Explore the recorded discovery and history of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, with source links and stated limits.
CDC describes Pseudomonas as a group of bacteria commonly found in the environment, in soil and water, and states that P. aeruginosa can cause infections in the blood, lungs (pneumonia), urinary tract or other parts of the body after surgery. Patients in healthcare settings are at highest risk, especially people on ventilators, people with catheters, and people with open wounds from surgery or burns. Baron’s Medical Microbiology describes a Gram-negative rod of 0.5 to 0.8 by 1.5 to 3.0 micrometres that is motile by a single polar flagellum, usually carries pili, and produces pigments including pyocyanin. Healthy people occasionally get a short-lived skin rash from contaminated hot tubs; serious disease is largely an opportunistic, healthcare-associated problem rather than an everyday community infection.
LPSN records the basonym “Bacterium aeruginosum” Schroeter 1872. The species epithet aeruginosa is Latin for full of copper rust or verdigris, hence green — a reference to the pigment seen in cultures and in infected material, not to any property of a patient.
LPSN records Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Schroeter 1872) Migula 1900, effectively published in Migula’s System der Bakterien volume 2, and retained on the 1980 Approved Lists of Bacterial Names. The type strain is ATCC 10145 / DSM 50071 / NCTC 10332.
These references do not identify a first person ever infected. P. aeruginosa lives widely in soil and water, so naming and description milestones record laboratory recognition rather than a first human case or a place of origin.
Source check: 2026-09-20. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.