The Golden Age Of Microbiology Essay, Research Paper

What would the human race be like if we did not have some of today s modern medicines? It would probably be just like it was 200 years ago. Doctors claiming to know cures forsome of the world s most infectious diseases, and then treating them in the some of themost inhuman ways. People would be dieing from infections left and right. And even

worse, we would not know how to cure most of their diseases. The world populationwould probably be half the size that it is today. But, thanks to the Golden Age ofMicrobiology , and the people who tried to find cures and such, we now have ways to over come most of the world s diseases.

The Golden Age was only 20 years long, from 1880 to about 1900. It was the

time when about three scientists helped to better science s technologies and cures. The

first of these three was Pasteur. Some of his contributions to science were the creation of

silk and a cure for rabies. But one of the most important of all of his findings was the idea

of pasteurization. Around the time of 1870, there was a problem with the making of beer

and wine. The companies could not figure out a way to keep their products from

becoming sour. Pasteur then came up with the idea of adding many different elements to

the products and then refrigerating them for a long period of time. Thus came the idea of

pasteurization.

The second out of the three was Robert Koch. Koch was mostly into the study of

microbiology and bacteriology. Most of his researching was done under the microscope,

but he realized that he could not totally determine what a certain bacteria classified as. He

discovered that if you were to add a stain to slide that you would be able to make out the

bacteria about 10x better. Koch also noticed that sometimes you can t always find

bacteria in just one sample of something that is contaminated. So, he came up with the

idea of growing his own bacteria otherwise know as a culture media. This way you

would have many more of the same bacteria to look at and observe. Koch also noticed

that if you were to take a blood sample of one infected organism and then transferred it to

another organism, that the other organism would get the same disease of the first. Thus,

Koch discovered how to re-isolate pathogens, called anthrax.

Finally, the third out of the three was Joseph Lister. His studies were between the

years of 1850 to 1912. During these times, doctors were not very concerned about sterile

surgery or a sterile working area. Lister then noticed that this was a danger to people s

health and could possibly determine weather or not they would live or survive. Lister

would always try to inform the doctors of their un-sterile environment and many of them

did not believe him and would call him crazy. Lister was called crazy so many times that

he began to believe that maybe he was really crazy. He spent many years not researching

any kind of bacteria until other scientists discovered the same facts as Lister once had

once before.

All of these discoveries lead to the era of modern medicine which is still in the

process of getting better everyday. Just because we found cures for most of the world s

most infectious diseases and sicknesses does not mean that we have found them all. Many

more foreign diseases are making their way into our world and infecting almost everything

in it s path. We will probably find cures to all of these diseases too but it will definitely

take another Golden Age of Microbiology to find them.