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Germ Theory: Microorganisms Invade The Body

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The germ theory states that certain diseases are caused when microorganisms invade the body. Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and Robert Koch are the developers of the germ theory. Until the germ theory was accepted, many people believed disease was a punishment for bad behavior. When many people got sick, people blamed it on swamp vapors or foul odors from sewage. The development of the germ theory was made possible in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries using lavatories and equipment to study bacteria. In the nineteenth century improvements in microscope technology allowed microbiologists to invalidate more on the germ theory. The invention of primitive microscopes by English scientist Robert Hooke and the Dutch merchant and amateur scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek gave the scepter it's the ability to study the microorganisms and determine if they caused diseases. Louis …show more content…

It was later proven in 1976 by German physician Robert Koch that bacteria can cause diseases. Through this he discovered the organism that causes tuberculosis. Robert Koch showed that organisms can be identified as the cause of diseases. He laid the foundation for modern medical microbiology. Koch's work was influencing the development of the germ theory and Joseph Lister was was influencing surgeries in the operating rooms. Lister began soaking surgical dressings in carbolic acid which prevented infection. Other surgeons started doing the same and it controlled the spread of infectious microorganisms. Many people did not know that giving healthy people vaccines can prevent the spread of disease could prevent the spread of disease. Once scientists showed that microbes can cause disease in humans, disease transmission reduced in hospitals and the community, and there was the development of new techniques to find out the organisms that were causing

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