Public Health Microbiologist

36 Pages·2007·0.689 MB·English

by  Tamra B. Orr

COOL SCIENCE CAREERS
Public Health
Microbiologist

COOL SCIENCE CAREERS
Public Health
Microbiologist
Tamra Orr
Cher r y Lake Publishing
Ann Ar bor, Michigan
Published in the United States of America by Cherry Lake Publishing
Ann Arbor, MI
www.cherrylakepublishing.com
Photo Credits: Page 6, Photo Courtesy of American Physical Society
Copyright ©2008 by Cherry Lake Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Orr, Tamra.
Public health microbiologist/by Tamra Orr.
p. cm.—(Cool science careers)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60279-053-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 978-1-60279-082-7 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-60279-053-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1-60279-082-5 (pbk.)
1. Medical microbiology—Vocational guidance—Juvenile literature. 2.
Microbiology—Vocational guidance--Juvenile literature. I. Title. II.
Series.
QR46.O77 2007
616.9’041—dc22 2007005692
Cherry Lake Publishing would like to acknowledge the work of
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
Please visitwww.21stcenturyskills.org for more information.
Table of Contents
C H A P T E R O N E
Tracking the Invisible 4
C H A P T E R T W O
Understanding What Cannot Be Seen 10
C H A P T E R T H R E E
Microbiologists Then and Now 15
C H A P T E R F O U R
Tools for Tiny Tests 23
C H A P T E R F I V E
Helping Everyone 28
Glossary 30
For More Information 31
Index 32
CHAPTER ONE
Tracking the Invisible
Cholera germs are so tiny they must be greatly magnified
to be seen, even through a microscope.
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21st CENTURY SKILLS LIBRARY
I
t was one of the darkest moments in history. earning
I
&
nnovation
Thousands of people, even entire families, were Skills
Americans in
the 1940s and
dying. Doctors had no idea what to do. There was
1950s greatly
feared a deadly
a war going on but no soldiers or weapons. Victims
disease—polio.
Two American
were rich, poor, young, and old. doctors Jonas Salk
and Albert Sabin
developed vaccines
This was an internal war. It wascholera, an enemy
in the 1950s that
protected children
too small to be seen. The war was taking place inside from this killer. The
idea of vaccinating
people to prevent
human bodies, and no one knew how to stop it.
disease began with
English physician
In 1854, the Soho district of London was under Edward Jenner in
1796.
attack. The invisible enemy was making people so ill
they could not even get up from the fl oor to go for
help. Most doctors thought the thick London fog was
carrying the illness through open doors and windows.
COOL SCIENCE CAREERS:Public Health Microbiologist 5
Dr. John Snow had a different idea. He thought the illness was coming
from another source—water. Many other doctors thought he was crazy,
but Snow was determined to prove his idea.
In 2003, British doctors voted John Snow the greatest physician of
all time, in large part for his work on the disease of cholera.
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Making a Map
ife
C
&
areer
Snow realized that if the sickness were being
Skills
How do you deal
spread through the air, each neighborhood should
with the situation
when you have a
have about the same number of victims. This was completely different
opinion from your
friends or family on
not the case, however. Some areas had many more
something?
than others.
One such place was around a water pump on
Soho’s Broad Street. Snow drew a map, marking each
house where someone had died from the mysterious
disease. Soon he saw a pattern. In the middle of it all
was the pump.
COOL SCIENCE CAREERS:Public Health Microbiologist 7
Snow needed proof that the well water was somehow the source of the
illness. He looked at some drops of the water through his microscope and
saw an unfamiliar type of bacteria. Could this be the cause?
Snow believed it was. He convinced authorities to take the handle off
the pump. Then no one could get water from the Broad Street well. Almost
immediately, the cholera epidemic in that area stopped. Snow was right!
Bacteria are the cause of scarlet fever, strep throat, pneumonia,
leprosy, anthrax, ulcers, and many other diseases.
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21st CENTURY SKILLS LIBRARY