XXXVI 



ROBERT KOCH 



1843-1910 



Robert Kochj horn at Klausthal, Hanover^ Germany, December 

 II, 184s, graduated from Gottingen in 1866. After a short period 

 as assistant surgeon in the General Hospital in Hamburg, he practised 

 medicine at Langenhagen, Kackwits, and Wollstein from i8'j2 to 

 1880, during which time he began his researches in bacteriology. By 

 18/8 he had placed bacteriology on a scientific basis. In 1880 he was 

 called to Berlin as chief of the Sanitary Institute, where he continued 

 his studies of tuberculosis and cJiolera. After inventing new micro- 

 scopical appliances and a new technique, in 1882 he stated his dis- 

 covery of the tubercle bacillus. In 188^, after publishing a method 

 for the prevention of anthrax by inoculation, he was sent by his 

 government to Egypt and India to investigate cholera. During that 

 work he discovered the cholera bacillus. In 1884 he returned to Ger- 

 many and in the following year zvent to France as cholera commis- 

 sioner. In 1888 he published a paper on the prophylaxis of infec- 

 tious diseases in the army. In later years he investigated the bubonic 

 plague, malaria, and sleeping-sickness. He died at Baden-Baden, 

 May 28, ipio. 



THEORY OF BACTERIA * 



I am well aware that the investigations above described are very 

 imperfect. It was necessary, in order to have time for those parts 

 of the investigation which seemed the most important and essential, to 

 omit the examination of many organs, such as the brain, heart, retina, 

 etc., which ought not to pass unnoticed in researches on infective dis- 

 eases. For the same reason no record was kept of the temperature, 



* From the English translation (1880) of Untersuchimgen iiber die Aetiol-r 

 ogie der Wundinfcctlonskrankheitcn (1878). 



3/4 



