In 1881, Sir Alexander Ogston, a Scottish surgeon, discovered that Staphylococcus can cause wound infections after noticing groups of bacteria in pus from a surgical abscess during a procedure he was performing. He named it Staphylococcus after its clustered appearance evident under a microscope.

Then, in 1884, German scientist Friedrich Julius Rosenbach identified Staphylococcus aureus, discriminating and separating it from Staphylococcus albus, a related bacterium. In the early 1930s, doctors began to use a more streamlined test to detect the presence of an S. aureus infection by the means of coagulase testing, which enables detection of an enzyme produced by the bacterium. Prior to the 1940s, S. aureus infections were fatal in the majority of patients. However, doctors discovered that the use of penicillin could cure S. aureus infections. Unfortunately, by the end of the 1940s, penicillin resistance became widespread amongst this bacterium population and outbreaks of the resistant strain began to occur.

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