102 
ing good medical schools than by sup- 
pressing those that are poor or by for- 
mal restrictions making it difficult to 
enter the medical profession. 
ROBERT KOCH 
In the death of Robert Koch, the 
world loses one of its greatest men, 
whose service to it has been beyond all 
measure. It is not easy to realize the 
changes in bacteriology and in medi- 
cine which have taken place in the’ 
course of the past thirty or forty years, | 
or how largely these are due to this not identical, but time appears to have 
one man. Koch was preceded by Pas- 
teur and Lister, but bacteriology and 
the germ theory of disease scarcely 
existed when in 1876 he published his | 
paper announcing the isolation of the 
bacillus of anthrax. He was at that 
time a country physician, but had had 
the advantage of studying medicine at 
Gottingen under Wagner and Henle. 
One wonders whether the hundred and 
twenty-five thousand physicians now 
practising in the United States would 
not produce some men of the type of 
Koch if they had been turned in the 
right direction at the university. If 
so, how small would be the cost of such 
schools in comparison with their value. 
Koch published in 1878 a second 
important paper on infectious diseases, 
and was in 1880 given opportunity to 
devote himself to research work by 
being appointed to the Prussian de- 
partment of public health. 
small laboratory at Berlin, with 
Loeffler and Gaffky as assistants, he 
developed the methods of bacteriology 
by cultures and disinfection, and in 
1882 made announcement of the far- 
reaching discovery of the bacillus of 
tuberculosis. A year later he visited 
Egypt and India and discovered the 
comma bacillus of cholera. 
Koch continued his study of tubercu- 
losis, cholera and other diseases, not 
only from the point of view of labora- 
tory science, but devising and applying 
means to combat them. In 1880 came 
the discovery of tuberculin, the cura- 
iim hiss} 

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
tive power of which was exaggerated, 
not so much by Koch as vy the general 
public. Koch was fully justified by 
its diagnostic value; his statement of 
its curative properties was cautious, 
and if it has not fully justified even 
these modest claims, it has led to the 
whole subject of vaccine therapy, in- 
cluding diphtheria anti-toxin, and may 
still fully confirm such claims as Koch 
made for its curative value in tubercu- 
losis. Koch was again criticized when 
in 1901 he announced the discovery 
that human and bovine tuberculosis are 
proved that he was correct in his facts 
and also in his claim that the main 
efforts should be directed toward pre- 
venting human contagion. 
In later years Koch devoted himself 
largely to tropical diseases and accom- 

plished much by his studies in Africa 
and Asia of parasitology, bacteriology 
and hygiene, investigating rinderpest 
and surra, the bubonic plague, malaria 
and sleeping-sickness. 
Such rewards as a scientific man 
may have were given to him. He was 
appointed in 1885 professor of hygiene 
in the University of Berlin and di- 
rector of the Hygienic Institute, then 
newly established. In 1891 he was ap- 
pointed director of the new Royal In- 
stitute for Infectious Diseases, and 
became an honorary professor in the 
university. This institute now forms 
a part of the Rudolf Virchow Hospital, 
and is known as the Koch Institute. 
Koch received the Nobel prize in medi- 
cine in 1905. But the rewards that 
could be given to him were insignifi- 
cant beside his services. 
Of the world’s debt to Koch the 
Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation says: “ But death has claimed 
the master and the world has lost its 
leader in the struggle against infec- 
tion. Endowed with a mind of the 
first oraer, and animated, beneath a 
quiet, impassive and meditative ex- 
terior, by a spirit of unceasing but 
wonderfully well-regulated activity, 
which drove him on as by an internal 
