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In the 1830s in Italy, Agostino Bassi traced the silkworm disease muscardine to microorganisms. Meanwhile in Germany, Theodor Schwann led researches on alcoholic fermentation by yeast and proposed that they were alive—that is, microorganisms—a claim derided by leading chemists, such as Justus von Liebig, seeking solely physicochemical explanation, and alleging that Schwann's was regressing to vitalism. In 1847 in Vienna, Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865), by requiring physicians to clean their hands before attending childbirth, dramatically cut new mothers' death rate due to childbed fever, yet his principles were marginalized and attacked by professional peers. Starting in 1857 by confirming Schwann's fermentation experiments, Louis Pasteur in France placed his eminent reputation behind the belief that yeast are microorganisms, and closed his paper by indicating that such process might also explain contagious diseases. In 1860, Pasteur's report on bacterial fermention to butyric acid motivated fellow Frenchman Casimir Davaine to establish a similar species, which he called bacteridia, as the pathogen of the disease anthrax, costly to the cattle industry. Yet bacteridia were found inconsistently and dismissed as a disease byproduct, not cause. British surgeon Joseph Lister, however, already took cue and introduced antisepsis to wound treatment in 1865. German physician Robert Koch, noting fellow German Ferdinand Cohn's report of a spore stage of a certain bacterial species, traced the life cycle of Davaine's bacteridia, identified spores, inoculated laboratory animals with them, and reproduced anthrax—a breakthrough for experimental pathology and germ theory of disease. Pasteur's group added ecological investigations confirming spores' role in the natural setting, while Koch published a landmark treatise in 1878 on the bacterial pathology of wounds. In 1881, Koch reported discovery of the "tubercle bacillus", cementing germ theory and Koch's acclaim. Upon the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in Alexandria, Egypt, two medical missions went to investigate and attend the sick, one was sent out by Pasteur and the other actually led by Koch.[74] Koch's group returned victorious in 1883, having discovered the cholera pathogen.[74] In Germany, however, Koch's bacteriologists had to vie against Max von Pettenkofer, Germany's leading proponent of miasmatic theory.[75] Pettenkofer conceded bacteria's casual involvement, but maintained that other, environmental factors were required to turn it pathogenic, and opposed water treatment as a misdirected effort amid more important ways to improve public health.[75] The massive cholera epidemic in Hamburg in 1892 devastasted Pettenkoffer's position, and yielded German public health to "Koch's bacteriology".[75] On losing the 1883 rivalry in Alexandria, Pasteur switched research direction, and introduced his third vaccine—rabies vaccine—the first vaccine for humans since Jenner's for smallpox.[74] From across the globe, donations poured in, funding the founding of Pasteur Institute, the globe's first biomedical institute, which opened in 1888.[74] Along with Koch's bacteriologists, Pasteur's group—which preferred the term microbiology—led medicine into the new era of "scientific medicine" upon bacteriology and germ theory.[74] Accepted from Jakob Henle, Koch's steps to confirm a species' pathogenicity became famed as "Koch's postulates". Although his proposed tuberculosis treatment, tuberculin, seemingly failed, it soon was used to test for infection with the involved species. In 1905, Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and remains renowned as the founder of medical microbiology.[76] |
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