Chapt 



er 



The Microbe as a Whole 



By CORNELIS B. VAN NIEL 



Until recently, microbiology was the spe- 

 cial field of only a few individuals working in comparative 

 isolation. This small minority regretted the tendency to 

 equate microbiology with the study of problems in disease 

 and public health, which commanded attention once the 

 role of microorganisms in food spoilage and as causative 

 agents of many plant and animal diseases had been estab- 

 lished. These men were probably no less impressed by the 

 great advances made in the prevention, control, and treat- 

 ment of disease than were the many who had become 

 medical microbiologists. But they realized that microbes 

 possess a wider range of physiological and biochemical po- 

 tentialities than do all other organisms combined. Mi- 

 crobes represent forms of life that can persist in nature 

 because the organisms fill particular ecological niches, per- 

 mitting them under special conditions to compete success- 

 fully with other living beings. Hence the few nonmedical 

 microbiologists could envisage the unusual advantages that 

 studies of the microbes as biological entities might offer for 

 the attainment of a better understanding of the funda- 

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