Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. The first recorded observations upon Bacteria were made in the year 1675 by Antony van Leeuwenhoek, a native of Delft, Holland, who has justly been called "the father of microscopy." It is worthy of remark that all his work was done with single lenses. With these he saw in stagnant water, various infusions, the contents of the alimentary canal of animals, etc., excessively minute, actively swimming organisms, which he naturally regarded as animals. He contented himself with describing them, without attempting to name them; but in a communication to the Royal Society of England, made by him in 1583, we can clearly recognize from his descriptions and drawings that he was able to distinguish coccus, rod and spiral forms. The idea that putrefactive changes in dead matter and disease in the living body might be due to the action of living organisms had been put forward by Kircher nearha quarter of a century before Leeuwenhoek's discoveries were made known. Kircher's views were, of course, vague and crude, however, and he mistook blood-and pus-corpuscles (as well as other bodies) for the agents of transmission of disease. The discovery of bacteria led to a revival of the doctrine of contagium vivum, its ablest champion being Andry, who, in 1701, published a work in which he assigned to these organisms (which he called vermicules) a causal relation to disease. Within a quarter of a century from this time not only malarial disorders and epidemic diseases, but also diseases and disorders of all sorts were attributed to "vermicular" causes, until the theory became a patchwork of inconsistencies, and fell into ridicule. In 1762 Plenciz, a physician of Vienna, approached the question of contagium vivum in a thoroughly scientific spirit. From observation ...
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