page_title: Bifidobacterium
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bifidobacterium / History
caption_attribution_description: English: &#160; Some bacteria, presumably Bifidobacterium animalis from a sample of Activia&#174; brand yogurt. &#160; 100&#215; objective, 15&#215; eyepiece. &#160; Numbered ticks are 11 &#181;M apart. &#160; The scale of the full-sized version of this image is such that each pixel represents a 0.01-&#181;M square. &#160; Gram stained.
context_page_description: Bifidobacterium is a genus of gram-positive, nonmotile, often branched anaerobic bacteria. They are ubiquitous inhabitants of the gastrointestinal tract, vagina and mouth of mammals, including humans. Bifidobacteria are one of the major genera of bacteria that make up the gastrointestinal tract microbiota in mammals. Some bifidobacteria are used as probiotics.
  Before the 1960s, Bifidobacterium species were collectively referred to as "Lactobacillus bifidus".
context_section_description: In 1899, Henri Tissier, a French pediatrician at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, isolated a bacterium characterised by a Y-shaped morphology ("bifid") in the intestinal microbiota of breast-fed infants and named it "bifidus". In 1907, Élie Metchnikoff, deputy director at the Pasteur Institute, propounded the theory that lactic acid bacteria are beneficial to human health. Metchnikoff observed that the longevity of Bulgarian peasants was the result of their consumption of fermented milk products. Metchnikoff also suggested that "oral administration of cultures of fermentative bacteria would implant the beneficial bacteria in the intestinal tract".
caption: Some of the Bifidobacterium animalis bacteria found in a sample of Activia yogurt:  The numbered ticks on the scale are 10 micrometres apart.
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