Basic Discription Of Microbiology :: essays research papers

BASIC DISCRIPTION OF MICROBIOLOGY They’re out there! You can’t see them but they can see you. Right at this very moment they are living on and in your body, and there is nothing you can do about it! This may sound like the beginning of a horror movie, but it isn’t. It is actually a very basic description of a very broad subject: microbiology. Microbiology is a complex subject that spans out into a variety of areas. I am a person who is entering the health care field, and it is inparitive that I know the subject of microbiology and how if effects the world in which we live. Part one of this essay will deal with defining bacteria, viruses, fungi, microbes, and pirons. Part two of the essay will focus on indigenous micro flora that is on and in the body, and part three will describe the structure and replication procedure of viruses. Part one As stated by Prescott, Harley and Klein (1990) microbiology is the study of organisms that are usually too small to be seen with the naked eye. According to Jenson and Wright (1989) a pathogen is a disease-producing organism. They also describe microbes as organisms that are often too small to be seen without the aid of a microscope. Microbes, also known as microorganisms, can be broken down into four classifications that are bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. Prescott, Harley & Klein (1990) describe bacteria as prokaryotic cells (cells that lack a true membrane enclosed nucleus). Bacteria are both small and simple in structure; they usually are between o.5 and 5cmm yet they have many characteristic shapes and sizes. Some bacteria are circular or oval shaped, they are known as cocci bacteria. Other bacteria are rod-shaped, they are known as bacilli bacteria, and some bacteria are spiral and coil-shaped and it is know as spirilla bacteria. Engelkirk & Burton (1979) state that bacteria can reproduce asexually by simple division of cells and some bacteria reproduce sexually by conjunction. A bacterium is a waste producer of products and secretions. This allows pathogens to invade their hosts to cause disease some of these harmful diseases are Scarlet fever, an acute illness, characterized by a reddish skin rash, which is caused by systematic infection with the bacterium streptococcus. St. Anthony’s Fire is another bacterial disease. â€Å"St. Anthony’s Fire which is an acute superficial form of celluitus involving the dermal lymphatic, usually caused by infection with streptococci and chiefly characterized by a peripherally spreading hot, bright red, oedematous.