KOCH 



3274 



KOKOMO 



ROBERT KOCH 



can ports. It is one of the most healthful and 

 attractive of Japanese ports, and has a more 

 extensive trade than any of the other cities 

 opened by treaty to foreign commerce. About 

 2,800 vessels enter and clear the harbor each 

 year. Kobe boasts of fine docks, railway shops 

 and a shipyard. Paper is its chief article of 

 manufacture. Population, 1913, 442,167. 



KOCH, koK, ROBERT (1843-1910), a German 

 physician famed for his researches in the field 

 of bacteriology, especially for his discovery, in 

 1882, of the specific germ which causes tubercu- 

 losis of the lungs (see TUBERCULOSIS). He also 

 identified the ba- 

 cillus which pro- 

 duces Asiatic 

 cholera, and de- 

 vised a method 

 of inoculation to 

 prevent anthrax 

 (which see) . In 

 the year 1890 it 

 was reported 

 throughout the 

 world that Dr. 

 Koch had discov- 

 ered a cure for 

 one of the great- 

 est enemies of the human race consumption. 

 What he actually accomplished was the prepa- 

 ration of an extract, or lymph, obtained from 

 bacilli, which is chiefly valuable as a test in 

 diagnosing cases of tuberculosis. His work 

 included also a study of blood infections in 

 East Africa and of the West African "sleeping 

 sickness," and the identification of the parasites 

 which cause "coast fever." In Germany he was 

 honored by appointment to a professorship in 

 the University of Berlin (1885), and was also 

 made director of the new Hygienic Institute. 

 In 1905 he was awarded the Nobel prize for 

 medicine. See BACTERIA AND BACTERIOLOGY; 

 DISEASE, subhead Germ Theory of Disease. 



KO'DOK, a small town in the Sudan, 

 founded by the Egyptian government in 1865 

 as Fashoda. It never attained any geographi- 

 cal or commercial importance, but in 1898 it 

 became the center of a political storm which 

 for a time strained the friendly relations be- 

 tween Britain and France. The town had been 

 deserted at the time of the Mahdist rebellion 

 in 1881 and was occupied by French troops in 

 1898. The British demanded its evacuation, in 

 return for which they were compelled to make 

 commercial and political concessions to the 

 French in Africa. See EGYPT. 



KOH'INOOR, or KOHINUR, a Persian word 

 which means mountain oj light, is the name 

 of a famous diamond belonging to the British 

 crown jewels. According to tradition, it was 

 found in India long before the Christian Era, 

 was handed down through a long line of Indian 

 princes and came into the possession of Eng- 

 land in 1849, through the conquest of the 

 Punjab, or Northwest India. It was presented 

 to Queen Victoria by the East India Com- 

 pany. Originally it weighed about 900 carats, 

 but was reduced by poor cutting to 279 carats 

 and in 1852 to 102% carats. Its value is esti- 

 mated at about $600,000. A model of the 

 Kohinoor is on exhibition in the Tower of 

 London. 



KOHL-RABI, kohl' rah bi, or, more properly, 

 KOHLRUBE, is a cultivated variety of the cab- 

 bage plant, in which the stem above the 

 ground enlarges into a 



KOHL-RABI 



bulblike growth. It is 

 used as a vegetable and 

 resembles in taste 

 the rutabaga, or 

 Swedish turnip. Leaf- 

 stalks spring from the 

 round formation and 

 add to the unusual 

 appearance of the 

 plant. Kohl-rabi is 

 cultivated like cab- 

 bage, and in Europe 

 is grown to a consid- 

 erable extent, but in 

 America it is not very 

 popular. In recent years it has appeared more 

 frequently in the markets. 



KO'KOMO, IND., the county seat of Howard 

 County, and a thriving manufacturing city, 

 situated north of the geographical center of 

 the state, on Wildcat Creek. Indianapolis is 

 fifty-four miles south, Logansport is twenty- 

 three miles northwest, and Chicago, also north- 

 west, is 140 miles distant. Kokomo has good 

 transportation facilities through the Lake Erie 

 & Western Railway, constructed to the city 

 in 1854; the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & 

 Saint Louis, built to this point in 1859; the 

 Toledo, Saint Louis & Western (1880), and the 

 excellent interurban electric service for which 

 the state is noted. The city was settled in 

 1844, was incorporated in 1865 and named for 

 the Indian chief', Kokomoko. In 1910 the popu- 

 lation was 17,010; it has increased to 20,930 in 

 1916 (Federal estimate). The area of the city 

 is three square miles. 



