In case you are wondering, I've transferred all of my previous messages from Twitter to Bsky so the dates of my posts on Bsky don't match the original dates of their publication on Twitter. I'm planning to start posting new material soon.

Tidying up my office and came across this - circa 1988. This is how we regularly identified anaerobes back then. The second image is the gas liquid chromatograph showing a butyric acid peak - a characteristic of fusobacterium. You could even do GLC directly on pus specimens.

Just found this brilliant BBC series from 1974 -Microbes and Men (6 episodes). The first episode is about Ignaz Semmelweis. If you don't have time to watch it all, skip to 29 minutes and see what happens to the medical student who didn't wash his hands. youtube.com/watch?v=0F3f0F…

This turned out better than I anticipated. Staph aureus, Serratia and Klebsiella on chromogenic agar combining to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

ES Anderson was born on 28th September 1916. He was instrumental in helping solve the cause of the 1964 Aberdeen typhoid outbreak, but is best remembered for his work on transmissible antibiotic resistance, being one of the first to warn on the dangers it posed to human health.

Yesterday was the centenary of the birth of the bacteriologist Naomi Datta. In 1962 she observed transmissible antibiotic resistance during an outbreak of Salmonella typhimurium at the Hammersmith Hospital. She later became a leading expert on the "R factors" that cause this.

Rudolf Weigl, born 2nd September 1883, known for the development of a vaccine against typhus. During WW2 in occupied Poland, he protected hundred of people from the Nazis by employing them as "lice feeders" in his lab while conducting further research. sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/stories-of-…

Driving through Tulare county. George McCoy isolated a bacterium from ground squirrels here in 1911, naming it Bacillus tularensis. In 1922 Edward Francis showed that it could infect humans. The disease is now known as tularemia and the bacterium as Francisella tularensis.

Type 7 on the Bristol stool chart, I think. From a bear! On the Valley Loop Trail in Yosemite Valley.

Even though I'm on holiday there is no escaping the day job. A poster on display in Yosemite.

Baruch Blumberg, born 28th July 1925. While investigating protein polymorphisms he and his co-workers identified a hitherto undescribed protein, now know as hepatitis B surface antigen. Further work led to the development of a highly effective vaccine. nobelprize.org/prizes/medicin…

Wilhelm Burgdorfer, Swiss-American bacteriologist/entomologist born 27th June 1925, known for his work on infections transmitted by ticks. The distribution of arthropod-borne infections is changing and this publication desribes potential threats to the UK. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Came across this on today's bench round in the lab. Colombia blood agar, 18 hour incubation at 37 C with 5% carbon dioxide. Small Gram-negative bacilli, catalase and oxidase positive with a very strong fruity smell, reminiscent of a very ripe pineapple. Identity of the bacteria?

Adolf Weil was born 7th February 1848. Known for Weil's disease, he described the clinical condition in 1886. Much later this was shown to be caused by a spirochaete. See this really good review with historical details and up to date microbiology. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/CM…

Walter Burkholder, American plant pathologist, born 1st February 1891. The genus 𝘉𝘶𝘳𝘬𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢, named in his honour, includes bacteria that cause diseases in plants, but also some important animal and human pathogens such as the causes of glanders and melioidosis.

Max Theiler, born 30th Jan 1899. One of my former trainers said he once met an elderly Max Theiler at a formal dinner. Not knowing who he was, he asked him what he did in the past. "Oh, I dabbled a bit in virology" he replied. I think he more than dabbled. nobelprize.org/prizes/medicin…

I forgot to post this yesterday. Perhaps an example of male bias. Alice Evans, born on 29th Jan 1881 showed that unpasteurised cow milk could transmit brucellosis. It wasn't believed. Surely if it were true someone else (a man?) would have discovered that? ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Edmond Nocard, French veterinarian, born 29th January 1850. He highligted the public health importance of bovine tuberculosis but is best remembered for describing the genus of bacteria that bare his name. Nocardia is a rare but important human pathogen. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Ferdinand Cohn born 24thJanuary 1828. Trained as a botanist, he worked on algae before switching to bacteriology. He was the first to describe endospores and his taxonomy of bacteria based on morphology is still in use. He was also instrumental in promoting Koch's early work.

Fritz Kaufmann born 15th January 1899, the other half of the Kauffmann-White scheme for classification of salmonella, that I wrote about last month. He worked at the Robert Koch Institut in Berlin. Forced to leave in 1933, he moved to the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen.1/2

Norman Heatley born 10th Jan 1911. Once the "forgotten man" in the history of penicillin discovery, he is now rightly recognised. His ingeniously designed culture vessel, a modified bedpan, yielded enough penicillin to allow treatment trials in humans. nms.ac.uk/explore-our-co…

Rebecca Lancefield, born 5thJanuary 1895. For a long time all haemolytic streptococci were thought to be a single species. In her classic paper from 1933, Lancefield showed how different species could be identified by their different carbohydrate antigens. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Philip Bruce White was born on 29th December 1891. He researched the antigenic structure of salmonella and purposes a method of classification in his 1926 publication. Fritz Kaufmann expanded this in the 1930s leading to the widely used Kaufmann-White scheme. 1/2.

Merry Christmas to everyone. Here is some agar art from our microbiology/infectious diseases trainees at St George's. Alexander Fleming is believed to have been the first germ artist and some of his "paintings" can be seen at the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum at St Mary's.

Gladys Dick, American bacteriologist, born on 18th December 1881. With her husband George, she investigated the pathogenesis of scarlet fever, demonstrating the role of haemolytic streptococci. They devoloped antitoxin treatment which was widely used in the pre-antibiotic era.

