Pasteur introduced the terms aerobic and anaerobic in describing the growth of yeast at the expense of sugar in the presence or absence of oxygen. He observed that more alcohol was produced in the absence of oxygen when sugar is fermented, which is now termed the Pasteur effect.

Pasteur, L. "Animalcules infusoires vivant sans gaz oxygene libre et determinant des fermentations." Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. (Paris) 52:344-347, 1861

1865

After twenty years of freedom from the disease, Great Britain experiences an epizootic of rinderpest; in two years, 500,000 cattle die. Government inquiries into the disease and possible policy approaches elicit testimony which illustrates in some depth contemporary views regarding epidemiology and the germ theory of disease.

1. Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Cattle Plague Commissioners 11th Oct. 1865. John Simon, Esq., (Medical Officer of the Privy Council, F.R.S., and Surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital,) examined.

2. THIRD REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS appointed to inquire into the ORIGIN and NATURE, &c. of the CATTLE PLAGUE; with AN APPENDIX. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. 1866

The Origin and Nature of the 1865 British Cattle Plague

Thomas H. Huxley's Biogenesis and Abiogenesis address is the first clear statement of the basic outlines of modern Darwinian science on the question of the origin of life. The terms "biogenesis" (for life only from pre-existing life) and "abiogenesis" (for life from nonliving materials, what had previously been called spontaneous generation) as used by Huxley in this speech have become the standard terms for discussing the subject of how life originates. The speech offered powerful support for Pasteur's claim to have experimentally disproved spontaneous generation. The speech was also Huxley's attempt to define an orthodox Darwinian position on the question, and attempt to define as "non-Darwinian" all those Darwin supporters who believed that spontaneous generation up to the present day was an essential requirement of evolutionary science. Henry Charlton Bastian was the most prominent leader of that faction of Darwinians, though Huxley was so successful in defining them out of the story that very few people today even realize that there WERE Darwinians who were serious, talented evolutionary scientists, yet also thought abiogenesis was necessary in evolution up to the present day.

Biogenesis and Abiogenesis

James Strick. 1999.Darwinism and the Origin of Life: the Role of H.C. Bastian in the British Spontaneous Generation Debates, 1868-1873. Journal of the History of Biology, 32:1-42 [pdf ]

Ferdinand J. Cohn contributes to the founding of the science of bacteriology. In the publication Ueber Bakterien, he discusses the role of microorganisms in the cycling of elements in nature. In 1875, Cohn will publish an early classification of bacteria, using the genus name, Bacillus, for the first time.

Cohn, F. 1872. Ueber Bakterien, die kleinsten lebenden Wesen. Lüedritz'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung Carl Habel, Berlin.

Cohn, F., 1875. Untersuchungen ueber Bakterien. Beitraege zur Biologie der Planzen 1:127-222 In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p210 [pdf]

Ferdinand Cohn, a Founder of Modern Microbiology, ASM News 65. 1999.p.547

The German botanist Brefeld reported growing fungal colonies from single spores on gelatin surfaces. Prior to this innovation that resulted in the isolation of pure culture of microorganisms, pigmented bacterial colonies were isolated by the German biologist Schroeter on slices of potato incubated in a moist environment.

Brefeld, O. Botanische Untersuchungen uber Schimmelpilze, Heft I, Mucor mucedo, Chaetocladium Jones ii, Piptocephalis Fresiana: Zygomyceten, Leipzig, 1872.

Schroeter, J. "Ueber einige durch Bacterien gebildete Pigmente."Beitr. Z. Biol. D. Pflanzen1:2, 109-126.

Robert Koch publishes a paper on his work with anthrax, pointing explicitly to a bacterium as the cause of this disease. This validates the germ theory of disease. Prior, in 1872, he was approved as a district medical officer in Poland where he discovered anthrax was endemic. His work on anthrax was presented and his papers on the subject were published under the auspices of Ferdinand Cohn.

Koch, R. 1876. Untersuchungen ueber Bakterien V. Die Aetiologie der Milzbrand-Krankheit, begruendent auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus Anthracis. Beitr. z. Biol. D. Pflanzen 2: 277-310. In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p89 [pdf ].

Jean Jacques Theophile Schloesing proves that nitrification is a biological process in the soil by using chloroform vapors to inhibit the production of nitrate. One of the greatest practical applications of this knowledge was in the treatment of sewerage.

Schloesing, J. and A. Muntz. 1877. Sur la Nitrification par les Ferments Organises. Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, Paris, LXXXIV: 301-303.

Robert Koch dries films of bacteria, stains them with methylene blue and then photographs them. He uses cover slips to prepare permanent visual records.

Koch, R. 1877. Verfahren zur Untersuchung, zum Conservieren und Photogaphiren der Bakterien. Beitraege zur Biologie der Pflanzen. 2: 399-434

John Tyndall publishes his method for fractional sterilization and clarifies the role of heat resistant factors (spores) in putrefaction. Tyndall's conclusion adds a final footnote to the work of Pasteur and others in proving that spontaneous generation is impossible.

