The fermentation theory of disease

Disease

A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...

 is the (now obsolete) concept that many diseases, including the diseases which were "epidemic, endemic and contagious", owe their origin to the presence of a "morbific principle" in the system, acting in a manner analogous to, although not identical with, the process of fermentation

Fermentation (biochemistry)

Fermentation is the process of extracting energy from the oxidation of organic compounds, such as carbohydrates, using an endogenous electron acceptor, which is usually an organic compound. In contrast, respiration is where electrons are donated to an exogenous electron acceptor, such as oxygen,...

.

It was rendered obsolete by the germ theory of disease

Germ theory of disease

The germ theory of disease, also called the pathogenic theory of medicine, is a theory that proposes that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases...

, which led to the new science of bacteriology

Bacteriology

Bacteriology is the study of bacteria. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classification, and characterization of bacterial species...

.

See also

• Zymotic disease
  Zymotic disease
  Zymotic diseases , an obsolete term in medicine, formerly applied to the class of acute infectious maladies, presumed to be due to some virus or organism which acts in the system like a ferment...
  
  s (for the Greek language
  Greek language
  Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
  
  term zumoun for "ferment")