GERM THEORY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Germ theory

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/dʒərm θˈɪri/ Listen

noun

Germ theory n.

(Biol.) The theory that living organisms can be produced only by the development of living germs. Cf. Biogenesis, Abiogenesis.

(Med.) The theory which attributes contagious and infectious diseases, suppurative lesions, etc., to the agency of germs, i.e. pathogenic microorganisms. The science of bacteriology was developed after this theory had been established.

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Etymology of 'Germ theory'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Germ theory" Quotes from Famous Books

... researches and discoveries, and fortified by them and others, has run the germ theory of epidemic disease. The notion was expressed by Kircher, and favoured by Linnaeus, that epidemic diseases may be due to germs which float in the atmosphere, enter the body, and produce disturbance by the development within the body of parasitic life. ...

— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... electrochemical civilization developed and they began working with nuclear energy and developed reaction-drive spaceships. But they'd concentrated so on the inorganic sciences, and so far neglected the bio-sciences, that when they launched their first ship for Venus they hadn't yet developed a germ theory of disease." ...

— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... GERM THEORY, the doctrine that certain diseases are due to fermentation caused by the presence of germs in the system in the form of minute ...

— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... has occurred in practical surgery since the discovery of the relation of micro-organisms to the complications occurring in wounds has caused me to select this subject for discussion. Although many of my hearers are familiar with the germ theory of disease, it is possible that it may interest some of them to have put before them in a short address a few points in bacteriology which are of value ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... derivation of life from precedent life, and professed his belief, as an act of philosophic faith, that at some remote period, life had arisen out of inanimate matter, though there was no evidence that anything of the sort had occurred recently, the germ theory explaining many supposed cases of spontaneous generation. The history of the subject, indeed, showed] "the great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact—which is so constantly being enacted under the eyes of philosophers," and recalled the warning "that it is ...

— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley