Alexander Ogston: A Synthesis Essay

S. aureus was first isolated by Alexander Ogston. Ogston described the bacteria, which he isolated from pus collected from surgical wounds, as micrococci (Thomer et al., 2015). This description was given because of the sphere-shape of the bacteria and the grape-like clusters that they form.
After Ogston’s discovery, Friedrich Rosenbach differentiated between two staphylococci bacteria, which were isolated from humans (Thomer et al., 2015). These bacteria were named S. aureus and S. albus. This nomenclature was proposed because S. aureus forms yellow colonies while S. albus forms white colonies. S. albus was later renamed, S. epidermis (Thomer et al., 2015). The yellow color associated with the S. aureus colonies is produced by the membrane-bound carotenoid, Staphyloxanthin. This pigment production helps to protect the bacteria from phagocytic killing (Thomer et al., 2015). …show more content…
aureus is a gram-positive bacterium, which is a facultative anaerobe. It colonizes the skin, nostrils, and/or perineum (Thomer et al., 2015). This bacterium is an opportunistic pathogen that causes both short and long term illnesses after it invades the host. Some of these illnesses are bacteremia, toxic shock syndrome, sepsis, and endocarditis (Wang & Muir, 2016).
Approximately one-third of the human population is colonized by S. aureus, and another one-third is intermittently colonized with the bacteria (Thomer et al., 2015). Over one million skin and soft tissue infections occur annually in the United States due to S. aureus, and these infections result in approximately 500,000 hospitalizations, over 90,000 cases of bacteremia, and over 30,000 cases of sepsis/endocarditis (Thomer et al., 2015). Each year more than 20,000 people in the United States die of infections related to S. aureus (Thomer et al.,