Pleomorphism
The pleomorphism (Greek pleion "more", morph "shape") is a historical scientific doctrine according to which cells , viruses and bacteria transform into one another and can appear in different manifestations. While the concept of the appearance of different manifestations of a certain bacterial species has now been established under the term pleomorphism , the historical concept of pleomorphism is incorrect. It was considered refuted as early as the 1930s and is completely rejected by modern scientific medicine or biology.
Historical meaning
The concept of pleomorphism went back to the French chemist and biologist Antoine Béchamp , who introduced the concept of so-called microzyme , which he also called granulationsolekulaires , referring to the previously established concept of inanimate zymases . Some of the representatives of pleomorphism assumed that cells or their components can continue to live as the smallest particles even after the cell has died and could later assemble into new forms of life. However, the German physiologist Theodor Schwann had already proven in 1837 that heating biological material leads to the termination of life processes. The successful use of heating by Louis Pasteur in 1863, as pasteurization, a method for killing microorganisms that has been established to this day, also confirmed this.
The thesis of pleomorphism achieved a certain degree of acceptance within microbiology in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, mainly based on the later work of Günther Enderlein . However, these were already rejected by the majority of microbiological researchers in his time. The microbiologist Emmy Klieneberger carried out a work in 1931 in which she compared pleomorphism with the Pettenkoferien hypothesis postulated by Philalethes Kuhn and the largely accepted monomorphism theory, among other things:
- “… G. ENDERLEIN has set up a systematic building of a bacterial development cycle that is not based on faithful observations but rather on theoretical speculations. ... Enderlein’s speculations must be completely rejected, as they lack any real basis. ... "
Similarly, wrote Carl Stapp (1888-1984), and later director of the Institute of Bacteriology and Serology of the Federal Biological Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA) in Braunschweig , and Herbert Zycha (1903-1998), then director of the Institute of Forest Plant Diseases of BBA in Hann. Münden , also in 1931 in an experimental work on the morphology of Bacillus mycoides :
- “... To go into the mostly theoretical treatises of Enderlein (1925, 1930) seems unnecessary to us, since this author starts from completely different points of view and a discussion lacks any common basis. ... "
After the publication of relevant research results, pleomorphism quickly lost its importance and is currently only represented by a minority active in alternative medicine. The findings of modern cell , molecular and microbiology clearly show that the basic assumptions on which pleomorphism is based are wrong.
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- ^ Theodor Schwann: Preliminary communication regarding experiments on fermentation and putrefaction. In: Annals of Physics and Chemistry. XLI / 1837, pp. 184ff.
- ↑ Emmy Klieneberger: Today's views of the different forms of bacterial cells of a kind. In: Klinische Wochenschrift. 10/1931, p. 31ff.
- ^ Carl Stapp, Herbert Zycha: Morphological investigations on Bacillus mycoides; a contribution to the question of the pleomorphism of bacteria. In: Archives for Microbiology. 2/1931, p. 33ff.