The majority of infectious diseases had begun to decline at the turn of the century with the understanding that potentially dangerous microbes could be transmitted by water, food and insects and by the application of sanitation and antisepsis. Since the birth of the modern antibiotic era some 45 years ago the incidence of bacterial disease has declined further and, despite the marvels of R plasmids we heard earlier today, most bacterial infections can be controlled, though usually not prevented, by chemotherapy. Some bacterial infections can be prevented by immunization although except for certain toxins, immunization is generally based on hit or miss whole organism vacccines. The fact is that if we understood more about how particular microorganisms caused infection it might be possible to devise rational means to prevent them.


Bacterial Pathogenicity Bacterial Toxin Epithelial Cell Surface Bordetella Pertussis Shigella Flexneri 


Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.


  1. 1.
    J. Todd, M. Fiskant, F. Kapral, and T. Welch. Toxic-shock syndrome associated with phage-group-1-staphylococci, Lancet ii, 1116 (1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. 2.
    Center for Disease Control, Legionnaires Disease: Diagnosis and Management. Ann. Intern. Med. 88, 363 (1978).Google Scholar
  3. 3.
    K.N. Timmis and A. Puhler (ed), Plasmids of Medical, Environmental and Commercial Importance. Elsevier/North Holland Biomedical Press, Amsterdam (1979).Google Scholar
  4. 4.
    L.P. Elwell and P.L. Shipley, Plasmid-mediated factors associated with virulence of bacteria to animals, Ann. Rev. Microbiol. 34, 496 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. 5.
    C.A. Mims, The Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease, Academic Press, London (1976).Google Scholar
  6. 6.
    P.D. Hoeprich (ed) Infectious Diseses, Harper and Row, Hagerstown, MD (1977).Google Scholar
  7. 7.
    G.P. Youmans, P.Y. Paterson and H.M. Sommers, The Biologic and Clinical Basis of Infectious Diseases, W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA (1979).Google Scholar
  8. 8.
    G.L. Mandell, R.G. Douglas, Jr., and J.E. Bennett, Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases, John Wiley and Sons, New York, N.Y. (1979).Google Scholar
  9. 9.
    I. Orskov, F. Orskov, B. Jann, and K. Jann, Serology, Chemistry and Genetics of 0 and K antigens of Escherichia coli. Bacteriol. Rev. 41, 667 (1977).PubMedGoogle Scholar
  10. 10.
    H. Smith, Biochemical challenge of microbial pathogenicity, Bacteriol. Rev. 32, 164 (1968).PubMedGoogle Scholar
  11. 11.
    G.W. Jones, The attachment of bacteria to the surfaces of animal cells, in J.L. Reissig (ed) Receptors and Recognition, Sec. B, Vol. 3, Microbial Interactions, John Wiley and Sons, New York, N.Y. (1978).Google Scholar
  12. 12.
    J. Mestecky, J.R. McGhee, S.S. Crago, S. Jackson, M. Kilian, H. Kiyono, J.LI Babb and S.M. Michalek. J. Reticuloend. Soc. 28, 450 (1980).Google Scholar
  13. 13.
    S.L. Moseley and S. Falkow, Nucleotide sequence homology between the heat-labile enterotoxin gene of Escherichia coli and Vibrio cholerae deoxyribonucleic acid, J. Bacterol. 144, 444 (1980).Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1981

Authors and Affiliations

  • Stanley Falkow
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Medical MicrobiologyStanford, UniversityStanfordUSA

Personalised recommendations