Bacteriology

Bacteriology is the branch and specialty of biology that studies the morphology, ecology, genetics and biochemistry of bacteria as well as many other aspects related to them.

[1] Because of the similarity of thinking and working with microorganisms other than bacteria, such as protozoa, fungi, and non-microorganism viruses, there has been a tendency for the field of bacteriology to extend as microbiology.

Bacteriology evolved from physicians needing to apply the germ theory to address the concerns relating to disease spreading in hospitals the 19th century.

Bacteriology can be studied and applied in many sub-fields relating to agriculture, marine biology, water pollution, bacterial genetics, veterinary medicine, biotechnology and others.

For growing the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae, for example, which is dependent on hemin and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide for its growth, blood (usually from a sheep or a horse) is added to the medium.

[12] When growing bacteria that are found in the intestines of mammals, such as salmonella, XLD agar which contains, among other ingredients deoxycholic acid is used.

In the 1840s, Semmelweis' observations and ideas surrounding sanitary techniques were rejected and his book on the topic condemned by the medical community due to its conflict with the prevailing theory and practice of humorism at the time.

Although Pacini's work was available to the international scientific community via French and English translations, the discovery of the cholera-causing agent is often attributed to the German physician Robert Koch who rediscovered it in 1884.

[25] This new phylogenetic taxonomy came from the sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA and divided prokaryotes into two evolutionary domains as part of the three-domain system.