Escherichia coli (E. coli for friends) is a bacteria that is a member of the Enterobacteriaceae family and is part of the microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract of homeothermic animals, such as humans.
Most E. coli do not cause problems. But, some types can cause illness and cause diarrhea. One of them causes traveler's diarrhea. The worst type of E. coli causes hemorrhagic diarrhea and can sometimes cause kidney failure and even death. Its discoverer first saw it in baby poop.
Theodor Escherich
The discoverer of this bacteria accomplished this feat by literally examining baby poop. This researcher, in fact, was the first person in the modern era who would show an important scientific interest in feces.
His name was Theodor Escherich (hence the name the bacteria would later bear), a young pediatric researcher from Munich who, at the end of the 19th century, put several samples of baby feces under the microscope. Just as described Bill Bryson in his book The human body:
There he found 19 different types of microorganisms, which represented a considerably higher number than he expected to find given that the only obvious sources of these microorganisms entering the bodies of babies were breast milk and the air they breathed.
The bacteria has become the most studied microbe in history. It has more genetic variability between two strains than all the mammals on Earth. But Theodor died even before the bacteria received its name: when he discovered it, he named it common coli bacteria.
–
The news
How the discoverer of E. coli did it by examining baby poop
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.