Historical Figures Codexery

Robert Koch

Founder of modern bacteriology and discoverer of the causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax.

Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a German physician and microbiologist who won the 1905 Nobel Prize for his tuberculosis research.[1][2] He is regarded as a founder of modern bacteriology for discovering the causative agents of anthrax, tuberculosis, and cholera.[3] His work established methods that linked specific germs to specific diseases, saving millions of lives.[3]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch
Born
11 December 1843
Birthplace
Clausthal, Kingdom of Hanover, German Confederation
Died
27 May 1910
Place of death
Baden-Baden, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire
Field
Microbiology
Workplaces
Imperial Health Office, Berlin; University of Berlin
Education
University of Göttingen

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

Koch was born on 11 December 1843 in Clausthal, Germany, the third of thirteen siblings.[4][5] He served as a volunteer surgeon in the Franco-Prussian War and later became district physician in Wollstein.[6] In 1876 he published his discovery of the anthrax bacterium, linking a specific microorganism to a specific disease.[7] He developed key bacteriological techniques, including using agar for culture media and oil-immersion microscopy.[5][8]

In 1882 he announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the cause of tuberculosis.[9] Koch died on 27 May 1910 in Baden-Baden after suffering a heart attack.[10] In 1862, at age 19, Koch began studying natural science at the University of Göttingen, where he took up mathematics, physics, and botany.[11] He subsequently described the bacterium as "a little bent, like a comma."[12]

What the cited sources add

A 2021 history of the Langenhagen hospital notes that Koch applied for the assistant position there primarily to gain the financial means to marry.[13] The same source describes that Koch ate meals with the institution's director and staff in a large hall.[13] The article reports that test subjects at Bugula were made to wear wooden identification tags and underwent dehumanising assessments.[14] It also notes that Koch's proposal to create "concentration camps" to isolate the sick was adopted by German authorities.[14]

By the time Koch left Africa in October 1907, three such camps existed in German East Africa and five in West African colonies.[14] The Nobel Foundation's summary confirms that Koch received the 1905 prize solely for his tuberculosis investigations.[15]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Koch". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.; ""Koch". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language", Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1905", Nobel Foundation (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fleming, "Freelance of Science", British Medical Journal, 1952, p. 269; Tan, "Robert Koch (1843-1910): father of microbiology and Nobel laureate", Singapore Medical Journal, 2008, p. 854–855; Gradmann, "Robert Koch and the white death: from tuberculosis to tuberculin", Microbes and Infection, 2006, p. 294–301; Lakhani, "Early clinical pathologists: Robert Koch (1843-1910)", Journal of Clinical Pathology, 1993, p. 596–598; "Science, Medicine, and Animals", National Academies Press (US), 20 October 2023; Lakhtakia, "The Legacy of Robert Koch: en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Metchnikoff, Elie. The Founders of Modern Medicine: Pasteur, Koch, Lister. Classics of Medicine Library: Delanco, 2006. Print. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Blevins, "Robert Koch and the 'golden age' of bacteriology", International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2010, p. e744–751 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Ernst, "Robert Koch (1843-1910)", Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1918, p. 825–827 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Koch, "Die Ätiologie der Milzbrand-Krankheit, begründet auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus Anthracis", Cohns Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen, 2010, p. 277 (1–22); Koch, "Verfahren zur Untersuchung, zum Konservieren und Photographieren der Bakterien", Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen, 2010, p. 399–434; Blevins, "Robert Koch and the 'golden age' of bacteriology", International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2010, p. e744–751; "Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch." World of Scientific Discovery. Gale, 2006. Biography in Context. Web. 1 en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hufford, "A Minor Modification by R. J. Petri", Laboratory Medicine, 1988-03-01, p. 169–170; Madigan, Michael T., et al. Brock Biology of Microorganisms: Thirteenth edition. Benjamin Cummings: Boston, 2012. Print.; Koch, "Robert Koch: Zentrale Texte", Springer, 2018, p. 221–30 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Madigan, Michael T., et al. Brock Biology of Microorganisms: Thirteenth edition. Benjamin Cummings: Boston, 2012. Print.; Koch, "Robert Koch: Zentrale Texte", Springer, 2018, p. 221–30 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Robert Koch." World of Microbiology and Immunology. Ed. Brenda Wilmoth Lerner and K. Lee Lerner. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Biography in Context. Web. 14 April 2013.; "Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch." World of Scientific Discovery. Gale, 2006. Biography in Context. Web. 14 April 2013. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch." World of Scientific Discovery. Gale, 2006. Biography in Context. Web. 14 April 2013. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Robert Koch" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lippi, "The greatest steps towards the discovery of Vibrio cholerae", Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 2014, p. 191–195; Blevins, "Robert Koch and the 'golden age' of bacteriology", International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2010, p. e744–751; Nair, "Dr Sambhu Nath De: unsung hero", The Indian Journal of Medical Research, 2011, p. 127; Koch, R. (20 March 1884) (Sixth report of the German scientific commission for research on cholera), (German Medical Weekly), 10 (12): 191–192. On page 191, he (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Kruse, "Geschichte der KRH Psychiatrie Langenhagen", psychiatrie-langenhagen.krh.de, 2021. facts only, no text reused. psychiatrie-langenhagen.krh.de
  14. Bonhomme, "When Africa was a German laboratory", www.aljazeera.com. facts only, no text reused. aljazeera.com
  15. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1905", Nobel Foundation. facts only, no text reused. nobelprize.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Robert Koch (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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