Robert Koch
Born	December 11, 1843(1843-12-11)  Clausthal, Germany
Died	May 27, 1910 (aged 66)  Baden-Baden, Germany

Robert Koch (December 11, 1843 – May 27, 1910) was a German physician. He became famous for isolating Bacillus anthracis (1877), the tuberculosis bacillus (1882) and the cholera vibrio (1883) and for his development of Koch's postulates. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... December 11 is the 345th day (346th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1843 (MDCCCXLIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Clausthal-Zellerfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. ... May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining. ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_German_Empire. ... Baden-Baden is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. ... Robert Bobby Koch is the President and CEO of the Wine Institute, acting as their chief lobbyist in Washington D.C. In 1992, he married Dorothy Bush, the only living daughter of George H. W. Bush, at a private ceremony held at Camp David. ... December 11 is the 345th day (346th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1843 (MDCCCXLIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining. ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... The Doctor by Luke Fildes This article is about the term physician, one type of doctor; for other uses of the word doctor see Doctor. ... Binomial name Bacillus anthracis Cohn 1872 Bacillus anthracis is a Gram-positive, facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium of the genus Bacillus. ... 1877 (MDCCCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Binomial name Mycobacterium tuberculosis Zopf 1883 Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the bacterium that causes most cases of tuberculosis[1]. It was first described on March 24, 1882 by Robert Koch, who subsequently received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for this discovery in 1905. ... Year 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Binomial name Vibrio cholerae Pacini 1854 Vibrio cholerae is a gram negative bacterium with a curved-rod shape that causes cholera in humans. ... 1883 (MDCCCLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Kochs postulates (or Henle-Koch postulates) are four criteria designed to establish a causal relationship between a causative microbe and a disease. ...

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his tuberculosis findings in 1905. He is considered one of the founders of bacteriology. List of Nobel Prize laureates in Physiology or Medicine from 1901 to the present day. ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar). ... Microbiology (in Greek micron = small and biologia = studying life) is the study of microorganisms, including unicellular (single-celled) eukaryotes and prokaryotes, fungi, and viruses. ...

Biography

Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was born in Clausthal, Germany as the son of a mining official. He studied medicine under Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle at the University of Göttingen and graduated in 1866. He then served in the Franco-Prussian War and later became district medical officer in Wollstein (Wolsztyn). Working with very limited resources, he became one of the founders of bacteriology, the other major figure being Louis Pasteur. Clausthal-Zellerfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. ... Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle (b. ... The Georg-August University of Göttingen (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, often called the Georgia Augusta) was founded in 1734 by George II, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover, and opened in 1737. ... Combatants Second French Empire North German Confederation allied with south German states (later German Empire) Commanders Napoleon III Otto Von Bismarck, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder Strength 400,000 at the beginning of the war 1,200,000 Casualties 150,000 dead or wounded 284,000 captured 350,000 civilian... Wolsztyn [] is a town in central Poland, situated (since 1999) in the Greater Poland Voivodship, previously (1975-1998) in Poznan Voivodship. ... Microbiology (in Greek micron = small and biologia = studying life) is the study of microorganisms, including unicellular (single-celled) eukaryotes and prokaryotes, fungi, and viruses. ... Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French chemist best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in microbiology. ...

After Casimir Davaine showed the direct transmission of the anthrax bacillus between cows, Koch studied anthrax more closely. He invented methods to purify the bacillus from blood samples and grow pure cultures. He found that, while it could not survive outside a host for long, anthrax built persisting endospores that could last a long time. Casimir Davaine(1812-1882) was a French physician known for his work in the field of microbiology. ...

These endospores, embedded in soil, were the cause of unexplained "spontaneous" outbreaks of anthrax. Koch published his findings in 1876, and was rewarded with a job at the Imperial Health Office in Berlin in 1880. In 1881, he urged the sterilization of surgical instruments using heat. An endospore is a dormant, tough, non-reproductive structure produced by a small number of bacteria from the Firmicute family. ... Location of Berlin within Germany / EU Coordinates Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE3 City subdivisions 12 boroughs Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) Governing parties SPD / Left. ... Sterilization can mean: Sterilization (surgical procedure) - an operation which renders an animal or human unable to procreate Sterilization (microbiology) - the elimination of microbiological organisms It can also mean the death of sperm cells due to radiation. ...

In Berlin, he improved the methods he used in Wollstein, including staining and purification techniques, and bacterial growth media, including agar plates (thanks to the advice of his wife) and the Petri dish, named after Julius Richard Petri. These devices are still used today. With these techniques, he was able to discover the bacterium causing tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) in 1882 (he announced the discovery on March 24). Tuberculosis was the cause of one in seven deaths in the mid-19th century. Location of Berlin within Germany / EU Coordinates Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE3 City subdivisions 12 boroughs Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) Governing parties SPD / Left. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Julius Richard Petri (Barmen, May 31, 1852 – December 20, 1921 in Zeitz), German bacteriologist who invented the Petri dish. ... Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for Tubercle Bacillus) is a common and deadly infectious disease that is caused by mycobacteria, primarily Mycobacterium tuberculosis. ... Binomial name Mycobacterium tuberculosis Zopf 1883 Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the bacterium that causes most cases of tuberculosis[1]. It was first described on March 24, 1882 by Robert Koch, who subsequently received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for this discovery in 1905. ... Year 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... March 24 is the 83rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (84th in leap years). ...

