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Following the timeline, we find Lazzaro Spallanzani. He who was of Italian nationality, initially had a big problem: his father wanted him to study law, like him, but Lazzaro had a curious spirit, like any great scientist. One of his teachers, realizing its qualities cream talked to the boy's father and managed to convince the child to study science. Later, the Italian came to know the studies and observations made by the Dutch custodian, which led him to want to discover the origin of these unusual critters. By then, a father, Needham, and a scientist Buffon, spread misconceptions about the origin of microscopic beings. They said that life was possible that arose through dead matter, for them this matter was a mutton broth; there was a force that was responsible for the creation of life, the Vegetative Force, which was affected by heat; and that the elasticity of the air had an important role in the origin thereof. Given all these claims a scientific witty, Spallanzani rose. At first his experiments lacked cleanliness and order, but eventually improved. For reasons of space, I will only say that Lazzaro was able to refute all those claims through ingenious, but "simple" experiments that led him to be recognized by other scientists. Spallanzani, also helped to ensure that the microorganisms are not reproduced by coupling, but by bipartition, and proposed by Saussure was successful.

 

Leaving behind the Italian, we find the following microbe hunter, Louis Pasteur. He was a person who from childhood threw eager to be someone important in life, he was a very clever, enthusiastic, persistent yearning for fame and man. First, he studied chemistry none other than Dumas as an instructor, that person was scored by his intelligence and skill. Pasteur, at an early age, began teaching at a university, and eventually married the daughter of the rector, who was a very sweet woman who always supported throughout your spouse, even when she had no idea what he spoke. One day, the father of one of his students went to visit with the intention of asking him to help the company where he worked, a producer of beer, because sometimes not the expected amount of beer was obtained, leading a significant monetary loss. Luis began to investigate the case and realized that the microorganism responsible for the conversion of sugar to alcohol, in some cases upsetting and produce butyl acid. From that moment Pasteur began to gain some fame, to the extent that his former master, Dumas, asked for help to heal the sick silk worms. After investigating the matter, Luis realized that some microorganisms were responsible for the disease. Subsequently becomes heal other microscopic creatures and concludes that some microorganisms were responsible for various diseases. Pasteur tried to cure anthrax, but his method was not always successful. Also, another major contributions to humanity he was, without doubt, the cure for rabies, which at that time was the cause of many deaths. His research team began to look into the issue and test various possible cures for sick dogs until after three years finally he succeeded. But he did not dare to test it on humans, until a desperate mother asked him to try on her son, who was in very bad condition, how was his joy to realize that this priest also served in humans. Pasteur died after a life full of experiments and research.

 

There was another very important researcher, Robert Koch, with which arguably brought a rivalry at the time of Pasteur. Roberto, unlike Luis, was a very organized and perfectionist. He was German and had dreams of travel and have adventures around the world, but it was not because his wife stopped him. Koch studied medicine and took an office. Everything was going well until his wife gave him a microscope, with the idea that more devoted to medicine, but it was the opposite, all that was brought to his attention focus more on those amazing little animals. Roberto, with the help of his coworkers came to do great research that favored mankind. He found the cure for anthrax, which Pasteur had failed at all, but not only that, he also realized that responsible for the disease microorganism stayed as in "sleep mode" when dying the infected animal, waiting another victim, so I proposed burn or bury deep those bodies. Koch inadvertently found a way to cultivate various microbes and went with Virchow (another great scientist) to tell, but he ignored her, perhaps for pride. The German scientist also did research on the disease of tuberculosis, and found that it was possible to see those tiny to be painted with a blue dye, also loved that it was possible that this microorganism airway is transmitted. Koch can be regarded as the father of bacteriology.

 

Then we find the disciples of the latter two scientists, Roux and Behring. Both were impressive scientists, in my opinion, the same size as their predecessors. They devoted themselves to the study of diphtheria, but not only in identifying but also in creating an immune vaccine that serve to counteract this terrible illness struck society at the time, and had already taken the lives of more than a person. Fortunately his experiments were successful and managed to formulate the appropriate vaccine, which helped control this disease. Today, thanks to future studies, we have a more effective version that apply to us as children.

 

Later we found a somewhat strange hunter, Elias Metchnikoff: While he was a brilliant scientist, apparently had many mental problems because he attempted suicide more than once, if I remember three. As for his contribution to humanity are the discovery of phagocytosis, this thanks to a substance injected into stars of young sea water fleas, in which he could see the liquid was "devoured" by their internal cells. Elijah took the remarks to explain how it was that the cells of other living beings exterminated those outsiders who came to enter the body in some way. Metchnikoff and his team made many more studies on the blood.

 

On another hunter, we find the American Theobald Smith, a brilliant young man of 25, who was a doctor degree in philosophy, besides being good at mathematics and physics; but what fascinated him was the microbiology, only by lack of resources could not travel to Europe to study on that, but as a German knew began to read and recreate experiments Koch. A problem of ovine death was presented during the summer in Texas, and he found that it was due to ticks, but they were newborns. Later, Smith was able to eradicate the disease, Texas fever.

 

Later, we met David Bruce, who was a Scottish physician. He was rebellious and arrogant character, but also very romantic. His bad behavior led him to the army to send him to Malta, where a type of fever is presented. David and his wife managed to find the organism that caused the disease. Later he traveled to Africa, where he devoted himself to discover what it was that the tsetse fly transmitted disease called nagana through its sting, injuring livestock. Bruce found an unusual organism in a sample of blood from an infected animal, this small animal had a line and the red blood cells penetrated. Realize that the microorganism "hibernated" up to infect those animals were given. Later came the news that they had found microscopic creatures of the same type that were rooted in black near a lake. David and his wife were there to investigate and realized that they had been infected by the same kind of flies. He proposed to take out to the people there and the flies were eradicated from that place.

 

Change of character and met Ronald Ross and Battista Grassi, they were two scientists who initially worked together in the case of malaria disease. In their experiments they were able to verify that the microorganism was transmitted by flies that had previously bitten an infected person. They fought for recognition of that discovery, only Ross was the one who won the Nobel Prize.

 

Following the reading, we ran into Walter Reed, who was an exemplary American bacteriologist, and a selfless doctor who commissioned the task of investigating how to prevent or eradicate yellow fever, which was transmitted by the Stegomyia mosquito. Like other animals could not be sick, it had to experiment with volunteers, starting with the scientists involved in the case. Fortunately most of them healed, but never found the microorganism responsible for the fever.

 

Finally, the last hunter in this book, we find Paul Ehrlich, a German Jewish atheist, proclaiming to exterminate the microbes with a magic bullet. He was somewhat traumatized with the dyes also was messy and fanciful. After many failures, the end perseverance rewarded; one day, after much experimenting, found a compound, 606 (or salvarsan, as was baptized), which was able to eradicate the spirochete and trypanosomes, and even also cured a patient with syphilis. For his courage and persistence, arguably pioneered the "magic bullets" of today.