History
In 1881, the organism, known as the pneumococcus for its role as an etiologic agent of pneumonia, was first isolated simultaneously and independently by the U.S Army physician George Sternberg and the French chemist Louis Pasteur.
The organism was termed Diplococcus pneumoniae from 1920 because of its characteristic appearance in Gram-stained sputum. It was renamed Streptococcus pneumoniae in 1974 because of its growth in chains in liquid media.
S. pneumoniae played a central role in demonstrating genetic material consists of DNA. In 1928, Frederick Griffith demonstrated transformation of life, turning harmless pneumococcus into a lethal form by co-inoculating the live pneumococci into a mouse along with heat-killed, virulent pneumococci. In 1944, Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty demonstrated the transforming factor in Griffith's experiment was DNA, not protein, as was widely believed at the time. Avery's work marked the birth of the molecular era of genetics.
Read more about this topic: Streptococcus Pneumoniae
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)