Gram Staining - History

History

The method is named after its inventor, the Danish scientist Hans Christian Gram (1850–1938), who developed the technique while working with Carl Friedländer in the morgue of the city hospital in Berlin. Gram devised his technique not for the purpose of distinguishing one type of bacterium from another but to enable bacteria to be seen more readily in stained sections of lung tissue. He published his method in 1884, and included in his short report the observation that the Typhus bacillus did not retain the stain.

Read more about this topic:  Gram Staining

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.
    William Faulkner (1897–1962)

    For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.
    Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)