Seminaria morbi

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The Seminaria morbi or Seminaria contagionis in the form of animalcula (small animals, seeds, germs) and vermiculi (worms) were held responsible for the development of infectious diseases as a manifestation of contagion until the 19th century . They are parasitic beings gifted with individual life. This anticipated the principles of later bacteriology, contrary to the canonical view of Hippocratic writings and Aristotelian , miasmatic constructs, which favored inanimate exhalations from the ground and the air. The term goes back to Girolamo Fracastoro , whom Heinrich Haeser called the "founder of scientific epidemiography" in 1882.

Seminaria morbi / Seminaria contagionis

Girolamo Fracastoro first formulated the theory of the transmission of infectious diseases through specific germs (seminaria morbi) in 1546 in his work De Contagione et contagiosis morbis et eorum curatione . These would always cause the same disease processes and only differ in the subtlety of their material nature . Contagia are specific, living substances materialized in the infected body that can be transferred to healthy people. And through direct contact (contactus), over distance (ad distans) and via inanimate, infected intermediate materials (per formitem). The miasma, on the other hand, was initially thought of as a gaseous body, in the ancient tradition, which was created by the rot in the soil and spread through the air ( earth's atmosphere ). This classification was not sufficient to explain certain pathways of the disease. It was therefore assumed that they were caused by both miasms and contagions (miasmatic-contaginous transmission). In principle, the exogenous versus endogenous conception of communicable diseases is recognized in the modern view.

Vermiculi

Athanasius Kircher described in his book Scrutinium Physico-Medicum Contagiosae Luis, quae Pestis dicitur , published in 1658 . the "Vermiculi pestis". In fact, he would not have been able to see the " plague worms " because microscopy was not that advanced at the time.

Animalkula theory

Benjamin Marten speaks in his book A new theory of consumptions, published in 1720 ; more especiallyof a phtisis, or consumption of the Lungs of animalcula, small wonderful living creatures. These would cause the TBC . He does not consider spontaneous development of TBC since, in his opinion, there is no spontaneous generation .

Contagium animatum

In 1840 Jakob Henle published his monograph On Miasms and Contagies and on Miasmatic-Contagious Diseases . Barely 30 years old, he conceived the "Contagium animatum", an organism as a causative agent of pathological inflammatory processes, without any attempts of his own, with ingenious intellectual work, with which he anticipated the theory of infection and the sources of infection of the late 19th century.

Miasms and contagias and miasmatic-contagious diseases

Henle's conception of the effects of miasms and contagias and of miasmatic-contagious diseases , which appear in his Pathological Investigations of 1840, emerged from critical reports on newly published medical literature of his time . It is still believed that the contagious contagium emanating from the sick individual consists of the smallest living beings. "Worms" (Vermiculi), which are seen as maggots from invisible, "Mücklein" (Animalculae) floating around freely in the air. Syphilis is considered to be such a contagious disease. Miasms, on the other hand, are pathogens that reach humans exogenously and cause diseases such as malaria. In the Hippocratic writings, which at that time still had a canonical character, the view was held that the miasms were inanimate evaporation from the ground and the air. The other infectious diseases were assigned to the miasmatic-contagious diseases. On the one hand the transmission takes place from person to person, on the other hand it is caused by exogenous influences.

Seminaria morbi as a cause of disease

Henle sees that the miasms and contagions cause the same diseases and concludes that both are identical. He can identify the type of contagious substance by inductive reasoning. These contagions are not only made of organic material, but are matter endowed with individual life , which is related to the diseased body in the relationship of a parasitic organism . The contagion was the germ or seed of this parasitic being who live in borrowed body, and that is through which daselbest ... propagates . In Henle's sense, the contagium is not the germ or seed of an illness, but rather, as semen morbi, the cause of the illness.

Although Henle, a student of Johannes Müller , who later became his prosector in Berlin, is regarded as an actual microscope specialist in Müller's inner circle, he is not yet able to show the living pathogens of infectious diseases under the microscope. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1670) saw small animals in saliva and water droplets for the first time through his self-made microscope.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Werner E. Gerabek : Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte , Walter de Gruyter, 2005, p. 669, ISBN 3110157144 , here online