The History of bacteriology]

It was not until the development of the first microscopes by the Janssen brothers around In 1590 that microbes were observed as minute structures on surfaces. Robert Hooke starts showing the fruiting structures of molds around the courts of Europe and published the 1st survey of microbes in 1660. The first person who observes prokaryotes microscopically was Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676. He published his observations on these animicules to the Royal Society of London. Through, the theory of spontaneous generation stopped much further investigation since it claimed in which the intervention of divine power led to the spontaneous creation of molds and other spoilage organisms should food be left unattended. The belief which living organisms could arise from otherwise inert materials began around the time of Aristotle and eventually this theory was disproved through the experiments of Pasteur in year 1861 using swan-necked flasks. These allowed the preservation of beef broth for long periods with spoilage only initiated once an airborne invisible contaminant was reintroduced into the broth.

The Ferdinand Cohn is credited with founding the science of bacteriology proposing a morphological classification for bacteria and using the term Bacillus for the first time in year 1875. This was soon followed through the seminal work by Koch over the period between 1876 and 1884, with his system for firmly establishing the link among disease and bacteria. Martinus Beijerinck established the method of enrichment culture, establishing the first pure culture of Rhizobium in year 1889 a year before Winogradsky demonstrated the link among nitrification and oxygen in bacteria. The Beijerinck also went on to found the science of virology whereas working for an organization producing yeast in the Netherlands establishing the strong link among biotechnology and microbiology. Through the turn of the 20th century the first microbiology journal had been published and several of the organisms we study now were named while not necessarily classified as they are presently. Bacteria became the model systems for biochemistry throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries culminating in the sequence of the genome of the first free-living organism being decoded through Venter and colleagues in 1995.