From miasmas to germs: a historical approach to theories of infectious disease transmission

Marianna Karamanou; George Panayiotakopoulos; Gregory Tsoucalas; Antonis A Kousoulis; George Androutsos

From miasmas to germs: a historical approach to theories of infectious disease transmission

Infez Med. 2012 Mar;20(1):58-62.

Authors

Marianna Karamanou¹, George Panayiotakopoulos, Gregory Tsoucalas, Antonis A Kousoulis, George Androutsos

Affiliation

¹ History of Medicine Department, Medical School, University of Athens, Athens, Greece.

PMID: 22475662

Abstract

From miasma to germ theory we trace the evolution of conceptions in infectious disease transmission. Starting from the unproved theories of contagiousness we move on to miasma theory, contagion theory and spontaneous generation theory up to the revolutionary germ theory of disease transmission.

Publication types

Biography
Historical Article
Portrait

MeSH terms

Bacteriology / history*
Communicable Diseases / history*
Disease Transmission, Infectious / history*
Epidemiology / history*
Europe
France
Germ Theory of Disease / history*
Germany
Greece
History, 16th Century
History, 17th Century
History, 18th Century
History, 19th Century
History, 20th Century
History, 21st Century
History, Ancient
History, Medieval
Humans
Italy
Microbiology / history

Personal name as subject

Francesco Redi
Louis Pasteur
Robert Koch