Basic scientific discoveries and inventions Robert Koch made in the field of biology and microbiology. What contribution to biology made by Robert Koch, a German physician, bacteriologist and one of the founders of modern epidemiology and bacteriology, you will learn in this article.
Robert Koch's contributions to biology
A message on biology should begin with the discovery of bacteria by scientists anthrax. He studied it until the end of his life. Thanks to his experiments and efforts, the bacterium “Bacillus anthracis”, which causes this dangerous disease, was isolated. In addition, the scientist took a microscopic photo of her. After the grand discovery of Robert Koch, a more detailed study of the bacterium began. He proved that Bacillus anthracis is capable of developing into a large colony in a short time. Therefore, anthrax disease occurs at lightning speed. The bacterium is characterized by high viability and resistance to various treatment methods. The patient's risk of death is very high.
The scientist also proved that the disease remains viable over a long period of time. To destroy the bacillus, it is necessary to spray it with a temperature above 100 0 C for 40 minutes in an autoclave. In addition, Koch showed that the microorganism that causes anthrax can live quietly for several years in the droppings of infected animals. This is the merit of Robert Koch, which made him famous in the world of science and medical research.
Robert Koch's contributions to microbiology: discovery of Koch's bacillus
The scientist gained greatest fame for discovery of the causative agent of tuberculosis. He proved that the disease is caused by the mycobacterium “Mycobacterium tuberculosis”, and the carrier of the disease is an infected person. For this purpose, the researcher conducted a lot of tests and experiments, observing the biological material of sick patients. For a very long time, the future Nobel laureate could not discover anything. After conducting another test, Robert Koch discovered what is involved in the development of tuberculosis key role It is not the virus that plays, as previously thought, but the tuberculosis bacterium. To detect it, he used a dye, since the stick was colorless. The scientist published the first mention of the stick, which would be named in honor of Robert Koch, on March 24, 1882. Then the world saw the first photo of a microorganism.
In addition to studying tuberculosis and anthrax, the scientist studied cholera. He managed to identify the causative agent of the disease and show how to destroy Vibrio cholerae. Robert Koch is also the author of the following concepts: Koch's triad (a method for proving the cause of the disease), Koch's test (determines the presence of tuberculosis bacteria and at what stage of development of the disease the patient is).
Robert Koch made a huge contribution to biology and outlined it in his works “Methods for studying pathogenic organisms”, “Research and discoveries regarding the treatment of tuberculosis”.
What did Robert Koch do for the development of medicine?
Robert Koch's achievements were not limited to research into the causative agents of dangerous diseases. He also discovered nutrient solid media. Although this happened quite by accident: a scientist in the laboratory forgot a cut boiled potato. And in the morning I discovered entire colonies of microorganisms on it. Before Koch, microorganisms were grown in a liquid medium, and it was very difficult to separate them to obtain a pure culture of the pathogen. So the scientist managed to invent a new method of research in medicine. It was enough to apply a mixture of microbes to this solid nutrient medium and each microorganism “created” a whole colony of microbes in the place where it ended up. This way it was easy to study each species and study the disease, develop medicines against it.
Another innovation of Robert Koch is the immersion lens. After the lens was immersed in oil, lenses with greater curvature could be used. They increased the resolution of the microscope and magnified the image by 900-1400 times.
We hope that Robert Koch’s report helped to learn about the main discoveries of the great German scientist. A short story on the topic “Robert Koch and his contribution to the development of microbiology” you can leave using the comment form below.
German physician and scientist Robert Koch (1843-1910) received the Nobel Prize for his microbiological work against tuberculosis. He also created many fundamental methods for microbiological research, some of which are still used today.
A lifetime's work
At the end of the 19th century, tuberculosis killed almost a third of all middle-aged adults in Europe. Doctors and scientists of that Over time, numerous attempts have been made to find a cure. Koch Robert was no exception; the fight against this serious illness became his mission, the work of his whole life. Despite making enormous progress in the identification and potential treatment of this disease, even receiving the Nobel Prize in Medicine for this work, the scientist never stopped improving research methods that have had big influence for all microbiology.
Youth and choice of profession
The parents of the future scientist were poor miners who were amazed at what a capable boy fate had given them. Born in 1843 in Clausthal (Germany), Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a true child prodigy as a child. At the age of five he was already reading newspapers, and a little later he became interested in classical literature and was an expert in chess. Interest in science began in high school, where biology was chosen as a favorite subject.
In 1866, at the age of 23, Heinrich Robert Koch received his M.D. degree and spent the next decade working as a physician in various hospital and government scientific societies. In 1876, he published his major research into the disease anthrax, which brought him widespread fame. A few years later he was appointed as an advisor to the health bureau, where most For some time he dealt with problems related to tuberculosis.
