AGRI 224 Chapter 1: Infectious History Reading

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Agriculture
• Course: AGRI 224
• Professor: Aresenault

Document Summary

Anton van leeuwenhoek visualized bacteria with one of his new microscopes in 1683. This opened the way to visualizing some of the microbial agents that cause contagious disease. Jesuits in malaria ridden peru imported bark to europe that had quinine, an anti infective ingredient, to treat malaria. Hygienic movement in the urban slums of the us and europe had some health impact, but failed to counter disease spread by fleas/mosquitos or personal contact. Also often failed to keep sewage and drinking water separate. The germ theory (pasteur and koch) set the new course for studying infectious disease. Pasteurization - heat treatment of milk to kill microbes. Koch"s postulates - a standard of proof for researchers assertions that a particular bacterium caused a particular illness. Lots of microbe hunting, research, trying to understand disease processes and develop therapies. At first microbes were ignored by main stream biologists. This slow acceptance was because of how small the bacterium were.