19th Century Medicine: Pasteur, Koch and causes

Question 1

What theory about the causes of disease was Louis Pasteur looking to disprove?

Answer 1

Spontaneous generation

Question 2

Describe Louis Pasteur’s experiment to disprove spontaneous generation

Answer 2

• Pasteur placed nutrient broth into two swan-neck flasks, then boiled the broth to kill any existing microbes
• Pasteur broke off the swan neck from one flask, exposing the broth to air

Question 3

What was the result of Louis Pasteur’s experiment to disprove spontaneous generation?

Answer 3

The liquid in the broken flask became cloudy, but the liquid in the swan-neck flask remained clear - so disease was not created spontaneously

Question 4

What was the key limitation of Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory?

Answer 4

He could not identify the specific bacteria causing individual diseases

Question 5

In what year did Louis Pasteur publish his results disproving spontaneous generation?

Answer 5

1861

Question 6

Give two reasons why Louis Pasteur’s ideas about the causes of disease were initially ignored in Britain

Answer 6

Any two from:

• He was not a doctor
• His work focused on food, not the human body
• Well-respected doctors like Dr Henry Bastian continued to promote spontaneous generation

Question 7

Who read about Germ Theory and linked it to infection problems in surgery?

Answer 7

Joseph Lister

Question 8

What bacterium was isolated by Robert Koch and his research team in 1876?

Answer 8

Anthrax

Question 9

Which bacteria did Robert Koch successfully isolate in:

1882?

1883?

Answer 9

1882: tuberculosis

1883: cholera

Question 10

How did Robert Koch make it easier to study bacteria under a microscope?

Answer 10

He grew bacteria in agar jelly in a petri dish, and stained them with industrial dyes to make them easier to see

Question 11

How did Robert Koch’s work affect the treatment of disease?

Answer 11

Before Koch, doctors studied and treated symptoms - now they could treat the disease itself by attacking the microbe

Question 12

In 1879, Louis Pasteur successfully created a vaccine against what disease?

Answer 12

Chicken cholera

Question 13

Other than chicken cholera, give one example of a disease that Louis Pasteur created a vaccine against

Answer 13

Anthrax, rabies

Question 14

What was the limitation of the vaccines developed by Pasteur and Koch in the 19th century?

Answer 14

They could not create enough vaccine for large-scale use with the public

Question 15

What was the British government’s attitude to Germ Theory?

Answer 15

They initially rejected it and ignored Robert Koch’s work showing cholera was caused by microbes in drinking water

Question 16

What FOUR factors allowed ideas about the cause of disease to change in the 19th century?

Answer 16

Individual genius
The British government
Attitudes in society
Science and technology