In 1883, Koch worked with a French research team in Alexandria, Egypt, studying cholera. Koch identified the vibrio bacterium that caused cholera, though he never managed to prove it in experiments. The bacterium had been previously isolated by Italian anatomist Filippo Pacini in 1854, but his work had been ignored due to the predominance of the miasma theory of disease. Koch was unaware of Pacini's work and made an independent discovery, and his greater preeminence allowed the discovery to be widely spread for the benefit of others. In 1965, however, the bacterium was formally renamed Vibrio cholera Pacini 1854. Alexandria (Greek: , Coptic: , Arabic: , Egyptian Arabic: Iskindireyya), (population of 3. ... Cholera (frequently called Asiatic cholera or epidemic cholera) is a severe diarrheal disease caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. ... Vibrio is a genus of bacteria, included in the gamma subgroup of the Proteobacteria. ... This microscope slide, prepared by Pacini in 1854, was clearly identified as containing the cholera bacillus. ... The miasmatic theory of disease held that diseases such as cholera or the Black Death were caused by a miasma (Greek language: pollution), a noxious form of bad air. A representation of the cholera epidemic of the nineteenth century depicts the spread of the disease in the form of poisonous...

In 1885, he became professor for hygiene at the University of Berlin, and later, in 1891, director of the newly formed Institute of Infectious Diseases, a position which he resigned from in 1904. He started traveling around the world, studying diseases in South Africa, India, and Java. Hygiene is the primary attraction facet and is commonly understood as preventing infections in personal places through cleanliness. ... The Charité is the largest university hospital in Europe. ... Java (Indonesian, Javanese, and Sundanese: Jawa) is an island of Indonesia, and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. ...

Probably as important as his work on tuberculosis, for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize (1905), are Koch's postulates, which say that to establish that an organism is the cause of a disease, it must be: Kochs postulates (or Henle-Koch postulates) are four criteria designed to establish a causal relationship between a causative microbe and a disease. ... The term disease refers to an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs function. ...

• found in all cases of the disease examined
• prepared and maintained in a pure culture
• capable of producing the original infection, even after several generations in culture
• be retrievable from an inoculated animal and cultured again.

After Koch's success the quality of his own research declined (especially with the fiasco over his ineffective TB cure "tuberculin"), although his pupils found the organisms responsible for diphtheria, typhoid, pneumonia, gonorrhoea, cerebrospinal meningitis, leprosy, bubonic plague, tetanus, and syphilis, among others, by using his methods. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning to cultivate), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... An infection is the detrimental colonization of a host organism by a foreign species. ... Animalia redirects here. ... A fiasco (pl. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Mantoux test. ... This is about the disease typhoid fever. ... Pneumonia is an illness of the lungs and respiratory system in which the alveoli (microscopic air-filled sacs of the lung responsible for absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere) become inflamed and flooded with fluid. ... Gonorrhoea (gonorrhea in American English) is among the most common sexually-transmitted diseases in the world and is caused by Penis penis Neisseria penis. ... Meningitis is the inflammation of the protective membranes covering the central nervous system, known collectively as the meninges. ... For the malady found in the Hebrew Bible, see the article Tzaraath. ... Bubonic plague is the best-known variant of the deadly infectious disease, plague, which is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis. ... Tetanus is a medical condition that is characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibers. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

He died on 27 May 1910 of a heart-attack in Baden-Baden, aged 66.^[1] May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining. ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Acute myocardial infarction (AMI or MI), commonly known as a heart attack, is a disease state that occurs when the blood supply to a part of the heart is interrupted. ... Baden-Baden is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. ...

Koch crater on the Moon was named after him. The Robert Koch Medal and Prize were created to honour Microbiologists who make groundbreaking discoveries or who contribute to global health in a unique way. The first non-German to be awarded the medal was Professor Bill Hutchison of Strathclyde University in Glasgow.^[2] Koch is a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon. ... Apparent magnitude: up to -12. ... The University of Strathclyde in Scotland is a top research-led British University which originated as Andersons Institution in 1796. ... Glaswegian redirects here. ...

References

1. ^ Robert Koch Institute
2. ^ Parasitology in Scotland

Consult

• Thomas Brock, Robert Koch: A Life in Medicine and Bacteriology, Washington D.C. (1999)

See also

• History of medicine
• Microbiology
• Timeline of medicine and medical technology

This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Timeline of medicine and medical technology // c. ...

External links

• Biography at the Nobel Foundation website
• Biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science