History of human war against epidemics丨He built more than 500 microscopes out of interest, and the "small animals" he recorded shocked the world

Malaria, smallpox, influenza...Epidemics have accompanied human civilization for thousands of years and have claimed countless lives. The process of understanding and defeating epidemics may be more difficult than you think. The "History of Human Warfare Against Epidemics" comic series will take you through the anecdotes in the history of human fight against epidemics.

Don't go away, there are still Easter eggs

Since pathogens always appear transparent or translucent under a microscope, in order to see their morphological structure more clearly, a key technology is actually needed-staining. Among the many staining techniques, a technique called Gram staining stands out and is still used today. Its principle is to use crystal violet dye to color the peptidoglycan on the cell wall. Different bacteria have different peptidoglycan contents. Through Gram staining, we can make a preliminary judgment on the composition and thickness of the cell wall, and divide them into Gram-negative bacteria (red after staining) and Gram-positive bacteria (blue-purple after staining). This principle not only helps people understand the structure and morphology of bacteria, but is also of great significance for clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Copywriter: Sun Yifei

Painting: Wang Pichai

Editor: Youqi

Layout: Yin Ningliu