Systematic work on antimicrobial drugs was first initiated by the Germanphysician Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich worked in the fields of haematology, immunology, and chemotherapy. He coined the term “chemotherapy” and also developed the concept of “selective toxicity in the early 1900s”, which is “the ability of an agent to inhibit or kill pathogenic microorganisms without any […]
PAUL EHRLICH (1854-1915) Read More »
General Microbiology
Dmitri Iwanovski was a Russian botanist, and one of the discoverer of filterable nature of viruses and the field of virology. He was one of the founders of the biomedical field called virology. In 1892, he filtered infectious extract from tobacco plants infected with mosaic disease using bacterial filters (which are sieves that excluded bacteria
DMITRI IWANOVSKI (1864-1920) Read More »
General Microbiology
Joseph Lister, an English surgeon is the father of antiseptic surgery. He was aware of Semmelweis’s work and together with Pasteur realized the true nature of disease cause, transmission and prevention. Lister sought for ways to prevent microorganisms from infecting wounds because deaths resulting from post-surgery infections as at the time was alarming and accounted
JOSEPH LISTER (1827-1912) Read More »
General Microbiology
Ignaz Semmelweisis regarded as the father of infection control because of his discovery of the cause of maternal death during childbirth. Ignaz introduced an infection control method known as antisepsis to control the contamination of the labour room by pathogenic microorganisms which caused the death of pregnant women during childbirth as at the time. Ignaz
IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS (1818-1865) Read More »
General Microbiology
Elie Metchnikoff was a Russian biologist, zoologist and protozoologist who is best remembered for his pioneering research work into the immune system, specific cells and organs of the body (e.g. white blood cells, spleen, antibodies and thymus) which protect it from diseases and infectious agents. An associate of Louis Pasteur, Elie coined the word “phagocytosis”
ELIE METCHNIKOFF (1845-1916) Read More »
General Microbiology
Lazzaro, an Italian naturalist criticized John Needham’s work on spontaneous generation. In 1769, he performed series of experiments on the subject matter which showed that heating can prevent the appearance of animalcules in infusion (depending on the degree of heating). Abbe Lazzaro Spallanzani was not satisfied with Needham’s work of only using cork to seal
ABBE LAZZARO SPALLANZANI (1729-1799) Read More »
General Microbiology
While the issue of spontaneous generation lasted as at the time, some other scientist like Girolamo Fracastoro was interested about the transmission of the disease caused by these microorganisms. Girolamo Fracastoro was an Italian scientist, a poet and scholar in mathematics, astronomer and geography, and who in 1546 proposed that epidemic diseases are caused by
GIROLAMO FRACASTORO (1478-1553) Read More »
General Microbiology
Francesco Redi, an Italian scientist was the first scientist to challenge the theory of spontaneous generation by demonstrating that living organisms did not actually originate from non-living things. He developed a scientific experiment to test the spontaneous creation of maggots from fresh meats using two jars (one of the jars was left open while the
FRANCESCO REDI (1626-1697) Read More »
General Microbiology
Nicolas Appert, a French chef and a confectioner is the “father of canning”, and was the inventor of airtight food preservation which is still applicable today in the food industry. He developed a heating process in which canned foods (e.g. milk, meat, drinks, and vegetables) could be preserved and prevented from spoilage by microbial fermentative
NICOLAS APPERT (1749-1841) Read More »
General Microbiology
Ferdinand Cohn, a German biologist was born in Breslau (now in Poland). Cohn was the first to classify algae (a type of microorganism), and he is also one of the founders of modern microbiology and bacteriology. Ferdinand Cohn successfully distinguished algae from plants, and he also classified bacteria into four (4) different groups in terms
FERDINAND J. COHN (1828-1898) Read More »
General Microbiology