Humanity has had to battle many diseases throughout history. The causes of many diseases we know to be contagious today were previously unknown. Furthermore, these diseases were thought to be caused by unseen forces. Epidemics of syphilis, tuberculosis, and cholera would suddenly break out, killing many people. Robert Koch revealed that infectious diseases were caused by bacteria. His studies of syphilis, tuberculosis, and cholera bacteria led to the development of both vaccines against these diseases and the discovery of treatments. His work on tuberculosis earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1905. Robert Koch’s research also gave rise to a branch of microbiology called “bacteriology.”
Robert Koch was a German physician who lived between 1843 and 1910. He was the child of a large family. His father, a mining inspector, instilled in him a deep passion for travel, and he learned a love of nature from his mother. Koch studied medicine at the University of Göttingen and became a successful physician. He established a laboratory in his home and began conducting his research there. Koch’s first research topic was anthrax, a disease that infects sheep and cattle and can also infect humans. Anthrax had previously been found to be caused by bacteria. However, Koch wanted to study anthrax. Indeed, his research on this topic led to the emergence of many new insights into how anthrax spreads.
After concluding his anthrax research, Koch turned to developing solutions that would make it easier to study bacteria. He developed the media used in special glass containers to grow bacteria today. He developed new bacterial staining methods to make bacteria easier to examine under the microscope. Many of his studies, such as these, made it easier to examine disease-causing bacteria. He also established a number of criteria for infectious diseases. These criteria, known as “Koch’s Postulates,” made various determinations regarding disease. For example, at every stage of an infectious disease, the presence of the causative agent had to be monitored. Another criterion was that the disease should appear if a disease agent were inoculated into healthy tissue. Koch went to Berlin and worked on tuberculosis in the laboratory he established there. At a time when his research on this topic was beginning to yield significant results, he was sent to Egypt on assignment. His mission was to study the cholera epidemic that broke out in Egypt. There, he discovered the bacteria that causes cholera and developed methods for preventing cholera epidemics. The methods he developed are still used today.
Returning to his country and his studies on tuberculosis, Koch’s fame spread worldwide. In his later life, a childhood wish came true, and he traveled frequently. Because different countries were inviting him to research diseases common in their own countries, he studied diseases such as amoebic dysentery in Egypt, cholera in India, and rinderpest, sleeping sickness, and fever in Africa.
He discovered the causes of these diseases and how they spread. All of these studies eventually bore fruit, and he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1905.
