Micro-Organisms

The possibility that microorganisms exist was discussed for many centuries before their actual discovery in the 17th century. The existence of unseen microbiological life was postulated by Jainism, which is based on Mahavira's teachings as early as 6th century BCE.[19] Paul Dundas notes that Mahavira asserted existence of unseen microbiological creatures living in earth, water, air and fire.[20] Jain scriptures also describe nigodas, which are sub-microscopic creatures living in large clusters and having a very short life and are said to pervade each and every part of universe, even in tissues of plants and flesh of animals.[21] However, the earliest known idea to indicate the possibility of diseases spreading by yet unseen organisms was that of the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in a 1st-century BC book titled On Agriculture in which he warns against locating a homestead near swamps:… and because there are bred certain minute creatures that cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and they cause serious diseases.[22]In The Canon of Medicine (1020), Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) hypothesized that tuberculosis and other diseases might be contagious[23][24]In 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro proposed that epidemic diseases were caused by transferable seedlike entities that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact, or even without contact over long distances.All these early claims about the existence of microorganisms were speculative and were not based on any data or science. Microorganisms were neither proven, observed, nor correctly and accurately described until the 17th century. The reason for this was that all these early studies lacked the