by Elio
Figure 1. Here are images from this article. Top: Pure culture of Bacillus dysenteriae Bottom: Colony of Bacillus dysenteriae on a gelatin plate after 24 hours.
The journal Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde u. Infektionskrankheiten was one of the leading publication in the early days of Microbiology. Many of the great discoveries of microbial pathogens were published therein. An example is the 1898 Japanese microbiologist Kiyoshi Shiga account of his discovery of his eponymous bacterium (Zentralbl. Bakteriol. Mikrobiol. Hyg. [Vorläufige Mitteilung]. 1898. 23: 599–600). It’s simply entitled: “On the Agent of Dysentery In Japan.” One of the most important of Shiga’s contributions was his finding that the sera of convalescent patients gave a positive serological test, a valuable additional criterion to Koch’s postulates on the etiology of infectious diseases.
At the time of his discovery, Shiga was an “assistant” (in today’s terms, an assistant or associate professor) in Shibasaburo Kitasato’s famed Tokyo Institute for Infectious Diseases. After his discovery of the dysentery bacillus, Shiga spent four years (1901-1905) in the lab of Paul Ehrlich in Frankfurt. In 1920, he joined Tokyo’s Keio University and in 1929, became president of the Keijo Imperial University in Seoul, Korea.
I thank ASM archivist Jeff Karr for advice.
