Robert Koch

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Robert Koch
Father of Bacteriology

• Tom Souza
• Tobey Stohr

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Thank You
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Definitions

• Anthrax- Spread from animals to humans thru
  contaminated wool, from eating uncooked meat or
  breathing in airborne spores
• Cholera- An infection of the small intestines
  which causes watery diarrhea. Severe dehydration
  is a result
• Tuberculosis- Spread from person to person thru
  the air, in tiny microscopic droplets. A person
  with TB coughs or sneezes, the bacteria can be
  inhaled by persons nearby

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Postulates for Indentifying

• Discovered a set of guidelines for culturing
  bacteria
• In 1890, presented what is now called Koch's
  postulates, four rules still used for determining
  whether a given bacteria is the cause of a
  specific disease
• 1. The bacteria must be present in every case of
  the disease.2. The bacteria must be isolated
  from the host with the disease and grown in pure
  culture.3. The specific disease must be
  reproduced when a pure culture of the bacteria is
  inoculated into a healthy susceptible host.4.
  The bacteria must be recoverable from the
  experimentally infected host.

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Early Life

• Born Dec 11, 1843 in Clausthal, Germany
• Fathers a miner
• Showed signs of significant intelligence at young
  age
• Showed interest in Biology throughout high school
  
• Had a strong urge to travel

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Early Life continued

• In 1862, he went to the University of Gottingen
• Worked as a volunteer medical officer during the
  Franco-Prussian War
• Worked in a hospital for general practice with
  microbiology

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Anthrax

• Sought out causes for the anthrax bacillus
• Inoculated mice with wood splinters
• Once he checked the spleen of infected farm
  animals, he found out that the disease had killed
  them, and healthy mice in which he inoculated
  with the blood of other healthy farm animals had
  no infection

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Anthrax continued

• Koch wanted to find out primary source of anthrax
  
• Made culture on the surface of an oxs eye
• Found another discovery of the anthrax
• Spores would cause the bacteria to be able to
  grow again once conditions were live sustaining
  again.
• Theory showed that anthrax could survive in
  without a host for an extended period of time

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Koch gets Famous

• Continued work at the University of Breslau
• My colleagues published a journal of Kochs work
  and quickly became famous
• Worked for four years improving theories

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Work on Tuberculosis

• 1st presented discovery of TB to an audience in
  1882
• Made the conclusion that 1 in 7 humans at that
  time would die from TB
• Described how I had invented a new straining
  method and demonstrated for the audience
• Showed the audience of the devastating disease
  and how it was contracted
• Work was published on April 10, 1882

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Tuberculosis Continued

• Continued work on Tuberculosis as the Head
  Director of the Institute of Infectious Diseases

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Cholera

• Koch went to Alexandria, Egypt in 1883 to do
  research on Vibrio Cholerae
• Was pronounced the leading role in the German
  Cholera Commission
• He did his research on what the virus was and was
  able to identify it was Cholera
• He attempted to infect animals with cholera, but
  none became infected

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Cholera continued

• Koch and his team travelled to Calcutta, India to
  further study the disease
• In India, Koch was able to find a pure Culture of
  Cholera
• Made the conclusion that cholera is not
  susceptible to animals
• Proved the miasma theory false
• His work proved that cholera was a human borne
  disease
• He returned to Berlin in 1884 with all of his
  findings on Cholera
• His work allowed him to formulate proper
  decisions on how to control the Cholera outbreak
• Some of these ideas are still used today
• Koch received a gift of 100,000 German Marks for
  his discovery
• His ideas also helped formulate decisions on the
  conservation of water supplies

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Other Significant Achievements

• Koch was appointed the Professor of Hygiene at
  the University of Berlin
• He was appointed the Surgeon General in 1890
• In 1891, he became the professor of the new
  medical faculty and the director of the Institute
  of Infectious Diseases
• Followed work in India and Africa on malaria,
  black water fever, surra of cattle and horses and
  plague

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Nobel Prize

• Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine
• Received a diploma directly from the hands of the
  King of Sweden
• Was awarded 10 million SEK

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Robert Koch Award

• Robert Koch passed away May 27, 1910 of heart
  failure in Baden-Baden, Germany
• Since 1970, there have been a handful of
  biomedical scientists which have received the
  award for their work for finding new cures etc.