Microbiology and Immunology

Koch, Robert WORLD OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY

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and symbiotic metabolic needs. He explained these findings

further in The Chemical Activities of Microorganisms.

Kluyver had a knack for bringing out the best in his stu-

dents. He often and fruitfully collaborated and co-published

with them, maintaining professional relationships with them

long after they left Delft. For example, with van Niel he co-

wrote The Microbe’s Contribution to Biology. A cheerful,

friendly, popular man, he was widely and fondly eulogized

when he died in Delft on May 14, 1956. Van Niel called him

“The Father of Comparative Biochemistry.”

See also Aerobes; Anaerobes and anaerobic infections;

Azotobacter; Bacteria and bacterial infection; Biolumines-

cence; Escherichia coli (E.coli); Microbial symbiosis;

Microbial taxonomy; Microscope and microscopy; Yeast

KKoch, Robert OCH, ROBERT(1843-1910)

German physician

Robert Koch pioneered principles and techniques in studying

bacteriaand discovered the specific agents that cause tuber-

culosis, cholera, and anthrax. For this he is often regarded as

a founder of microbiology and public health, aiding legislation

and changing prevailing attitudes about hygieneto prevent the

spread of various infectious diseases. For his work on tuber-

culosis, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1905.

Robert Heinrich Hermann Koch was born in a small

town near Klausthal, Hanover, Germany, to Hermann Koch,

an administrator in the local mines, and Mathilde Julie

Henriette Biewend, a daughter of a mine inspector. The Kochs

had thirteen children, two of whom died in infancy. Robert

was the third son. Both parents were industrious and ambi-

tious. Robert’s father rose in the ranks of the mining industry,

becoming the overseer of all the local mines. His mother

passed her love of nature on to Robert who, at an early age,

collected various plants and insects.

Before starting primary school in 1848, Robert taught

himself to read and write. At the top of his class during his

early school years, he had to repeat his final year.

Nevertheless, he graduated in 1862 with good marks in the

sciences and mathematics. A university education became

available to Robert when his father was once again promoted

and the family’s finances improved. Robert decided to study

natural sciences at Göttingen University, close to his home.

After two semesters, Koch transferred his field of study

to medicine. He had dreams of becoming a physician on a

ship. His father had traveled widely in Europe and passed a

desire for travel on to his son. Although bacteriology was not

taught then at the University, Koch would later credit his inter-

est in that field to Jacob Henle, an anatomist who had pub-

lished a theory of contagion in 1840. Many ideas about

contagious diseases, particularly those of chemist and micro-

biologist Louis Pasteur, who was challenging the prevailing

myth of spontaneous generation, were still being debated in

universities in the 1860s.

During Koch’s fifth semester at medical school, Henle

recruited him to participate in a research project on the struc-

ture of uterine nerves. The resulting essay won first prize. It

was dedicated to his father and bore the Latin motto, Nunquam

Otiosus,, meaning never idle. During his sixth semester, he

assisted Georg Meissner at the Physiological Institute. There

he studied the secretion of succinic acid in animals fed only on

fat. Koch decided to experiment on himself, eating a half-

pound of butter each day. After five days, however, he was so

sick that he limited his study to animals. The findings of this

study eventually became Koch’s dissertation. In January 1866,

he finished the final exams for medical school and graduated

with highest distinction.

After finishing medical school, Koch held various posi-

tions; he worked as an assistant at a hospital in Hamburg,

where he became familiar with cholera, and also as an assis-

tant at a hospital for developmentally delayed children. In

addition, he made several attempts to establish a private prac-

tice. In July, 1867, he married Emmy Adolfine Josephine

Fraatz, a daughter of an official in his hometown. Their only

child, a daughter, was born in 1868. Koch finally succeeded in

establishing a practice in the small town of Rakwitz where he

settled with his family.

Shortly after moving to Rakwitz, the Franco-Prussian

War broke out and Koch volunteered as a field hospital physi-

cian. In 1871, the citizens of Rakwitz petitioned Koch to

return to their town. He responded, leaving the army to resume

his practice, but he didn’t stay long. He soon took the exams

to qualify for district medical officer and in August 1872 was

appointed to a vacant position at Wollstein, a small town near

the Polish border.

It was here that Koch’s ambitions were finally able to

flourish. Though he continued to see patients, Koch converted

part of his office into a laboratory. He obtained a microscope

and observed, at close range, the diseases his patients con-

fronted him with.

One such disease was anthrax, which is spread from

animals to humans through contaminated wool, by eating

uncooked meat, or by breathing in airborne spores emanating

from contaminated products. Koch examined under the

microscope the blood of infected sheep and saw specific

microorganismsthat confirmed a thesis put forth ten years

earlier by biologist C. J. Davaine that anthrax was caused by

a bacillus. Koch attempted to culture(grow) these bacilli in

cattle blood so he could observe their life cycle, including

their formation into spores and their germination. Koch per-

formed scrupulous research both in the laboratory and in ani-

mals before showing his work to Ferdinand Cohn, a botanist

at the University of Breslau. Cohn was impressed with the

work and replicated the findings in his own laboratory. He

published Koch’s paper in 1876.

In 1877, Koch published another paper that elucidated

the techniques he had used to isolate Bacillus anthracis.He

had dry-fixed bacterial cultures onto glass slides, then stained

the cultures with dyes to better observe them, and pho-

tographed them through the microscope.

It was only a matter of time that Koch’s research

eclipsed his practice. In 1880, he accepted an appointment as

a government advisor with the Imperial Department of Health

in Berlin. His task was to develop methods of isolating and

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