text: Other tasks may include the identification of potential health risks to the community or monitoring the evolution of potentially virulent or resistant strains of microbes, educating the community and assisting in the design of health practices. They may also assist in preventing or controlling epidemics and outbreaks of disease.
  Not all medical microbiologists study microbial pathology; some study common, non-pathogenic species to determine whether their properties can be used to develop antibiotics or other treatment methods.
  Epidemiology, the study of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in populations, is an important part of medical microbiology, although the clinical aspect of the field primarily focuses on the presence and growth of microbial infections in individuals, their effects on the human body, and the methods of treating those infections. In this respect the entire field, as an applied science, can be conceptually subdivided into academic and clinical sub-specialties, although in reality there is a fluid continuum between public health microbiology and clinical microbiology, just as the state of the art in clinical laboratories depends on continual improvements in academic medicine and research laboratories.
  History
  In 1676, Anton van Leeuwenhoek observed bacteria and other microorganisms, using a single-lens microscope of his own design.
  In 1796, Edward Jenner developed a method using cowpox to successfully immunize a child against smallpox. The same principles are used for developing vaccines today.