How old is phage therapy?
The first observation of phage was made in India in1896 when E. Hankin demonstrated that the waters of the Indian rivers Ganga(Ganges) and Yamuna (Jumna) contained a biological principle( that could pass through filters capable of retaining bacteria), which destroyed cultures of cholera bacteria. Twenty years later Frederick Twort in England, and Felix d’Herelle from Canada, working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, reported isolating similar filterable entities capable of destroying bacterial cultures. It was d’Herelle who named these ultra microbes, “bacteriophages” (bacteria eaters) and pioneered the use of phages for treating Shigella dysentery in rural France. His success stimulated the commercial production of phages for treating a variety of bacterial infections both in Europe and the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
