germine
Germine is a term that has been used informally to refer to substances or entities that are believed to cause illness or disease. The concept of germine is closely related to the historical idea of miasma, which posited that diseases were caused by "bad air." In the past, before the advent of germ theory, people often attributed illnesses to unseen forces or corrupted environmental factors.
The understanding of disease transmission evolved significantly with the work of scientists like Louis Pasteur and
While the term "germine" itself is not a scientific term and is largely obsolete in modern medical