Pleomorphism (microbiology)

The pleomorphism (Greek pleion = more, morphe = shape) is a historical scientific doctrine, according to which cells, viruses and bacteria transform into each other and occur in different appearance. While the concept of the emergence of different forms of a particular bacterial species has established itself under the term pleomorphism today, the historic Pleomorphismuskonzept is incorrect. It was already refuted in the 1930s and is completely rejected by modern scientific medicine or biology.

Historical Significance

The concept of pleomorphism went back to the French chemist and biologist Antoine Béchamp that to the concept of so-called Mikrozyme introduced, which he also called granulations moleculaires and, referring to the previously established notion of inanimate zymases. Part of the representatives of the pleomorphism was assumed that cells or their components, even after the death of the cell can continue to live as tiny particles and could be combined to create new forms of life later. The German physiologist Theodor Schwann, however, had already in 1837 proved that a heating of biological material means that life processes are terminated. The successful application of the heating by Louis Pasteur in 1863, pasteurization as an up to the present established method for killing microorganisms, it also confirmed.

The thesis of pleomorphism reached in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century a certain level of acceptance within the microbiology, mainly based on the later work of Günther Enderlein. However, these have already been rejected in his time by the majority of microbiological research- scientists. So led microbiologist Emmy Klieneberger 1931 in a work in which they compared the pleomorphism with the postulated Philalethes Kuhn Pettenkoferien hypothesis and the majority accepted monomorphism theory, among other things:

Similarly, wrote Carl Stapp (1888-1984), later director of the Institute of Bacteriology and Serology of the Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA ) in Braunschweig, and Herbert Zycha ( 1903-1998 ), later director of the Institute for Forest Tree Diseases of the BBA in Hann. Munden, also in 1931 in an experimental work on the morphology of Bacillus mycoides:

The pleomorphism lost soon after the publication of appropriate research results in importance and is currently represented only by a minority working in the alternative medical field. The findings of modern cellular, molecular and microbiology clearly show that the basic assumptions on which the pleomorphism depends, was false.

Swell

  • Outdated Theory
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