History of plant pathology (Global development)

The Robigalia Festival

Plant diseases have been knowns to human since the Roman empire (270 BC – 476 AD). They worshiped Robigus (God of wheat) in a great festival Robigalia to protect the wheat from destructive red dust (now known as rust of wheat). In this festival they scarificed a red dog to the god of wheat.
This misleading thought was also encouraged by religious leaders. People thought that diseases were because of displeasure of gods, evil spirits or unfavorable positions of stars or moons.
Mildews, blights and blasts are also described in early Biblical writings (in the books of Amos, Deuteronomy and Kings I in the Old Testament).

Aristotle, Plato's student, recorded plant diseases as early as 350 B.C., and his colleague Theophrastus observed and speculated about diseases of cereals, legumes, and trees.
Since Aristotle’s time for up to 2000 years little was known about the plant pathology. Many naturalists have come from time to time in western world, but these naturalists were hampered by the Christian churches.

It was in 1665, Robert Hooke illustrated the rose rust, a plant-pathogenic fungal disease.
The scientific knowledge of plant diseases started only after the invention of the crude microscope in 1675 by a Dutch cloth merchant and lens grinder, Antony van Leeuwenhoek. He had observed bacteria in 1683 and his microscope had opened the eyes of the world to see through the galaxy of microbes.

During 1830 to 1850 late blight of potato appeared in the United States and Western Europe. It destroyed potato crops in Ireland during 1845 to 1849. As a result, a million people died of malnutrition and starvation. Also, a similar number of people emigrated from Ireland to the United States and Canada. This tragedy forced the scientists to investigate the late blight of potato and find measures to control it.
It was Heinrich Anton De Bary, a medical doctor, who had studied about the late blight of potato. He had studied and elucidated the life cycle Phytophthora infestans (earlier known as Peronospora infestans) causing devastation of late blight of potato. He is considered as Father of Mycology and Plant Pathology.

First published on 19-08-2020
Last updated on 22-08-2026