Robert Koch + Louis Pasteur

Question 1

What theory was used to describe the causes of disease and decay before Koch and Pasteur?

Answer 1

spontaneous generation

Question 2

What is the theory of spontaneous generation?

Answer 2

the idea that life (like maggots in rotten flesh) can appear spontaneously from non-living things

Question 3

What scientists initially disproved spontaneous generation and what did they prove instead?

Answer 3

Redi and Spallanzani
(think red spaghetti)
They proved that living matter has to be present before other living things could appear

Question 4

Who most effectively disproved the theory of spontaneous generation and what theory did they develop to replace it?

Answer 4

Pasteur, who developed the “germ theory of disease”

Question 5

What is the germ theory of disease?

Answer 5

1) germs (microbes/microorganisms) cause disease
2) all micro-organisms come from pre-existing micro-organisms

Question 6

What technique did Koch develop?

Answer 6

the agar plate technique for growing micro-organisms

Question 7

What did Koch use the agar plate technique for?

Answer 7

to culture the isolated anthrax bacillus

Question 8

Koch carried out an extensive study on what?

Answer 8

anthrax bacillus

Question 9

What was Koch’s process for studying anthrax bacillus?

Answer 9

examined the blood of sheep that had died from anthrax → identified rod-shaped bacteria → isolated this bacteria and grew it in cultures → injected cultured bacteria into healthy sheep → healthy sheep developed anthrax

Question 10

What did Koch show in his anthrax study?

Answer 10

that the anthrax spores he had grown could cause the disease in other animals and
kill them

Question 11

Koch’s anthrax study proved which theory and how?

Answer 11

the germ theory of disease, because they showed that a micro-organism (grown outside the body) caused a disease

Question 12

What did Koch conclude about the causes of diseases from his research?

Answer 12

each disease is caused by a specific
micro-organism

Question 13

What are “Koch’s postulates”?

Answer 13

the criteria that must be met to determine whether a particular micro-organism is responsible for
causing a disease

Question 14

Koch discovered the bacterium responsible for what two diseases?

Answer 14

1) tuberculosis
2) cholera

Question 15

What bacteria causes tuberculosis?

Answer 15

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Question 16

How many Koch postulates are there?

Answer 16

four

Question 17

List Koch’s postulates.

Answer 17

1) the