BACTERIA 29 



practical importance of bacteria in producing fermentations of various 

 sorts. A paper by Koch in 1876 on anthrax was the first thorough 

 study of the production of a disease by bacteria, although the anthrax 

 bacillus had been suspected as early as 1863 of being the cause of the 

 disease, and Pasteur in 1870 had shown that a disease of silkworms 

 is due to bacteria. Koch devised ways of isolating and cultivating 

 bacteria and of staining them with anilin dyes, and by means of his 

 staining methods he discovered the- tuberculosis bacterium in 1882. 



