Contributions of Various scientist for the development of Microbiology field. 1. Antony Van Leeuwenhoek 2. Edwerd Jenner 3. Louis Pasteur 4. Joseph Lister 5. Robert Koch 6. Paul Ehrlich 7. Alexander Fleming

1. History of Microbiology
Presented by
Mr. Sujit Kakade
Assistant Professor
Pune District Education Association’s
Shankarrao Ursal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences
& Research Centre, Kharadi, Pune.

3. Contribution of Antony Van Leeuwenhoek:
(1632- 1720)

4. Contribution of Antony Van Leeuwenhoek:
(1632- 1720)
• Antony van Leeuwenhoek was one of the first people to
observe microorganisms, using a microscope of his own
design, and made one of the most important contributions
to biology.
• He had hobby of glass grinding and preparation of lenses and
this led him to assemble 250 microscope.
• He was a first to observe & accurately to describe the shape
of human RBCs as well as little agent of disease i.e.
animalcule’s.
• He observed the motility of bacteria.
• In 1683 he described different shapes or morphological
forms of bacteria.
• He describe the inhibitory effect of acetic acid on M.O.

5. Described different morphological forms of bacteria

6. Edwerd Jenner
[1749 –1823]
• Father of Immunology
• He was an English physician and
scientist who was the pioneer
of smallpox vaccine, the world's
first vaccine.
•The terms vaccine and vaccination are
derived from Variolae vaccinae, the
term devised by Jenner to denote
cowpox.

7. Discovery of Smallpox vaccine
• Observed that the milk maids who had milder form of
cowpox were not prone to Smallpox.
• After observing cases of cowpox and smallpox for few
years, In 1796 he removed the fluid of a cowpox from
milkmaid and inoculated James Phipps, an eight-year-old
boy, who soon came down with cowpox.
• Six weeks later, he inoculated the boy with smallpox. The
boy remained healthy.
• Jenner had proved his theory that the pus in the blisters
which milkmaids received from cowpox protected milkmaids
from smallpox.
https://youtu.be/yqUFy-t4MlQ

8. Contribution of Louis Pasteur
[1822 - 1895]
• Father of Microbiology
1) Louis pasture first demonstrated that
air contains micro- organism.
He pass large quantity of air through a
tube which contain a plug of guncotton to
serve as filter.
The guncotton was then removed & dissolved in mixture
of alcohol-ether sediment was examine microscopically.
He found that this sediment contains not only organic
matter but also a large number of small micro-organism.

9. 2) Pasture Resolved the Controversy of Spontaneous
Generation vs. Biogenesis.
• He performed a series of experiment to prove that although
micro-organism were present in the air they were not
spontaneously produce.
• Pasture took boiled meat infusion in several swan neck flack.
The flask opening were freely open to the air but curve so
that gravity would cause any air born dust particles to
deposited in the lower part of the neck.
• The flask were heated to sterilize the broth & then
incubated. No growth occurred even through the contents of
the flask were exposed to air.

10. • The flask were heated to sterilize the broth & then
incubated. No growth occurred even through the
contents of the flask were exposed to air.
• Pasture pointed out that no growth took place because
dust & germs had been trapped on the wall of the
curved necks but if the necks were broken off so that
dust fell directly down into the flack, microbial growth
commenced immediately.
• In 1861, pasture finally resolved the controversy of
spontaneous generation vs. biogenesis & proved that
micro-organism are spontaneously generated from in
animated matter.

12. 3) Pasture also showed that micro-organism are not evenly
distributed in the atmosphere & that there number varies
from place to place for this experiment .
• He took a large number of sealed flask containing boiled &
cooled infusions & opened a few at a time for a short period
at various places & resealed.
• Out of the 20 flasks which he opened & resealed on a dusty
road & all showed spoilage, while out of the 20 that he
opened on the top of a mountain only 5 showed spoilage &
out of 20 that he opened near a glacier, only one showed
spoilage.
• From these experiment, pasture concluded that the air
contained micro-organism & there number of varied from
place to place.

13. 4) Pasteurization:
• Pasture made an intensive study of the bear & wine
fermentation. He found that wine spoilage was caused by
the growth of undesirable contaminating micro- organism.
• After some experiment, he showed that wine did not
undergo spoilage if it was held for a few min. at 50 to 600c.
This gave rise to the new process of preserving wine, fruit
juice, milk etc. & was called pasteurization.

