Timeline: Short Microbiology History

Question 1

1546 - Early description of a contagion.

Answer 1

Girolamo Fracastoro

Question 2

1670s - First discovery of microorganisms (termed animacules) with the use of a magnifying lens.

Answer 2

Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek

Question 3

1796 - Country doctor shower vaccinating with cowpox can protect from smallpox.

Answer 3

Edward Jenner

Question 4

1830s - Italian farmer noted disease in silkworms caused by infrection from animals.

Answer 4

Agostino Bassi

Question 5

1840 - Argued for “germ theory of infection.”

Answer 5

Jakob Henle

Question 6

1850s - Physician in neonatal unit recommended use of “chloride of lime” on dirty hands to prevent spread of infection.

Answer 6

Ignaz Semmelweis

Question 7

1865 - Used carbolic acid or phenol to sterilize surgical instruments.

Answer 7

Joseph Lister

Question 8

Late 1800s - Scientist who isolated bacteria from infected animal, grew bacteria, and reintroduced it into a healthy animal to reproduce disease.

Answer 8

Robert Koch

Question 9

1880s - French microbiologist speed attenuation of bacterial virulence with passage and attenuated stain can protect from infection.

Answer 9

Louis Pasteur

Question 10

1884 - Apprentice to Koch, noted “edema, inflammatilon, and reddining” of organs at a distant site of infection.

Answer 10

Friedrich Loeffler

Question 11

1889 - Demonstrated that animals injected with bacterial supernatant produced same affect as with injection of bacteria due to toxin.

Answer 11

Emile Roux & Alexandre Yersin

Question 12

1890 - Demonstrated that serum of tetanus infected rabbits can “render harmless” the toxic substance the bacteria produces.

Answer 12

Emil Von Behring & Kitasato Shibasaburō

Question 13

1908 - Pioneer in the field of “chemo-therapy.”

Answer 13

Paul Ehrlich

Question 14

1900s - Generated the first marketed antibacterial, Salvarsan.

Answer 14

Alfred Bertheim

Question 15

1929 - Discovered that a mold substance could kill bacteria.

Answer 15

Alexander Fleming

Question 16

1931 - Discovered bacteria engage in primitive sex, exchanging beneficial elements that allow them to destroy antibiotics.

Answer 16

Joshua Leaderberg

Question 17

1940s - Constructed the electron microscope.

Answer 17

Ernst Ruska & Max Knoll