Koch, Robert

1995/08/02 Azkune Mendia, Iñaki - Elhuyar Fundazioa | Kaltzada, Pili - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Biografiak

(1843-1910)

German bacteriologist born on December 11, 1843 in the city of Clausthal, in the area of Hannover.

Koch had twelve brothers and young showed a tendency to medicine. He taught Wöhler and Henle at the University of Göttingen and finished his career in 1866 with some very brilliant notes.

Although he was a doctor, he wanted to be an explorer, finding new places around the world. However, his wife took away those intentions from her head and began working as a doctor. (Then she abandoned her wife, divorced and married a girl much younger than she).

He participated as a military doctor in the war between France and Prussia supporting the Prussians. He was subsequently an agricultural doctor in the area of Breslau, in Silesia. There, a misnamed satar hit the cattle and Koch began to analyze it. In 1876 he discovered that the disease was caused by a bacterium in the spleen of the reses. This bacterium was applied to rats and thus they were contaminating one another, finally appearing the same bacteria.

Another important step was the growth of bacteria outside the animal body. For this purpose, he used the blood serum heated to body temperature. Through this system, he was able to analyze the whole life of the mole bacteria and discover the spores that fought him.

Koch was expanding his fame and had the opportunity to go live and work in Berlin. There he used aniline dyes to study bacteria. Undyed bacteria are semi-transparent and difficult to see.

To study bacteria outside the body, Koch used liquids, but later began to grow in solids because it was more appropriate. He raised them in gelatin. Koch used glass launas for the cultivation of bacteria, but his assistant, Julius Richard Petri, replaced them with glass boxes with lid, which is the system that is still being used.

In the gelatins the bacteria could not move and there was divided again and again a bacterial colony was formed. In this way it was possible to introduce these bacteria to animals, always knowing with safety what type they were.

Koch, through its standards and techniques, isolated and identified bacteria from different diseases. In 1882 he discovered the bacillus of tuberculosis and in 1890 he believed it was the remedy of this terrible disease. But the remedy was not as good as he thought.

In 1883 he travelled to Asia to study black plague and cholera. He also investigated the evil of logic in Africa. He was awarded for finding the bacillus of cholera. Subsequently, he found that between 1897 and 1906 the black plague was transmitted through the fleas of the rat and sleep disease through the tsetse fly.

In 1905 he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology from Robert Koch for his discoveries in the field of tuberculosis.

He died in the German city of Baden-Baden on 27 May 1910.