14. 5) Aerobic, Anaerobic & Facultative Anaerobic:
• Pasture also found that many other micro-organism
including yeast could grow either in presence or absence
of oxygen.
• He designated life in the presence of oxygen as ‘aerobic’
in the absence of oxygen as ‘anaerobic’ & in presence or
absence of oxygen as ‘facultative anaerobic’
6) Pasture opened the field of sterilization by stating the
boiling rendered the fluid sterile.
• Pasture established the practice of heating fluid material
to 1200c under pressure of sterilization (autoclaved).
• He also introduced the particle of sterilizing glassware by
dry heat at 1700c.

15. 7) Chicken Cholera Vaccine:
• In 1880, pasture isolated the bacterium responsible for
chicken cholera & grow it in pure culture. But on the day of
public demonstration he failed to repeat his experimental
results. The chicken get survived after injecting the isolated
bacterial culture & this result surprised him.
• On subsequent experiment his mead conclusion that on long
preservation or sub culturing the virulence power of the
pathogenic bacteria was destroyed.
• Such microbial culture with decreased virulence was referred
as attenuated culture. Such attenuated culture cannot caused
infection but induced immunity in host.

17. 8) Pasture further introduced the vaccine for Anthrax &
Rabies.
• He know that the causative agent of rabies attacked the
brain & spinal cord.
• He took spinal cord from rabbits which died from the
disease & suspended these spinal cord in dry sterile air.
• By these process rabies micro-organism in the nervous
tissue lost their virulence & emulsion of the spinal cord
was used as vaccine.
• It was found to be effective in dose.

18. Joseph Lister
[1827 - 1912]
• Father of Antiseptic surgery
• Professor of surgery.
• Applied Pasteur’s work and introduced Antiseptic
techniques in Surgery .
• Use of Carbolic acid (Like Phenol) in Antiseptic surgery.
• Resulted in drop in morbidity and mortality due to
surgical sepsis.

19. Robert Koch
[1843 - 1910]
• Father of Bacteriology
• He was a German physician,
first isolated bacillus anthracis.
• Anthrax:- The first direct detection of the role of
bacteria in causing was provided by the Robert Koch
• His method of preparing, fixing & staining, film
preparation of bacteria using staining film.
• Preparation of bacteria using aniline dyes, opened a
new area in the bacteriological techniques.

20. • In 1881, he described his method of preparing culture
on solid media & it made possible for the isolation of
pure strains of bacteria from single colonies.
• In 1881, solid media using potato & gelatin were in
practice for isolation of fungi, he discovered nutrient
agar as a solid transparent medium for isolation of
bacteria.
• In 1882, he discovered Mycobacterium Tuberculosis &
in 1883 the Vibrio Cholera.

21. Koch’s Postulates
The most notable constitution of Koch was the
establishment of the causal relationship between a micro-
organism & a specific disease by applying a set of criteria
referred to as a
The postulate are:-
1) The micro-organism must be presently in every case of
the disease
2) The micro-organism must be isolated from the disease
animal & grown in pure culture.
3) The disease must be reproduced when a pure culture of
the micro-organism is inoculated into a susceptible host
4) The same micro-organism must be isolated from the
experimentally infected host.

22. Koch’s Postulates

23. Paul Ehrlich
[1854 - 1915]
• Father of Chemotherapy
• In 1904 found that the dye trypan red
was active against the trypanosome
that causes African sleeping sickness.
• This dye with antimicrobial activity was referred to as ‘magic
bullet’.
• In 1910 Ehrlich in collaboration with sakahiro hata, Japanese
physician the drug salvarsan as a treatment for syphilis
caused by treponema pallidum.
• In 1912, he discovered neosalvarsan. This gave him the title
“the father of chemotherapy”
• He developed differential staining methods for RBC & WBC
laying the foundation of Hematology

24. Alexander Fleming
[1881 –1955]
• Discovery of 1st Antibiotic [1928]
• He was a Scottish physician and
microbiologist. His best-known
discoveries are the enzyme lysozyme in
1923 and the world's first broadly
effective antibiotic substance
benzylpenicillin (Penicillin G) from the
mould Penicillium rubens in 1928, for
which he shared the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with
Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain.

25. Accidental Discovery of Penicillin
• Accidentally discovered Penicillin
produced by a fungus Penicillium
• Left his Staphylococcus culture
on an agar plate for 2 weeks →
went on vacation → came back
& found mould on his plate
which prevented bacterial
growth
• https://youtu.be/5RGs-2eNnjM