The New Student's Reference Work/Koch, Dr. Robert

Koch, Dr. Robert, a distinguished German physician and student of bacteria in their relation to diseases. He is widely known for his investigations on the disease germs of consumption and cholera. He was born at Klausthal, Hannover, in 1843, and took his M. D. from Göttingen in 1866. In 1882 he announced the discovery of the disease germ (Bacillus tuberculosis) which produces tuberculosis or consumption of the lungs. The following year he was sent by his government to Egypt and India to study into the cause and prevention of cholera. While in Calcutta, he discovered the comma bacillus, which is the disease germ of cholera. In 1890 he proposed the injection of a lymph into the body to combat the germs of tuberculosis, and great hopes were entertained for this method of treatment. Several years are required to complete the treatment, and it has not been successful. Dr. Koch is on the medical faculty of the University of Berlin, and engaged in the Institute of Hygiene.