1. Lack of animal models: Experimental infection in animals has been used as a criterion to demonstrate an organism's disease-causing ability, but for some pathogens (such as Vibrio cholerae, which cause disease only in humans) animal models do not exist. In cases where animal models were not available, scientists have sometimes infected themselves or others to determine an organism's disease causing ability.

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  • Koch announced his discovery of the cholera vibrio in 1884. His conclusions were based upon the constant finding of the peculiar "comma bacillus" in the stools of cholera patients, and the failure to demonstrate this organism in the feces of other persons. It was not possible to reproduce typical cholera in laboratory animals. At the time the "germ theory" of disease had not yet obtained general acceptance, and Koch's announcement was received with considerable skepticism, particularly after it was found that similar "comma bacilli" could be found at times in the feces of persons not suffering from cholera, and often in all sorts of other environments - well and river waters, cheese, etc. We now know that these were saprotrophic species of Vibrio, which may be differentiated from the cholera vibrio by cultural and immunological methods. But the correctness of Koch's opinion was dramatically demonstrated by von Pettenkofer and Emmerich who, doubting the etiological relationship of Koch's organisms, deliberately drank cultures of it. Von Pettenkofer developed merely a transient diarrhea, but Emmerich suffered from a typical and severe attack of cholera.
  • We also included Giardia lamblia, which at that time was not generally believed to be an invasive pathogenic parasite of man. Giardia was thought in the 1950s to cause occasional problems of diarrhea in children but its appearance was so common and, in adults so lacking in clinical symptomatology, that most considered it a non-pathogen. As a result we felt safe in exposing prisoners to Giardia...
  • While an unidentified virus seems the most likely etiologic agent, the unusual prevalence of Giardia lamblia cysts in stools of patients seems worthy of record.
  • by A.T. Henrici, The Biology of Bacteria, DC Heath and Company, 1939. ASIN B00085GABK,
  • by Dr. RC Rendtorff in an EPA Symposium on the Waterborne Transmission of Giardiasis - in 1979
  • by Oregon State Board of Health commenting on 1954-55 outbreak of Giardiasis, as quoted in Veazie, 1979.
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  • 1. Lack of animal models: Experimental infection in animals has been used as a criterion to demonstrate an organism's disease-causing ability, but for some pathogens (such as Vibrio cholerae, which cause disease only in humans) animal models do not exist. In cases where animal models were not available, scientists have sometimes infected themselves or others to determine an organism's disease causing ability.
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  • 1. Lack of animal models: Experimental infection in animals has been used as a criterion to demonstrate an organism's disease-causing ability, but for some pathogens (such as Vibrio cholerae, which cause disease only in humans) animal models do not exist. In cases where animal models were not available, scientists have sometimes infected themselves or others to determine an organism's disease causing ability.
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  • History of emerging infectious diseases
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