Robert Koch Flashcards
Robert Koch was a German doctors who built on the work of Louis Pasteur.
He has the detailed medical knowledge that Pasteur lacked.
Koch isolated specific germs and linked them to specific diseases.
In 1872, he began to study anthrax (fatal disease, affected, cattle and sheep). It could spread to humans.
In 1875, identified the microbial germ by studying the blood of affected and unaffected animals.
He studied the microbe/germ which caused the poisoning - septicaemia in wounds.
This microbe was too small to see with a microscope alone - he used new industrial dyes to stain the microbe - it could now be seen.
He devised a way to grow germ and then use his daughters mice to experiment with the germ.
He objected the mice with the septicaemia germ - they developed blood poisoning.
He has to prove he had the right germ - he used new technology - connected a new type of lens to his microscope and photographed the whole process.
Koch developed - superb experiment methods - use of dyes and photography - a solid culture to breed germs - more reliable than Pasteur’s liquid allture.
1882 - Discovered germ that caused Tuberculosis (TB).
1883 - Identified the germ that caused Cholera.
