Historical Microbes

  • Robert Hooke

    First to see microbes under a microscope (he created the best model of his time), published his findings of plant cells, which he was the first to discover, in his book, Micrographia, and was able to see fungi under a microscope and drew it
  • Anton van Leeuwenhoek

    Discovered bacteria, protists, sperm cells, blood cells, and more; created over 500 microscopes and had some of the best models of his time
  • Edward Jenner

    Discovered immunization through vaccines by injecting a cowhand with cowpox, and saw how he did not get infected; was able to rid the world of small pox, his techniques are used to this day
  • Ignaz Semmelweiss

    Noticed that the death rate from childbed fever was higher in the doctors ward than the midwife's, and how someone died from the same disease by cutting himself during an autopsy. Thinking it was something invisible causing this, he had doctors disinfect their hands and change infected coats, which dropped the death rate by 2/3, thus discovering how important disinfectant really is and the causation of disease
  • Rudolf Virchow

    Conducted the first autopsies and examined microscopic tissue, and added to the cell theory that every cell came from preexisting cells. He also campaigned for anthropology as he studied diseases in cells
  • Louis Pasteur

    Founded modern immunology, how heating to remove microbes, known as pasteurization, to preserve wine, and argued against the spontaneous generation controversy, eventually ending it once experimenting with pasteurization
  • Joseph Lister

    Used Pasteur's studies in microbiology to further sterilize hospitals using chemicals such as carbolic acid to completely clean off utensils used and hands that were infected during procedures
  • Period: to

    Robert Koch

    Studied various diseases and established the Germ Theory that is still used today in many areas. The Germ Theory is to isolate the disease, grow it, infect a healthy organism, and isolate what made them ill to see if it is the same organism
  • Sources

    History of Microbiology. (n.d.). Retrieved August 31, 2016, from https://historymicrobio.wordpress.com/tag/robert-hooke/