Pleomorphism of Microorganisms and Theories of Infectious Disease

Pleomorphism is basically the concept that cells, and especially one-celled microorganisms, can change form under certain conditions to cells of another type. For example an example of pleomorphism in human cells might be the morphing of skin cells to connective tissue cells, or of blood cells to bone tissue. In the field of microbiology, the concept primarily implies that bacteria of one species might change to bactera of another species under certain conditions. For example, this theory might allow that under certain environmental conditions, a typhoid bacillus could morph into a staphylococcus bacteria.

In the alternative healing world, and on the fringes of conventional mainstream science, there are those who feel that pleomorphism of mircoorganisms is widespread, and that such pleomorphism is how nature performs various tasks of toxin cleanup and tissue removal in the human body. In effect, this theory states that bacteria simply change to whatever form is most handily needed in the body, based upon cues from the body itself. Indeed, in the many parallel theories of biological terrain assessment and adjustment, the underlying assumption is that "infection" by microorganism really indicates nothing more than imbalances in the inner biochemical terrain of the body, and that if the inner terrain of the body is allowed to normalize, then the "infectious organisms" will cese their inflammatory activity, as their presence is no longer needed, as determined by the interior milieu. Continue Reading>>