Achievements - Koch

• Stained and grew anthrax, then injected it into mice to prove that it was the bacterium that caused anthrax
• In 1876 he isolated sheep anthrax bacteria, showing that specific germs cause specific diseases
• In 1882 he identified the germ that caused tuberculosis in humans
• In 1883 he identified the cholera germ
• He found ways of using dyes to stain specific microbes under a microscope so they would stand out
• He developed ways of photographing microbes so other scientists could study them
• Established the principle that to prove a specific bacterium was responsible for a specific disease, the bacterium had to be present in successive animals that were infected with it
• Developed techniques of growing microbes on a plate made of solidified agar
• Known as the father of modern bacteriology, other scientists joined the microbe hunt and 21 disease causing germs were identified by 1900
• Koch was a German physician who studied under the first person to challenge spontaneous generation, Frederick Henle
• Worked as a surgeon in the Franco-Prussian war
• Awarded a Nobel Peace prize in 1905
• Koch


  Found out that the anthrax germ could form spores after an animal had died, and that these spores could then develop into the anthrax germ and infect other animals
• This was the first time a specific germ that caused disease had been identified and was the final proof of Pasteur's Germ theory
• In 1878, Koch had identified the germ that caused blood poisoning and septicaemia
• Koch developed new techniques for conducting experiments that influenced the way many other scientists carried out their experiments
• Koch knew that infected blood contained the septicaemia germ but he could not see these germs under a microscope, and therefore, other scientists were unlikely to believe what he thought to be true without the evidence