BACTERIOLOGY IN A NUTSHELL. 
Dawn of 
Antisepsis. 
Later 
Discoveries. 
Koenigsberg; he was educated at Berlin, and 
later in life (1882-92) was professor at Zurich. 
In 1873 the micro-organism of relapsing fever 
was discovered. To Obermeier, of Germany, be¬ 
longs the credit for this discovery. 
By 1875 th e germ theory of disease was pretty 
generally accepted, at least by the scientific world. 
In that year Lord Lister, an English surgeon, 
who later (1877) was professor in King’s Col¬ 
lege, London, began the use of antiseptics 
in surgery. He based his experiments upon 
the discoveries of Pasteur. Carbolic acid 
solution was the first substance used bv Lister 
in his surgical operations, and thus was 
ushered in the era of antiseptic surgery. Less 
than thirty years have passed, and yet to what 
gigantic proportions has grown the use of sub¬ 
stances to either destroy germs or to prevent their 
doing mischief by stopping their growth! Car¬ 
bolic acid solutions still remain in common use. 
The bacillus of leprosy* was discovered by a 
German scientist, Hanson, in 1879, an d in the 
same year the micro-coccus of gonorrhoea by 
Neisser. (Neisser is also of German birth, prob¬ 
ably located at Munich at this time.) 
The bacillus typhosus, the germ of typhoid 
fever, was discovered by Eberth and Koch, of 
Germany, in 1880. 
And in that year (1880} came also the discov¬ 
ery of the germ of pneumonia. Some writers 
*In July, 1904, Rost, of the medical staff in India, 
reported that he had succeeded in cultivating the 
bacillus of leprosy and from the cultures had made 
a substance he called “leprolin,” which, when injected 
into the tissues of lepers, had a marked beneficial 
effect. 
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