| A History of Microbiology | |||||
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INTRODUCTION
THE
BEGINNING
DISCOVERIES
REVENGE |
THE BEGINNING Though it would be several thousand years before the first microorganisms were viewed and studied, ancient Egypt was already practising fermentation. The ancient Egyptians are the first known civilisation to use fermentation to brew beer. Historical evidence also suggests a knowledge of infectious disease. As evident from archeological excavations in Crete, India, Pakistan, and Scotland, early civilisations may have realised a connection between sewage and disease. Scientists uncovered lavatories dating from 2800 B.C.E. on the Orkney Islands and as far away as Pakistan. Ancient Rome, in 600 B.C.E., built elaborate aqueducts and employed a "Water Commissioner" to oversee to the safety of the public water supply. Contamination of the water system, presumably by microbes, was punishable by death. This early understanding of the communicability of diseases led to fear and quarantining of the sick, who consequently received little, if any, medical attention or care. By the 13th century fear of the diseased took a drastic turn in the formation of small leper colonies intended to isolate people carrying the devastating disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae. In 1348, a mass epidemic caused by a single organism, Yersinia pestis, wiped out nearly one third of Europe's population. The Plague spread rapidly in the unsanitary conditions of the Middle Ages, leaving Medieval Europeans defenseless against its devastation. Entire towns succumbed to the disease, leaving the living to dispose of thousands of contaminated corpses. Perhaps the deadliest pathogen in history, the Black Death has claimed over 200 million lives and contributed to the fall of empires. By the time of the Renaissance, advances in optics and microscopy were made. Robert Hooke, a young English scientist, became the first person to view and describe fungi using a simple compound microscope. In 1665, Hooke published Micrographia which detailed his observations of tiny cork-like cells resembling "little boxes." Over 200 years before the first antibiotics were invented, Dutch scientist Antony van Leeuwenhoek observed the first microscopic organisms through the use of microscopy. These primary observations shook the scientific community and led to expanded uses of microscopy as a standard scientific tool. Leeuwenhoek's crude drawings of the "wee animalcules" were sent to the Royal Society of London and published in 1684. For the first time, bacteria, blood cells, and protists were visible. |
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Historique.net | Infectious Disease | ||||
