prev next front |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6 |7 |8 |9 |10 |11 |12 |13 |14 |15 |16 |17 |18 |19 |20 |21 |22 |23 |24 |25 |26 |27 |28 |29 |30 |31 |32 |33 |34 |35 |36 |37 |38 |39 |review
The advent and adoption of the germ theory of infectious diseases changed the intellectual landscape for medicine and launched modern medicine as we know it today. Theories about microbial causation had been around for centuries and actively pursued for decades in the 19th century. Louis Pasteur supported this theory in the 1860s, and it was Joseph Lister’s belief in Pasteur’s theories that led Lister to adopt antiseptic practices in surgery. In 1876, Pasteur and German physician Robert Koch independently demonstrated that one microorganism, Bacillus anthracis, caused one disease, anthrax, in sheep. They identified the anthrax bacillus first because of its large size, approximately 5 microns, which could be seen under microscopes without the benefit of stains, which developed soon after.