Independent observations in 1915–1917 showed something that ate bacterial colonies. Félix d'Hérelle named bacteriophage and tried therapy before antibiotics existed.
Western clinics largely switched to antibiotics after the 1940s. The Soviet and Georgian schools kept phage collections. Molecular biology was born in phage labs in between.
Timeline
Frederick Twort describes glassy dissolution of micrococci — an early phage observation.
Félix d'Hérelle coins bacteriophage and begins therapeutic attempts in Paris.
George Eliava's Tbilisi school builds a lasting phage-medicine tradition.
Fluctuation tests with phages prove bacterial mutations are random, not directed.
T2 blender experiments settle DNA as hereditary material.
A tiny RNA phage becomes a model; its genome is later the first fully sequenced (1976).
Barrangou and colleagues show spacers confer phage resistance in Streptococcus thermophilus.
Documented last-resort cases return phage therapy to Western journals — still not a home kit.
Today's headlines recycle an old idea with new sequencing. The ethics stay clinical, not do-it-yourself.
Keep exploring
More in Tree of microbes
Bacteria
Single-celled prokaryotes with cell walls ? the oldest widespread life form, and both partners and pathogens.
Familiarity 95Viruses
Packets of DNA or RNA that are not cells — they replicate only inside living hosts.
Familiarity 96Fungi
A eukaryotic kingdom of yeasts, moulds and mushrooms — chitin walls, external digestion, partners of plants.
Familiarity 80Archaea
A prokaryotic domain that is not bacteria — methanogens, extremophiles and no known human pathogens.
Familiarity 35Protozoa
Motile unicellular eukaryotes — a teaching grade that includes pond ciliates and a minority of serious parasites.
Familiarity 58