El Laboratorio de Bacteriología y Serología de la Residencia de Estudiantes de Madrid

Pasteur's work demonstrating the fermentation of wine by yeasts and the causative effect of microbes in some infectious diseases, led to the establishment of microbiology as a discipline separate from pathology and histology. The setting up of the bacteriology laboratory at the Student's Residence in Madrid is described, together with brief biographies of the founding director, Paulino Suárez, and of the people principally responsible for the development of the institution, most of whom were physicians. The creation of this laboratory by the Junta de ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas (Board for the Advancement of Scientific Research) contributed to the progress of microbiology in Spain.