New Details Add to Our Understanding of Spontaneous Generation Controversies, ASM News 63, 1997. p.193 [pdf]

Tyndall, J. 1877. On Heat as a Germicide when Discontinuously Applied," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. 25:569

Thomas Burrill demonstrates for the first time a bacterial disease of plants; Micrococcus amylophorous causes pear blight.

Bacteria as the Cause of Disease in Plants: A Historical Perspective, ASM News 45, 1979. p.1 [pdf]

Burrill, Thomas Jonathan. 1878. Pear blight. Trans. Ill. State Hort. Soc., 114-116.

Joseph Lister publishes his study of lactic fermentation of milk, demonstrating the specific cause of milk souring. His research is conducted using the first method developed for isolating a pure culture of a bacterium, which he names Bacterium lactis.

Lister, J. 1878. On lactic fermentation and its bearing on pathology. Trans Path. Soc., Lond. xxix: 425-67. In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p58 [pdf]

Serious attention to the trypanosomes of mammals was drawn by the work of Timothy Lewis on the parasite of Indian rats (Trypanosoma lewisi), the importance of which was realized after Griffith Evans (1880) discovered the pathogenic trypanosome in horses and camels in India (Trypanosoma evansi)

Lewis, T.R. (1878) "The microscopic organisms found in the blood of man and animals and their relation to disease." Ann. Rpt. San. Commis. Govt. India, Calcutta 14:157

Lewis, T.R. (1879) "Flagellated organisms in the blood of healthy rats." Quart. J. Micr. Sci. 19:109

Evans, G. (1880) "Report on the 'surra' disease in the Dera Ismail Khan District." Punjab Govt. Milit. Dept. No. 493:446

Albert Neisser identifies Neisseria gonorrhoeoe, the pathogen that causes gonorrhea. He may be the first to attribute a chronic disease to a microbe.

Neisser, A. 1879. Ueber eine der Gonorrhoe eigenthumliche Micrococcusform. Vorlaufige Mitteilung. Cbl. F. d. Med. Wiss. 28: 497-500.

Louis Pasteur develops a method of attenuating a virulent pathogen, the agent of chicken cholera, so it would immunize and not cause disease. This is the conceptual break-though for establishing protection against disease by the inoculation of a weakened strain of the causative agent. Pasteur uses the word "attenuated" to mean weakened. As Pasteur acknowledged, the concept came from Jenner's success at smallpox vaccination.

Plasmids, Pasteur, and Anthrax, ASM News 49,1983. p.320 [pdf]

Pasteur, L. 1880. Sur les maladies virulentes et en particulier sur la maladie appelee vulgairement cholera des poules. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sc. 90: 239-248.

Pasteur, L. 1880. De l'attenuation du virus cholera des poules. Compte rend. Acad. se. 91: 673-680 In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p126 [pdf]

C. L. Alphonse Laveran finds malarial parasites in erythrocytes of infected individuals and shows that the parasite enters the organism and replicates. Laveran was awarded the Noble Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1907

1907 Nobel Prize

Laveran, A. 1880. A new parasite found in the blood of malarial patients. Parasitic origin of malarial attacks. Bull. mem. soc. med. hosp. Paris. 17: 158-164.

Robert Koch struggles with the disadvantages of using liquid media for certain experiments. He seeks out alternatives, and first uses an aseptically cut slice of a potato as a solid culture medium. He also turns to gelatin, which is added to culture media; the resulting mixture is poured onto flat glass plates and allowed to gel. The plate technique is used to isolate pure cultures of bacteria from colonies growing on the surface of the plate. Koch publishes his Methods for the Study of Pathogenic Organisms in which he describes his success with solidified culture media.

Koch, R. 1881. Zur Untersuchung von pathogenen Organismen. Mitth. a. d. Kaiserl.

Gesundheitsampte 1: 1-48. In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p101 [pdf]

Paul Ehrlich refines the use of the dye methylene blue in bacteriological staining and uses it to stain the tubercule bacillus. He shows the dye binds to the bacterium and resists decoloration with an acid alcohol wash..

Ehrlich, P. 1881 Ueber das Methylenblau und seine klinisch-bakterioskopische Verwerthung. Ztschr. f. klin. Med. ii: 710-713.

Ehrlich, P. 1882. Aus dem Verein fur innere Medicin zu Berlin. Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift 8:269-270 In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p118 [pdf]

Koch systematically investigated the efficacy of chemical disinfectants demonstrating that carbolic acid used by Lister in aseptic surgery was merely bacteriostatic and not bactericidal. He first recognized that disinfection depended on the chemical concentration and contact time. Anthrax spores were dried on silk threads, exposed to disinfectants, washed with sterile water and cultured to evaluate a range of chemicals.

Koch, R. "Ueber Desinfection." Mittheilungen aus dem kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamt 1:234-282, 1881