A review of malaria epidemiology and control in Papua New Guinea 1900 to 2021: Progress made and future directions

The research and control of malaria has a long history in Papua New Guinea, sometimes resulting in substantial changes to the distribution of infection and transmission dynamics in the country. There have been four major periods of malaria control in PNG, with the current control programme having commenced in 2004. Each previous control programme was successful in reducing malaria burden in the country, but multiple factors led to programme failures and eventual breakdown. A comprehensive review of the literature dating from 1900 to 2021 was undertaken to summarize control strategies, epidemiology, vector ecology and environmental drivers of malaria transmission in PNG. Evaluations of historical control programs reveal poor planning and communication, and difficulty in sustaining financial investment once malaria burden had decreased as common themes in the breakdown of previous programs. Success of current and future malaria control programs in PNG is contingent on adequate planning and management of control programs, effective communication and engagement with at-risk populations, and cohesive targeted approaches to sub-national and national control and elimination.

The animal model of human disease as a core concept of medical research: Historical cases, failures, and some epistemological considerations

This article uses four historical case studies to address epistemological issues related to the animal model of human diseases and its use in medical research on human diseases. The knowledge derived from animal models is widely assumed to be highly valid and predictive of reactions by human organisms. In this contribution, I use three significant historical cases of failure (ca. 1890, 1960, 2006), and a closer look at the emergence of the concept around 1860/70, to elucidate core assumptions related to the specific practices of animal-human knowledge transfer, and to analyze the explanations provided by historical actors after each of the failures. Based on these examples, I argue that the epistemological status of the animal model changed from that of a helpful methodological tool for addressing specific questions, but with precarious validity, to an obligatory method for the production of strong knowledge on human diseases. As a result, there now exists a culture of biomedical research in human disease that, for more than a century, has taken the value of this methodological tool as self-evident, and more or less beyond question.

Franz Tappeiner (1816-1902) and his pioneering studies on tuberculosis

Franz Tappeiner (1816-1902) was an Austrian scientist: physician and anthropologist. He studied medicine at the universities of Prague and Padua, and completed his medical education receiving his doctorate in 1843 in Vienna. Tappeiner investigated the transmission of pulmonary tuberculosis in animal models and he dealt with public health, in particular Merano's welfare and public health regulations. In 1877, in the Anatomical and Pathological Institute of Munich led by the German pathologist Ludwig von Buhl (1816-1880), Tappeiner studied the transmission of pulmonary tuberculosis in animal models, by exposing dogs to sputum of phthisic patients affected by this disease. He was able to show that phthisis and tuberculosis were the same disease, which could be spread through inhalation. These studies were pioneering and preceded by 10 years the discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus by Robert Koch (1843-1910) in 1882. The research activities of Tappeiner were focal in tracking the future path for Koch's discovery and represent milestones in the history of tuberculosis.

Uninvited Guests: a Chronology of Petri Dish Contaminations

Petri dish contaminations are commonplace and personally witnessed by every microbiologist. The vast majority of such contaminations result in nothing more than annoyance following which the Petri dishes are discarded. However, a handful of incidents of contaminations have led to momentous outcomes, the most renowned of which being that perceived by Alexander Fleming on the basis of the immense number of lives saved by penicillin. Petri dish contaminations as reported upon in the literature fall broadly into two categories; those in which the contaminant caused antagonism toward the species being cultured, and those in which the contaminant was established to be a species novum. Accounts of both of these categories of contaminations are set out here.

Principles of evidence-based medicine: from Robert Kochs postulates to a current EBM concept

The aim of the article is to describe the development of the principles of medicine based on the evidence (EBM) based on postulates of Robert Koch, Nobel prize winner, protagonist of the "Golden Age" medical bacteriology, founder of a concept of modern microbiology and infectology. Kochs work led to the discovery of a causal relationship between exposure to a specific pathogen and disease on the example of identifying the cause of anthrax - Bacillus anthracis, a disease whose symptoms vary depending on the mode of transmission (gastrointestinal ingestion, cutaneous form on contact and pulmonary manifestations when inhaled). Tuberculosis caused by Kochs bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, yet still affecting 1.7 billion people (about 25 % of the world's population), in 95 % of cases in developing countries, where poverty and high prevalence of HIV are part of everyday life. Koch also discovered Vibrio cholerae, the pathogen responsible for seven recorded pandemics, and hitherto sporadic epidemics in recent years. The main contribution of the Kochs four postulates formulation was the principle, which helped to reveal the causal relationship between the pathogenic microbe to protrude infectious disease and obtain reliable evidence in improving credibility of diagnosis of infectious diseases. Other stages in the development of EBM were formulated by Bradford Hill in his nine principles, which are valid as well for noncommunicable diseases. The subjects of discussion are limitations and restrictions of present EBM and its essentials and the use in rational preventive, diagnostic and treatment strategies.

