Pneumococcal Disease

Pneumococcal Disease Streptococcus pneumoniae causes an acute bacterial infection. The bacterium, also called pneumococcus, was first isolated by Pasteur in 1881 from the saliva of a patient with rabies. The association between the pneumococcus bacterium and lobar pneumonia was first described by Friedlander and Talamon in 1883, but pneumococcal pneumonia was confused with other types of pneumonia until the discovery of the Gram stain in 1884. From 1915 to 1945, the chemical structure and antigenicity of the pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide, its association with virulence, and the role of bacterial polysaccharides in human disease were explained. More than 80 serotypes of pneumococci had been described by 1940.