History
Disease-causing pathogens are also called what?
Pathology
The history of pathology can be traced back to antiquity when people began examining bodies. The examination of bodies led to the dissection of bodies in order to discover the cause of death. During that time, the people already began formulating today what we know as inflammation, tumors, boils, and much more. Pathology began to develop as a subject during the 19th Century through teachers and physicians that studied pathology. They referred to it as “pathological anatomy” or “morbid anatomy.” However, pathology as a field of medicine was not recognized until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 19th century, physicians realized that disease-causing pathogens, or germs (disease-causing, or pathogenic, microbes, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, amoebae, molds, protists, and prions) existed and were capable of reproduction and multiplication, and that evil spirits or humors, or even the signs and symptoms of the condition, were not the causative agent of a disease. Through the new information gathered regarding germ reproduction, physicians began to compare the characteristics of one germ’s symptoms as they developed within an affected individual to another germ’s characteristics and symptoms. This realization led to the foundational understanding that diseases are able to create themselves, and that they can affect human beings in unique ways. In order to determine causes of diseases, medical experts used the most common and widely accepted assumptions or symptoms of their times. This is true for those in the past and today. What set pathology apart from other specialties was the ability to determine a symptom with the naked eye. During the 19th century, Rudolf Virchow gave the biggest contribution to the field by introducing the procedure of analyzing tissue and cells through a microscope to pathologists. This greatly affected the discipline because it was another way to analyze objects, and it led to more advanced technological developments. By the late 1920s to early 1930s pathology was deemed a medical specialty. During the years following, the decision to split pathology into sub-specialties arose. Today, anatomical, clinical, molecular, forensic, oral, dermatopathology, hematopathology, and neuropathology exist as medical specialties. Today, pathologists are physicians who are diagnosing patients with diseases through examination of biopsies and resections. Their work also includes working with other physicians and scientists on solutions to treat diseases such as various kinds of cancers.