The interview with Robert Koch held by Huseyin Hulki and the Ottoman delegation on tuberculin therapy

Robert Koch (1843-1910), who was one of the significant representatives of the golden age of microbiology, claimed to have discovered the tuberculin/vaccine therapy in 1890. During that era, the Ottoman Empire closely followed the important developments in the field of microbiology. For this reason, it was decided that a delegation should have been sent to Germany to observe the lecture "On Bacteriological Research" to be delivered by Koch on August 3, 1890 during the 10th International Congress of Medicine to be held in Berlin. The delegation travelled to Germany and carried out observations and met Koch in the meanwhile. Among the delegation sent to Berlin there was also Dr. Huseyin Hulki Bey, who graduated from the Military School of Medicine in 1885, and could speak French, Greek, Farsi and Arabic. One of the young professors of the medical school, Dr. H. Hulki gathered his memories on the trip to Berlin in a book after his return. In his book published under the title Berlin Memories (1892), he related the interview they held with Koch, the various medical centres they visited in Berlin, and the physicians they met there. This study aims to provide knowledge on the interview held with Koch in Berlin, and its reflections on the Ottoman medicine, in the light of Dr. H. Hulki's memories and other sources shedding light on the relations between Germany and Turkey in the 1890s.

The "Petri" Dish: A Case of Simultaneous Invention in Bacteriology

Richard Julius Petri's status as inventor of the culture dish that bears his name has been subject to a number of challenges over the years. Both those bacteriologists who claimed self-recognition for the invention, and those to whom it was attributed by their various advocates were all contemporaries of Petri. The evidence assembled here indicates that no single individual-including Petri-ought to be accorded credit for the inception of that shallow, circular, covered culture dish which, it transpires, is a simultaneous invention made by half a dozen bacteriologists active in the mid-1880s and ultimately owes its emergence to the prevailing bacteriological zeitgeist.

Illustrating microorganisms: Sir William Watson Cheyne (1852-1932) and bacteriology

Sir William Watson Cheyne is largely known to medical history as Lord Lister's 'trusted assistant'.¹ He spent a lifetime defending Joseph Lister's (1827-1912) antiseptic principle in the wake of scepticism and misunderstanding. However, his main contribution to Lister's work was in the embryonic field of bacteriology in the 1870s-1890s, which brought him into contact with continental researchers, particularly Robert Koch (1843-1910). In this field, Cheyne built an independent reputation as an assessor, chronicler and promoter of continental laboratory methodology. He pioneered bacteriological training in British teaching hospitals and incorporated laboratory testing into case notes as standard procedure. This paper reconsiders Cheyne's contribution to the development of bacteriology in British medicine at the end of the 19th century. It examines his motives in promoting new laboratory techniques and the methods he used to embed them in hospital procedure. It also considers how he continued to use bacteriological arguments to keep the Listerian antiseptic principle on the medical agenda well after Lister withdrew from active involvement in the field.

George Bernard Shaw on Anesthesia

Recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an influential critic of the health care establishment in the United Kingdom. Although skeptical of many medical and surgical procedures of the early 20th century, he respected the value of anesthesia, and he advocated its administration by Frederick W. Axham, a medical doctor whose registration was suspended as punishment for providing anesthesia for a bonesetting procedure. In 1924, when a friend needed surgery, Shaw offered to pay the extra fee for the optional anesthesia.

The greatest steps towards the discovery of Vibrio cholerae

In the 19th century, there was extensive research on cholera: the disease was generally attributed to miasmatic causes, but this concept was replaced, between about 1850 and 1910, by the scientifically founded germ theory of disease. In 1883, Robert Koch identified the vibrion for the second time, after Filippo Pacini's discovery in 1854: Koch isolated the comma bacillus in pure culture and explained its mode of transmission, solving an enigma that had lasted for centuries. The aim of this article is to reconstruct the different steps towards the explanation of cholera, paying particular attention to the events occurring in the pivotal year 1854.