FIGHTING BACK
Medical breakthroughs have assisted in combating infectious diseases. Smallpox is perhaps the most dramatic. It took nearly two centuries following Edward Jenner's demonstration in 1796 of the efficacy of vaccination to rid the world of this affliction. No treatment for smallpox has ever been found. Yet it is the first disease for which an effective method of prevention was discovered.
The Golden Age of Microbiology (1857-1914) included discoveries both of the microbial agents causing disease and the role of immunity in prevention and cure. Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister spearheaded the rapid advances that led to the establishment of microbiology as a science. Pasteurization, aseptic surgery, and advances in hygiene have been important tools in the battle against emerging infectious diseases. Once the relations between microorganisms and disease were established, medical microbiologists focused on the search for substances that could destroy the disease-causing microorganisms without harming the infected animal or human. The antibiotic penicillin was discovered in the 1930s, revolutionizing the way bacterial diseases were treated. Many other antibiotics have subsequently been discovered or developed. Unfortunately, a major problem associated with antimicrobial drugs is the emergence and spread of new varieties of microorganisms that are resistant to them. Scientists continue to explore and develop new ways to fight back against the microbial agents that cause us harm.
Antibacterials . . . The fact that many kinds of disease are related to microorganisms was unknown until the middle of the 19th Century. Before the time of Pasteur, effective treatments for many diseases were discovered by trial and error, but the causes of the diseases were unknown. Doctors often relied on toxic compounds like arsenic and mercury that could kill bacterial cells, but were also very harmful to the normal cells of the infected person.
Place your cursor on the image to the right to see before and after images of a patient treated for syphilis in the 19th century.
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Vaccination . . .Unlike antibiotics for bacterial or fungal infections, it has been difficult to develop drugs to kill viruses. Viruses take over the normal cells of the host. making it difficult to develop drugs that do not harm the host. Instead we have used the normal immune system to protect against viruses through vaccination and immunization. Before even understanding that such a thing as viruses existed, Edward Jenner developed in the 1790s a vaccine against smallpox.
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