Campylobacter in history

Campylobacter species have been causing illness for several centuries although they were only recognised as a human pathogens in the 1970’s.

Campylobacter species have long been associated with the cause of veterinary diseases such as diarrhoea and septic abortions in cattle and sheep. It was first identified in the fecal tissue of aborted sheep in 1913, but was not isolated from stool samples of patients with diarrhoea until 1972.

The first observation of Campylobacter organism may have been as early as 1886 by Theodor Escherich, who described spiral organisms in the large intestine of children who had died of diarrhoea disease, and he called it ‘cholera infantum’.

Later Smith and Taylor described the vibrionic abortion in cattle and named the agent Vibrionic fetus. The association of V. fetes with enteric disease was first reported by Elizabeth King in 1957, and she preferred to name as ‘related vibrios’. In 1959, Florent showed that a form of the infection known bovine infections infertility was caused by V. fetes transmitted from carrier bulls to cows during coitus.

The genus name Campylobacter a Greek word for ‘curved rod’ was eventually proposed by Sebald and Veron (1963) to include microaerophilic bacteria that were different form Vibrio cholera and other species of vision in a number of respects.

In 1970s Campylobacter was successfully isolated from the stools of humans with accurate enter colitis. The isolation of Campylobacter from feces was accomplished in 1968 and published in 1972.

Campylobacter in history