Germ Theory & the Treatment of Disease Flashcards
All 16 cards in this deck
What is a 'magic bullet'?
A chemical drug that kills the specific microbe causing a disease without harming the rest of the body.
e.g. Salvarsan 606 (1909), developed by Ehrlich's team to treat syphilis.What was spontaneous generation?
The belief that microbes were created by decaying matter, rather than being the cause of disease.
Who published Germ Theory, and in what year?
Louis Pasteur, in 1861.
What did Koch's work on microbes add to Pasteur's Germ Theory?
He identified the specific microbes that caused individual diseases (e.g. TB in 1882, cholera in 1883), so vaccines and treatments could be developed.
True or false? Pasteur's Germ Theory was accepted in Britain straight away and quickly led to new treatments.
False. The cause of each disease had to be researched individually, so new vaccines only came in the 1880s and treatments later still.
What did Pasteur's Germ Theory (1861) show about decay?
That microbes carried in the air cause decay, rather than being produced by it, so spontaneous generation was wrong. He believed germs caused disease too, but could not yet prove it.
Give one method Robert Koch developed that helped scientists identify microbes.
Growing bacteria on agar jelly, or staining bacteria with chemical dyes so they showed up clearly under a microscope.
Why were improved microscopes important for Germ Theory in the nineteenth century?
By the mid-1800s microscopes were good enough to show microbes clearly, which made the work of Pasteur and Koch possible.
What vaccine did Pasteur produce in 1885?
A vaccine against rabies — the first laboratory-made vaccine used on a human, the boy Joseph Meister.
Who was Paul Ehrlich, and what did his team find in 1909?
A scientist trained in Koch's team; after testing hundreds of arsenic compounds, his assistant Hata found the 606th, Salvarsan 606, killed the syphilis microbe.
What were everyday medical treatments and remedies like in the early nineteenth century?
Largely unscientific: a few worked, such as opium for pain, but others were done out of tradition, such as bleeding, and there was no one agreed treatment for a disease.
True or false? Pasteur developed his Germ Theory while investigating the causes of human disease.
False. He was investigating why liquids such as beer and wine went sour; only later did he and Koch apply Germ Theory to disease.
How did chance help Pasteur's team develop vaccines in 1879?
Chickens were accidentally injected with an old, weakened chicken cholera culture. They survived and were then immune to fresh germs, showing that weakened germs could give protection.
What did Pasteur demonstrate in public in 1881?
His anthrax vaccine: vaccinated sheep survived a dose of anthrax germs while unvaccinated ones died. Reports spread quickly by telegraph.
Who developed an antitoxin to treat diphtheria, and when?
Emil von Behring, one of Koch's team, in 1890; the antitoxin neutralised the poison the diphtheria germ produced.
How did John Tyndall help Germ Theory win acceptance in Britain?
In the 1870s the physicist lectured that ordinary air carried microbes and publicised Koch's work, arguing against Charlton Bastian, an influential defender of spontaneous generation.