Robert Koch summary

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Robert Koch, (born Dec. 11, 1843, Clausthal, Hannover—died May 27, 1910, Baden-Baden, Ger.), German physician. As the first to isolate the anthrax bacillus, observe its life cycle, and develop a preventive inoculation for it, he was the first to prove a causal relationship between a bacillus and a disease. He perfected pure-culture techniques, based on Louis Pasteur’s concept. He isolated the tuberculosis organism and established its role in the disease (1882). In 1883 he discovered the causal organism for cholera and how it is transmitted and also developed a vaccination for rinderpest. Koch’s postulates remain fundamental to pathology: the organism should always be found in sick animals and never in healthy ones; it must be grown in pure culture; the cultured organism must make a healthy animal sick; and it must be reisolated from the newly sick animal and recultured and still be the same. Awarded a Nobel Prize in 1905, he is considered a founder of bacteriology.

Nobel Prize Summary

Nobel Prize, any of the prizes (five in number until 1969, when a sixth was added) that are awarded annually from a fund bequeathed for that purpose by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards given for intellectual

physiology Summary

Physiology, study of the functioning of living organisms, animal or plant, and of the functioning of their constituent tissues or cells. The word physiology was first used by the Greeks around 600 bce to describe a philosophical inquiry into the nature of things. The use of the term with specific

anthrax Summary

Anthrax, acute, infectious, febrile disease of animals and humans caused by Bacillus anthracis, a bacterium that under certain conditions forms highly resistant spores capable of persisting and retaining their virulence for many years. Although anthrax most commonly affects grazing animals such as

X-rays of patients infected with tuberculosis

tuberculosis Summary

Tuberculosis (TB), infectious disease that is caused by the tubercle bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In most forms of the disease, the bacillus spreads slowly and widely in the lungs, causing the formation of hard nodules (tubercles) or large cheeselike masses that break down the respiratory