Write an essay on the role of bacteria in human health.

Ans. Bacteria promote digestive and possibly other physiological processes in the intestinal tracts of animals. The digestion of cellulose by such herbivorous animals as horses and cattle results in part from cellulose digesting enzymes secreted by bacteria inhabiting the intestines of these animals. Bacteria also dwell in large numbers in the human intestinal tract, particularly in the lower part of the small intestine and in the large intestine.

Escherichia coli, formerly called Bacterium coli and Bacillus coli, is a regular inhabitant of the lower intestinal tract of man and other vertebrates. About 40 percent of human feces consists bacteria mainly E. coli in milk, water, or food is used as an index of fecal contamination. E. coli has commonly been considered chiefly a commensal, a partner of reciprocal parasitism (commensalism). It is also occasionally known as a pathogen. It is now known, however, that E. coli and other intestinal bacteria synthesize considerable quantities of some of the B vitamins and release these into the intestine. These bacteria may therefore be properly regarded as normally being symbionts rather than mere commensals. The destruction of the bacterial flora of the colon by vigorous dosage with certain antibiotic drugs sometimes causes functional disturbances which suggest that the usefulness of these organisms in human physiology is not limited to the production of known vitamins.

The activity of these bacteria in the human gut and the significance of this activity are not known positively; some physiologists believe that these bacteria carry on certain digestive activities of value of the human body, while others believe that lactic acid and other metabolic products of these normally occurring bacteria inhibit the growth of putrefactive and possibly certain pathogenic bacteria. Whatever may be their specific physiological significance, it is certain that the maintenance of a normal bacterial flora in the human intestinal tract is essential to the health of the human organism and that any major disturbance in this intestinal bacterial flora results in derangements of health.

However, bacteria can also cause diseases. Many of the serious human diseases are caused by bacteria. Some of them are-tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, diphtheria caused by corynebacterium diphtheriae, leprosy caused by Mycobacterium leprae and tetanus caused by clostridium tetani.

The bacteria in our bodies play an essential role in the defense against infections by protecting the colonized surfaces from invading pathogens.

Many vaccines are obtained by the activities of different types of bacteria, such as vaccines for T.B. smallpox, diphtheria, cholera, influenza, polio and tetanus etc.

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