Something different today. Ludwig Zamenhof was born on 15th December 1859 and became an ophthalmologist. His dream was a world without war and conflict. His proposed solution was a universal language to promote understanding between all peoples. Feliĉan naskiĝtagon Dr Esperanto!

Robert Koch is a name well known to many of us. He was born on the 11th December 1843. He is most famous for his work identifying the bacterial cause of tuberculosis, but studied many other important diseases including cholera, anthrax and the animal viral infection rinderpest.

Born 29.11.1857, the paediatrician Theodor Escherich, described the organism Bacterium commune coli in 1886. Now known as 𝘌𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪, some strains may cause GI infection but I deal with it every day as a cause of UTI and bacteraemia. gov.uk/government/col…

Gerhard Domagk, German bacteriologist was born on 30th October 1895. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1939 for his work performed in 1931, demonstrating the antibacterial activity of sulfonamides, in particular the agent known as Prontosil Red (sulfamidochrysoidine).

Oswald Avery was born on 21st October 1887. Frederick Griffith's had earlier shown that an unknown chemical could transform avirulent pneumococci into virulent strains. In 1944 Avery, with Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty proved that the chemical was DNA. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Today is the anniversary of the birth in 1912 of the American microbiologist Elizabeth King. An acknowledged expert in the identification of a Gram negative bacteria, she discovered many new species, several of which were subsequently named in her honour. wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/22…

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1885 of the Peruvian medical student Daniel Carrión, born 12th August 1857. By self-inoculation he set out to show that Oroya fever and verruga peruana were different manifestations of the same disease, now also known as Carrión's disease.

Howard Florey, Australian pathologist was born 24th September1898. Fleming (and others) had described the in vitro antibacterial effect of moulds, but it was Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley who turned this observation into the life saving treatment that we still use today.

The use of rubber gloves during surgery is something we take for granted. William Halstead, a Baltimore surgeon, born September 23rd 1852, developed them, but initially not as a way of maintaining asepsis, but to protect the hands of his future wife. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

The Swiss/French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin, born 22.09.1863 is credited with the dicovery of the plague bacillus, although Kitasato Shibasaburo possibly beat him to it. I'm an unashamed stamp collector, so I enjoyed reading this article. mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-…

I mentioned Edward Derrick in my post about MacFarlane Burnett. Derrick was born on 20th September 1898. He used the term "Q fever" (Query fever) to describe an unknown febrile illness in abattoir workers in Brisbane. It was meant to be a temporary name but has stuck ever since.

How on earth did I forget that on Monday 13th September, it was the anniversary of the birth of the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram? I think I have probably used the word Gram on several occasions every day of my working life for the last 35 years.

Aldo Castellani, Italian physician, born 8th September 1874, made numerous discoveries during his colourful 97 year life, including 𝘈𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘦𝘣𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘪, 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘦 (the cause of yaws) and 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘶𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘮.

Donald Henderson, American Public Health Physician, born 7th September 1928. In 1966 he became the director of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme. At that time there were an estimated 10 million cases and 2 millions deaths per year. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980.

McFarlane Burnet, Australian microbiologist and immunologist, was born on 3rd September 1899. He is best remembered for his theories of acquired immunological tolerance and clonal selection. He was a co-discoverer of 𝘊𝘰𝘹𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘪, the cause of Q fever.

The 58th annual convention of the American Legion's Pennsylvania Department started on 21st July 1976. 4,400 delegates attended the 4 day convention at a large hotel in Philadelphia. By August 3rd, 149 of the legionnaires had developed pneumonia which had no identifiable cause.

Yesterday I overlooked the anniversary of the birth of Albert Calmette on 12th July 1863. He is famous as the co-developer, with Camille Guérin, of the BCG vaccine. As well as his work on tuberculosis he made significant advances in parasitology, toxicology and immunotherapy.

Carlos Chagas, born in Brazil on 9th July 1879, discovered the flagellate protozoon 𝘛𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘻𝘪, that he named in honour of his colleague Oswaldo Cruz. WHO data show that about 7 million people have American trypanosomiasis, also known as Chagas disease.

Fanny Hesse, born 22nd June 1850 was the wife and lab assistant of Walther Hesse who worked with Robert Koch. Fanny suggested that agar was preferable to gelatin as the gelling agent in semisolid media in Petri dishes. Agar is widely used as a culinary gelling agent in SE Asia.

John McFadyean, born 17th June 1853, was the first British veterinary microbiologist. In 1906 he and Stockman described the organism now known as Campylobacter, in uterine specimens from aborting sheep. McFadyean is also known for his methylene blue staining method for anthrax.

Julius Richard Petri, born 31st May 1852. He was an assistant of Robert Koch. The "Petri dish" was developed by Koch, but Petri made some improvements which he published in 1887. Despite advances in molecular techniques, bacterial culture is still a fundamental diagnostic method.

Filippo Pacini, Italian anatomist, born 25th May 1883. During an epidemic of cholera in Florence in 1854, he observed the presence of comma-shaped bacteria on histological examination of intestinal mucosa and proposed that these "vibrios" caused the disease. Few believed him.

Edward Jenner, born, 17th May 1749. Apprenticed to John Hunter at St George's Hospital, he then practiced in his native Gloucestershire. There he observed how previous cowpox infection could protect against smallpox, leading to the development of a safe way to prevent infections.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English poet and writer, was born on 15th May 1689. She accompanied her husband to Istanbul after his appointment as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, where she observed and then popularised the practice of variolation to prevent smallpox.

Ronald Ross was born on 13th May 1857 in India. After medical training in London, he worked in the Indian Medical Service. Inspired by the tropical physician and parasitologist Patrick Manson, he investigated mosquitoes as vectors of malaria and demonstrated their role 1897.