Serodiagnosis of Bacterial Infections - Pitfalls and Prospects in Clinical Diagnosis

摘要

A lot has changed since the 1880s when the German born microbiologist, Robert Koch (1843 - 1910) elucidated his guidelines for the diagnosis of microbial infections. Koch's postulates as these guidelines were later christened, can be summarized from his presentation before the Tenth International Congress of Medicine in Berlin in 1890 (Koch, 1891; Rivers, 1937). (a) The microbe should be found in all cases of the disease and its absence in healthy individuals demonstrated. (b) The organism must be grown in pure culture in vitro. (c) Reproduce the same disease in suitable experimental animals.