Germ Theories of Disease and British Veterinary Medicine, 1860–1890

Abstract

In standard accounts of the germ theory of disease the "Golden Age of Bacteriology" dawns in Germany in 1876, with Koch showing that a specific bacillus was the essential cause of anthrax.' Immunology, Jenner apart, is said to have begun three years later, in France, when Pasteur produced a protective vaccine by attenuating the bacillus of fowl-cholera.2Modern microbiology began, therefore, with breakthroughs in the aetiology and control of animal diseases.This pattern extended to virology in 1898 when, again in Germany, the first pathogenic virus identified was that of foot-and-mouth disease.3Pathological research on animal diseases was also pursued in Britain; indeed, it was in advance of continental efforts.In 1866 the Royal Commission on the Cattle Plague undertook work on the contagious agents of the disease.4In 1874 John Simon accorded this work great significance in the development of experimental pathology, saying that it was "the first of such studies ... and the first step of discovery . ..".

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