State the role of bacteria in medicine.
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Bacteria in medicine
Bacterial diseases have played a dominant role in human history. Widespread epidemics of cholera and plague reduced populations of humans in some areas of the world by more than one-third. Bacterial pneumonia was probably the major cause of death in the aged. Perhaps more armies were defeated by typhus, dysentery, and other bacterial infections than by force of arms. With modern advances in plumbing and sanitation, the development of bacterial vaccines, and the discovery of antibacterial antibiotics, the incidence of bacterial disease has been reduced. Bacteria have not disappeared as infectious agents, however, since they continue to evolve, creating increasingly virulent strains and acquiring resistance to many antibiotics
Although most bacteria are beneficial or even necessary for life on Earth, a few are known for their detrimental impact on humans. None of the Archaea are currently considered to be pathogens, but animals, including humans, are constantly bombarded and inhabited by large numbers and varieties of Bacteria. Most bacteria that contact an animal are rapidly eliminated by the host’s defenses. The oral cavities, intestinal tract, and skin are colonized by enormous numbers of specific types of bacteria that are adapted to life in those habitats. These organisms are harmless under normal conditions and become dangerous only if they somehow pass across the barriers of the body and cause infection. Some bacteria are adept at invasion of a host and are called pathogens, or disease producers. Some pathogens act at specific parts of the body, such as meningococcal bacteria (Neisseria meningitidis), which invade and irritate the meninges, the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord; the diphtheria bacterium (Corynebacterium diphtheriae), which initially infects the throat; and the cholera bacterium (Vibrio cholerae), which reproduces in the intestinal tract, where the toxin that it produces causes the voluminous diarrhea characteristic of this cholera. Other bacteria that can infect humans include staphylococcal bacteria (primarily Staphylococcus aureus), which can infect the skin to cause boils (furuncles), the bloodstream to cause septicemia (blood poisoning), the heart valves to cause endocarditis, or the bones to cause osteomyelitis.