Robert Koch
German physician, bacteriologist (1843–1910)
Robert Koch and the evidence for infectious disease
Medicine beyond the university
Koch studied medicine at Göttingen and qualified in 1866. As a district medical officer in Wollstein, he investigated anthrax despite limited laboratory equipment. By cultivating the bacillus and testing whether those cultures could transmit disease, he moved beyond merely noticing an association between a microbe and sick animals.
A method with wider reach
His anthrax research was published in 1876. Koch continued improving techniques for observing and studying bacteria, including staining and photography. Appointed to the Imperial Health Office in 1880, he gained facilities for broader investigations. In 1882 he identified and described the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, a decisive finding for understanding that disease.
Recognition and a limit
Koch received the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on tuberculosis. His later study of tuberculin also shows a limit of scientific claims: although initially hoped for as a treatment, it did not cure tuberculosis. The prize recognised the investigation of the disease, not a successful cure.