Ogston's coccus

SummaryOne hundred and thirty years ago, Alexander Ogston, a surgeon in Aberdeen, first saw micro-organisms in pus from an abscess, which he later called ‘staphylococci’. He had already introduced ‘Listerism’ to Aberdeen, but wished to know more about the cause of infections. He extended Koch's work on ‘traumatic wound infection in animals’ to humans by a series of ingenious experiments. He used the most modern German microscopes and Koch's stains to study pus from abscesses, and was first to grow staphylococci in artificial cultures (hens' eggs). From 1878 to 1883 the laboratory in his garden was a major UK bacteriology research laboratory. Eventually he became Regius Professor of Surgery and had to ‘leave research to others’.