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Hello. I'm Dr. Martin Goldberg.
I'm a Senior Lecturer in
Clinical Microbiology at
Birmingham City
University in the UK.
Today's lecture, I think
many students would
probably say is
one of the most boring topics
we have to cover
in microbiology.
But actually, it's one of
the most important topics.
0:23
When I'm lecturing
in a lecture room,
I usually start off by breaking
the shocking news that I've
got Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
This is to see
students' reactions
and they all look
very shocked and
many of them are too
embarrassed to actually
say why they're shocked.
But it's quite instructive
because when I
then announce that actually
I don't have Neisseria
gonorrhoeae,
and then I ask them why they
reacted the way they do,
some of them say that
they were quite shocked
to hear this. I say, why?
They say, well, it's because of
the implications that
Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
Gonorrhoea, of course,
is a sexually
transmitted pathogen,
and so there are
certain implications as to
my pastime activities maybe.
Then, of course, I
explain to them that's
precisely the reaction
I'm hoping for
because when we're talking about
the name of a microorganism
if the classification system
is well designed,
you immediately get
some impressions or the
properties of the pathogen,
the disease it causes,
the epidemiology, the way
it's transmitted, and so on.
The name of a
microorganism is actually
a really important
label if you like.
It actually tells us
a great deal more about the
pathogen than for example,
the name Martin Goldberg or
John Smith or Andrew Roberts.
Those are literally just names.
They don't tell anybody anything
about the actual person
behind that name.
This is one of the concepts
I shall be talking
about a little bit more
during this lecture.
