ABSTRACT
Drug-Fastness ........................................................................................................ 2 Disinfection ............................................................................................................ 3 Microbial Metabolism and Adaptation .................................................................. 3 Adaptation or Mutation? ........................................................................................ 5 Drug Dependence .................................................................................................. 6 Multiple Drug Resistance and Cross Resistance ................................................... 6 Newly Found Modes of Resistance ........................................................................ 7 References .............................................................................................................. 8
Almost as soon as it was known that microorganisms could be killed by certain substances, it was recognized that some microbes could survive normally lethal doses and were described as “drug-fast” (German: -fest = -proof, as in feuerfest = fi re-proof; hence “drug-proof,” in common usage by at least 1913). These early studies [1-3] conceived of microbial resistance in terms of “adaptation” to the toxic agents. By 1907, Ehrlich [4] more clearly focused on the concept of resistant organisms in his discussion of the development of resistance of Trypanosoma brucei to p-roseaniline, and in 1911 Morgenroth and Kaufmann [5] reported that pneumococci could develop resistance to ethylhydrocupreine. For every new agent that killed or inhibited microorganisms, resistance became an interest as well.
