1918

Alice Evans establishes that members of the genus Brucella. are responsible for the diseases of Malta Fever, cattle abortion, and swine abortion. She reports that the bacteria are bacilli and not micrococci.

Evans, A. 1918. Further studies on Bacterium abortus and related bacteria. II. A comparison of Bacterium abortus with Bacterium bronchisepticus and with the organism that causes Malta Fever . J. Infect. Dis. 22: 580-593.

In the fall of 1918, as World War I was ending, an influenza pandemic of unprecedented virulence swept the globe, leaving some 40 million dead in its wake. A search for the responsible agent began in earnest that year, leading to the first isolation of an influenza virus by 1930.

Seeking the 1918 Spanish Influenza Virus, ASM News 65, July 1999.

Theobald Smith and M. S. Taylor describe the microbe, Vibrio fetus n. sp., responsible for fetal membrane disease in cattle.

Smith and His Presidential Address to the Society of American Bacteriologists, ASM News 47, 1981, p.231 [pdf]

Theobald Smith, 1859-1934: A Fiftieth Anniversary Tribute, ASM News 50, 1984. p.577 [pdf] Smith, T. and M. S. Taylor. 1919. Some morphological and biological characters of the Spirilla (Vibrio fetus, n. sp.) associated with the disease of the fetal membranes in cattle. J. Exp. Med. 30: 299-311.

James Brown uses blood agar as a medium to study the hemolytic reactions for the genus Streptococcus and divides it into three types, alpha, beta, and gamma.

Brown, J.H. 1919. The use of blood agar for the study of streptococci. Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research Monograph No.9. The Rockefeler Institute for Medical Research, New York.

The SAB committee presents a report on the Characterization and classification of Bacterial Types that becomes the basis for the classic work of D. H. Bergey, later published in 1923.

Michael Heidelberger and O. A. Avery show that carbohydrates from the pneumococcus can serve as virulence antigens and are serologically specific. This overturns the current wisdom that only proteins or glycoproteins are antigenic.

Heidelberger, M. and O. T. Avery. 1923. The soluble specific substances of pnuemococcus, J. Exp. Med. 38: 73-79.

George and Gladys Dick describe the "Dick test", a skin test for scarlet fever. They purify a soluble extoxin from hemolytic Streptococccus pyogenes and use it as a diagnostic. They use Koch's postulates to show that scarlet fever is caused by streptocoocci, recover the bacteria from all cases of the disease and infect others with cultures of the bacterium.

Dick, G. and G. Dick. 1924. A skin test for susceptibility to scarlet fever. JAMA. 82: 265-266.

Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin introduce a living non-virulent strain of tuberculosis (BCG) to immunize against the disease. This is the result of work begun in 1906 on attenuating a strain of bovine tuberculosis bacillus. More than 200 subcultures were grown before the resulting strain was tested.

Calmette, A. and C. Guerin. 1924. Vaccination of bovines against tuberculosis. Ann. Inst. Pasteur. 38: 371-398.

Albert Jan Kluyver publishes an article "Unity and Diversity in the Metabolism of Micro-organisms" that demonstrates common metabolic events occur in different microbes. The processes he refers to are oxidation, fermentation and biosynthesis. Klyuver also points out that life on earth without microbes would not be possible.

Klyuver, A. J. 1924. Eenheid en verscheidenheid in de stofwisseling der microben. Chem. Weekbl. 21, 266-80. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.188 [pdf] and also In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p247 [pdf]

Thomas Rivers distinguishes between bacteria and viruses, establishing virology as a separate area of study. This paper was published after he presented it at an SAB meeting held in December of 1926.

Rivers, T. 1927. Filterable viruses. A critical review. J. Bact. 14: 217.

Albert Jan Kluyver and Hendrick Jean Louis Donker propose a universal model for metabolic events in cells based on a transfer of hydrogen atoms. The model applies to aerobic and anaerobic organisms.

Kluyver, A. J. and H. J. L. Donker. 1926. Die einheit in der biochemie. Chem. Zelle Geweke. 13: 134-190.

Everitt Murray isolates from rabbits a bacterium that is responsible for listeriosis in man. The organism can grow at low temperatures and frequently is found in food. He names it Bacterium monocytogenes. It is later renamed Listeria monocytogenes.

