Intro + History Flashcards
(27 cards)
In what ways are microbes important?
Produce O2, N, and CO2
Fix nitrogen for plants and then we can take it from plants
Produce vitamins
increase biomass for the food web
Can degrade toxic waste
What is the difference between a disease and an infectious disease?
A DISEASE is a reason the body isn’t working right.
An INFECTIOUS DISEASE is a disease caused by a microbe.
Who is Robert Hooke?
Invented the first microscope (compound) that went up to 30x.
First observation of cells Found that all tissues he observed had the same “little boxes”.
What is Cell Theory?
All living things are composed of cells.
Who is Antonie van Leeuwenhoek?
He observed single-celled microbes with his single lens microscope.
His samples (possibly protozoans) were put in a water droplet on the top of a pin.
What were the differences between the spontaneous generation and preexisting microbe hypotheses?
Those who believed in spontaneous generation believed that microbes appeared out of non-living material.
Those who believed in preexisting microbes believed that new microbes we generated via reproduction (they have parents).
What was Francesco Radi’s experiment?
What did this experiment prove?
He had 3 bottles with a piece of meat in each.
One bottle was left open and maggots appeared on the meat within along with flies around it.
The second bottle was closed with a cork. No maggots formed her and no flies were seen.
The third bottle has gauze wrapped around the mouth so air could be exchanged, but nothing else. Flies and maggots appeared on the gauze (NOT the meat), proving the maggots did not come from the meat.
This DISPROVED spontaneous generation.
What was Lazzaro Spallanzani’s experiment?
He filled two bottles with nutrient broth and then boiled the broth to kill anything already in there.
He corked one flask and left the other open to the air.
The corked bottle did not spoil but the one left to the air did.
What was the argument against Lazzaro Spallanzani’s experiment?
Critical voices said that because one of the bottles was corked, nothing could have grown in the broth due to the lack of oxygen.
Who is considered the Father of Microbiology?
Why?
Louis Pasteur
Among other reasons, he conducted the swan-neck flask experiment, settling the argument of whether or not microbes generate spontaneously.
What was the swan-neck flask experiment?
Who conducted this experiment?
This experiment was conducted by Louis Pasteur.
A nonsterile liquid was poured into a flask.
The neck of that flask was then drawn out with a flame and the liquid was sterilized by extensive heating.
The flask was left in open air, but the liquid never grew any microbes because they would get trapped in the bend and couldn’t get to the broth.
What was the control for Louis Pasteur’s swan-neck flask experiment?
The flask was tipped such that the sterile liquid would come in contact with the microbes in the bend of the flask.
After a short time the broth would spoil (because there were microbes in it now).
What was the name of the researcher who did not have consistent results with the swan-neck flask experiment?
Why did he have no success?
John Tyndall
He didn’t have any success due to the presence of endo spores.
Who was the researcher that did an experiment with meat and maggots?
Francesco Radi
Who was the researcher that did an experiment with a sealed flask of broth ad a non-sealed flask of broth?
Lazzaro Spallanzani
What is the paradox of the spontaneous generation hypothesis?
Despite being completely disproven, plants, animals, and microbes all evolved from living cells, so, at some point, they must have generated from NON-LIVING MATERIAL.
What was the significance of Ignaz Semmelweis?
He was a physician that noticed a higher death rate of women in childbirth due to fever in his hospital compared to birthing houses run by midwives.
This is because the hospital didn’t specialize in birthing, so the doctors could go from treating a sick person directly to delivering a baby, and that would transfer pathogens to the mothers.
As a result Semmelweis experimented with washing hands with water or chlorine between patients and that helped make a differnece.
What was the significance of Robert Koch?
He proposed Germ Theory.
He was concerned with matching a causative agent with a certain disease. (Koch’s Postulates)
What experiment did Koch use to test his postulates?
First, found a rat with a disease and one without that disease.
Observed microbe(s) from the diseased mouse that were not in the healthy one.
Inoculated those microbes onto a petri dish and let them culture into a pure colony.
Inoculated the pure culture into a healthy animal.
- if the animal got sick with the same symptoms as the original you try to isolate the same bacteria again to prove that that bacteria was the cause.
Who invented agar and the petri dish?
Richard J. Petri
Angelina (Walter) Hesse
What is Edward Jenner’s claim to fame?
Noticed that milkmaids who got (and recovered from) cowpox, rarely got smallpox.
He was able to prove that using the less dangerous cowpox material could be used to give immunity to smallpox as the first vaccination.
What is a vaccine?
Who made the first one?
A protective inoculation against an infectious disease.
Edward Jenner
What did Louis Pasteur discover in relation to vaccinations?
Found that old/weakened/dead bacteria introduced into a host would protect from the full blown disease after a period of time.
Who discovered penicillin?
Alexander Fleming
