Tag Archives: germ theory

Robert Koch was a German physician and microbiologist. Today Google celebrated Robert Koch, one day prior to his 174th birthday, with a custom “doodle” on the Google home page: Koch won the Nobel Prize in 1905. There is a long standing controversy between the work of Koch and Louis Pasteur regarding the discovery of germ theory.  

This is an excerpt from an entry originally published in the Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, March 10, 1878, p. 769 In a note communicated by Pasteur to the Academy of Medicine, regarding septicæmia, he points out that the vibrios characteristic of this disease cannot sustain the presence of oxygen, but they can live in vacuo and in carbonic anhydride and …

Originally published at AnimalResearch.Info Proving the germ theory of disease was the crowning achievement of the French scientist Louis Pasteur. He was not the first to propose that diseases were caused by microscopic organisms, but the view was controversial in the 19th century, and opposed the accepted theory of “spontaneous generation”. Pasteur set out to understand the fermentation process, and …

Excerpted from Stanford University School of Medicine and the Predecessor Schools: An Historical Perspective by John L. Wilson. Used with permission by the Stanford Medical History Center. The Germ Theory In 1854 Pasteur, then 32 years of age, was appointed Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the newly organized Faculté des Sciences in the city of Lille, the richest center …

As with many great innovations, hand washing started with a scientific discovery – the germ theory of disease. And as with some innovations, the theory was driven by beer. Louis Pasteur’s work was motivated by brewers who couldn’t figure out why some batches of beer fermented well, while others failed. So in trying to make better beer, Pasteur made us …

To this day, damage caused by the AIDS virus, influenza and the hepatitis family reminds us that these organisms, as primitive as they are, are just like any dangerous predator that threatens human life. In the 19th century, Louis Pasteur said: “Sirs, it will be the germs that get the last word.” Could he be right? Read the full article…

This article is an excerpt of Gibson’s larger work, “The Wonders of Scientific Discovery.” It has been remarked in the preceding chapter that in the mind of the general public it is in connection with hydrophobia that the name of Pasteur is best known. The year before Pasteur’s discovery there were sixty-seven deaths from hydrophobia in Great Britain alone. In …

In the days before Louis Pasteur and the discovery of germs, people feared hospitals as places to die, not get well, and they were right. In some places even now, there still is reason for fear. Read the full article…

The word “bacteria” would not emerge until the mid-19th century, when the germ theory of disease was developed in the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. Antibacterial remedies were created in the early 20th century, and so we are armed against an enemy we cannot see. Read the full article…

This article was originally published on February 25, 2008 and has been reproduced here with the permission of the Answers Research Journal. Abstract “There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.” Ecclesiastes 1:11 (NIV) In past years revisionist historians have been rewriting the worldview …