in his spare time, and was the first to observe things under the microscope. He described his findings on examining blood cells, sperm, and tiny insects, and found what he called ôanimalculesö in water from a marsh.

Until the 1800s, scientists believed that disease was caused by what they termed ômiasmaö - an altered chemical quality of the atmosphere caused by decaying and diseased bodies. It had been thought since the days of Aristotle that small animals arose on decaying matter by spontaneous generation. Woven into this theory was that of Girolamo Fracostoro, who believed disease was caused by infection passed among individuals. In the mid 1600s, Athanasius Kircher reported seeing little worms in the blood of plague victims, but was largely ignored. In the 1670s, Francesco Redi first put forward the theory that flies had reproductive organs and laid eggs on meat. He tested the theory by putting meat in enclosed jars and some in open jars to prove his point. John Needham, a British cleric, repeated the experiment, and managed to grow microorganisms in sealed flasks, thus supporting the churchÆs argument for spontaneous generation, but an Italian cleric, Abbe Lazzaro Spallanzani, did a more elaborate experiment, and grew nothing. The debate continued.

Ignaz Semmelweis, in the mid 1800s, showed that blood poisoning in maternity patients was caused by their doctors not washing their hands after performing autopsies, and he and his partner John Snow showed that disease can be waterborne. Louis Pasteur, a French scientist, laid the...

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The Development of Microbiology This. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 18:43, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1708695.html