Murray, E.G.D., R. A. Webb, and M.B.R. Swann. 1926. A disease of rabbits characterized by a large mononuclear leucocytosis, caused by a hitherto undescribed bacillus Bacterium monocytogenes. J. Pathol. Bacteriol. 29:407-39

Frederick Griffith discovers transformation in bacteria and establishes the foundation of molecular genetics. He shows that injecting mice with a mixture of live, avirulent, rough Streptococcus pneumoniae Type I and heat-killed, virulent smooth S. pneumoniae Type II, leads to the death of the mice. Live, virulent, smooth S. pneumoniae Type II are isolated from the dead mice. Not until the 1930's, did Avery, Macleod and McCarty take up Griffith's work and try to explain the results.

Griffith, F. 1928. The significance of pneumococcal types. J. Hyg. 27, 113-159.

Alexander Fleming publishes the first paper describing penicillin and its effect on gram positive microorganisms. This finding is unique since it is a rare example of bacterial lysis and not just microbial antagonism brought on by the mold Penicillium. Fleming kept his cultures 2-3 weeks before discarding them. When he looked at one set he noticed that the staphylococcus bacteria seemed to be dissolving. The mold that contaminated the culture was a rare organism called penicillium. He left the culture on the lab bench and went on vacation. While he was away the culture was subjected to a cold spell followed by a warm one - the only conditions under which the discovery could be made. When penicillin is finally produced in major quantities in the 1940s, its power and availability effectively launch the "Antibiotics Era," a major revolution in public health and medicine. With Florey and Chain, Fleming is awarded the Noble prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1945

1945 Nobel Prize

Fleming, A. 1929. On the antibacterial action of cultures of a Penicillium, with a special reference to their use in the isolation of B. influenze. Brit. J. Exp. Path. 10: 226-236. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.98 [pdf] and also In Milestones in Microbiology: 1556 to 1940, translated and edited by Thomas D. Brock, ASM Press. 1998, p185 [pdf]

In Praise of Antibiotics, ASM News 65, 1999. p.304

Henning Karstrom begins to identify the phenomena of enzyme adaptation and of constitutive synthesis, in which synthesis of an enzyme either is increased in response to the presence of the substrate of the environment or is independent of the growth medium. His work is based on studies of carbohydrate metabolism in Gram negative enteric bacteria.

Karstrom, H. 1930. .Ann. Ueber die enzymbildung in Bakterien. Thesis, Helsinfors.

Rene Dubos working with Oswald Avery discovers Bacillus brevis, an organism that breaks down the capsular polysaccharide of Type III S. pneumocci and protects mice against pneumonia.

Dubos, R. and O. T. Avery. 1931. Decomposition of the capsular polysaccharide of pneumonococcus type III by a bacterial enzyme. J. Exper. Med. 54: 51-71.

C. B. van Niel shows that photosynthetic bacteria use reduced compounds as electron donors without producing oxygen. Sulfur bacteria use H2S as a source of electrons for the fixation of carbon dioxide. He posits that plants use water as a source and release oxygen.At this time Van Niel begins the first independent ?general microbiology? course at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.

van Niel Remembered, ASM News 53, 1987. p.75 [pdf]

van Neil, C. B. 1931. On the morphology and physiology of the purple and green sulfur bacteria. Arch. Mikrobiol. 3: 1-112.

Margaret Pittman identifies variation, such as encapsulated forms, and type specificity, such as type b, of the Haemophilus influenzae as determinants of pathogenicity.

Pittman, M. 1931. Variation and type specificity in the bacterial species Haemophilus influenzae. J. Exp. Med. 53: 471-492.

William Joseph Elford discovers that viruses range in size from large protein molecules to tiny bacteria.

Elford, W. J. 1931. A new series of graded colloidal membranes suitable for general bacteriological use, especially in filterable virus studies. J. Pathol Bacteriol. 34: 505-521.

Alice Woodruff and Ernest Goodpasture devise a technique of cultivating viruses in eggs.

Woodruff, A. and E. Goodpasture. 1931. The susceptibility of the chorio-allantoic membrane of chick embryos to infection with the fowl-pox virus. Am. J. Path. 7: 209-222.

R. Stewart and K. Meyer describe the isolation of Coccidiodes immitis from soil located near where several patients were thought to have become infected. This establishes that the soil is a reservoir for the fungus.

Stewart, R. A. and K. F. Meyer. 1932. Isolation of Coccidiodes immitis (Stiles) from the soil. Proc. Soc. Exper. Biol. & Med. 29: 937-938.