History Flashcards
When did the study of microbiology begin?
When the microscope was invented
Who was the first to examine cells by microscopy?
Robert Hooke
What is Robert Hooke do?
Looked at plant cells and single celled eukaryotes under a microscope
Who was the first person to observe bacteria?
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
How did Louis Pasteur discover that beer fermentation was a biological process?
Noticed that only one stereoisomer of the end product was formed by fermentation, which meant it was a biological process
What is the theory of spontaneous generation?
Things that made food spoil, like flies and maggots, just appeared spontaneously
How did Louis Pasteur’s experiment disprove the theory of spontaneous generation?
When sterile beef broth was placed in a flask with an S-shaped neck, the broth stayed sterile for months. The S-shape let air come in but any microbes in the air got trapped in the bend. When he tilted the flask, the trapped microbes got in and the broth spoiled within a day
Who developed the first vaccines? What were they against?
Louis Pasteur. Were against anthrax and rabies
Who was Robert Koch?
Studied the theory that microbes cause human disease, and provided the first evidence that they do
What are Koch’s postulates for?
Criteria to show that a microbe causes a disease
What are Koch’s postulates?
- The microbe is present in sick individuals but not in healthy ones
- The organism must be cultivated outside the body in culture
- Putting the microbe into a healthy individual should cause disease in that individual
- The organism isolated from that newly infected organism should be the same as the original one
What are 3 types of pathogens that Koch’s postulates don’t work for?
- Opportunistic pathogens. Healthy people can have them and not be sick
- Requires an animal model, so anything that only infects humans can’t be tested
- Doesn’t work for viruses, can’t grow them on a plate
