associated with infection and death but were the causes of disease and
final destruction.
To validate the germ theory, one needed a physician scientist who could
meticulously identify a germ, show how it grows, and differentiate it from
other germs that caused dissimilar diseases. It may not be obvious to the
nontechnically trained reader that each bacterial species (staphylococcus,
for example), has an exact appearance under a microscope, precise growth
pattern, narrow inhabitable environment, DNA profile, and unambiguous
effect on particular plants or animals. The first light of comprehension
was beginning to shine upon the Teutonic researchers that the bacterial
kingdom could be observed, described, and perhaps, in due time,
combatted, and it was Koch who would lead the way.
Shortly after the war, the reticent and cloistered Koch eagerly accepted
an appointment to become the local health officer in Wöllstein, eastern
Prussia. He relocated there with his wife and young daughter, embracing a
chance of being the area’s sole physician and perhaps of making an
important scientific discovery. Wöllstein was, as the name implies, a hub
of sheep farming and wool production, and with wool being the world’s
leading textile in the 1870s, Wöllstein was a vital, if not urban locale.
Robert Koch hailed from north-central Germany, reared before the
unification of German states at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War.
Unlike other European countries, Germany had no single, dominant
intellectual center, so cities like Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Wittenberg,
Würzburg, and Nuremberg all had centuries of proud academic
achievement. Koch had attended medical school in Göttingen, fortuitously
training under Jacob Henle, a pioneer in microscopy. In fact, his Handbook
of Systematic Human Anatomy was the first great work of anatomical
description since Vesalius’s Fabrica, delving into the microscopic
anatomy of our organs. What Vesalius had done for human anatomy,
illustrating our structure, perceiving the interconnectedness of organs and
fibers, and confronting falsehood, Henle did for microscopic anatomy,
delving deeply into the microstructure of each organ, and bringing to light
the infinitesimal elements that constitute the human corpus.
Thomas Goetz observes that Henle and Koch were an ideal match; both
were chronically shy, more inclined to “heads-down research than to
socializing,” and both paid great attention to detail.^32 Decades after
Henle’s less voluminous, but no less significant On Miasmata and