Determining the cause of tuberculosis
Modern medicine knows many causes of most diseases. In the times when Koch Robert lived, this knowledge was not so common. One of the first important discoveries The scientist identified Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes this fatal disease. Robert Koch, while studying the causes of infection, deliberately infected guinea pigs with material from one of three infected animals: monkeys, cattle and humans. As a result, it was found that the bacteria of the infected pigs were identical to those with which they were infected, regardless of the source of infection.
Koch's postulates
What contributions did Robert Koch make to microbiology? One of the most influential methods was the proposal that the causative agent of the disease could be identified with high degree confidence when four conditions are met, which later became known as Koch’s postulates. Here they are:
- The microorganism should cause disease in all organisms in which it is present in abundance, therefore they should not be present in uninfected organisms.
- The suspected microbe must be isolated and grown in its pure form.
- Reintroduction of the microbe should cause disease in previously uninfected organisms.
- The suspected microbe must be re-isolated from the test organism, grown in pure form, and identical to the originally isolated microbe.
Founder of bacteriology and microbiology
Among the diseases studied by the German physician Robert Koch (anthrax in 1876 and tuberculosis in 1882), there was also cholera in 1883. In 1905, the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. While still a medical student, Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch had a great interest in pathology and infectious diseases. As a doctor, he worked in many small towns throughout Germany, and during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1872) he volunteered to the front as a military surgeon.
Later he was appointed as a district police officer medical worker, whose main responsibility was to study the spread of infectious bacterial diseases. The application of biotechnology in medicine still relies heavily on Koch's principles to document the causes of infectious diseases. The great scientist died in 1910 in the Black Forest region (Germany), he was 66 years old.
Anthrax research
At the time Robert Koch lived, anthrax was widespread among farm animals in the Wöllstein area. The scientist had no scientific equipment At that moment, libraries and contacts with other scientists were unavailable. However, this did not stop him, and he began to study this disease. His laboratory was a 4-room apartment, which was his home, and his main equipment was a microscope, a gift from his wife.
Pollender, Rayer and Davaine bacilli had previously been discovered as the causative agent of anthrax, and Koch set himself the goal of scientific point vision to prove that this bacillus is actually the cause of the disease. He inoculated mice using homemade wood chips with anthrax bacilli taken from the spleens of farm animals that had died from the disease. It was discovered that the death of the rodents occurred precisely as a result of the infection entering the blood of the animals. This fact confirmed the findings of other scientists who argued that the disease could be transmitted through the blood of animals suffering from anthrax.
Anthrax bacilli are resistant to the external environment
But this did not satisfy Koch. He also wanted to know whether these microbes could cause disease if they had never been in contact with any kind of animal organism. To solve this problem, he obtained pure cultures of the bacilli. Robert Koch, studying and photographing them, came to the conclusion that when unfavorable conditions they produce spores that can withstand lack of oxygen and other factors negative for bacteria. Thus, they can survive in the external environment for quite a long time, and when suitable conditions are created, their vitality is restored, bacilli emerge from the spores, capable of infecting living organisms into which they enter, despite the fact that they previously had no contact with them.
Robert Koch: discoveries and achievements
The results of his painstaking work on anthrax were demonstrated by Koch to Ferdinand Cohn, professor of botany at the University of Breslau, who gathered his colleagues to witness the discovery. Among those present was also Professor of Anatomical Pathology Konheim. Everyone was deeply impressed by Koch's work, and after the publication of a paper on the topic in a botanical journal in 1876, Koch immediately became famous. He continued, however, to work for Wöllstein for another four years, and during this period of time he improved his methods of recording, staining and photographing bacteria.
Life in Berlin
Later, already in Berlin, he continued to improve bacteriological methods, as well as invent new ones - growing pure bacteria in solid media, such as potatoes. The area in which Robert Koch continued to work, microbiology, remained his narrow specialty until recently. He also developed new methods of staining bacteria that made them more visible and helped identify them. The result of all this work has been the introduction of methods by which pathogenic bacteria can be simply and easily obtained in pure culture, free from other organisms, and by which they can be detected and identified. Two years after arriving in Berlin, Koch discovered the tuberculosis bacillus, as well as a method for growing it in its pure form.
Fight against cholera
Koch was still busy working against tuberculosis when, in 1883, he was sent to Egypt as leader of a German commission to investigate an outbreak of cholera in that country. Here he discovered Vibrio, which causes the disease, and brought pure cultures to Germany. He also dealt with a similar issue in India. Based on his knowledge of the biology and mode of spread of Vibrio cholerae, scientists formulated rules for combating the epidemic, which were approved by the Great Powers in Dresden in 1893 and formed the basis of control methods that are still used today.
Appointment to high positions
In 1885, Robert Koch, whose biography originates from a small town and a poor family, was appointed professor of hygiene at the University of Berlin. In 1890 he was appointed surgeon general, and in 1891 he became professor emeritus of the Faculty of Medicine and director of the new Institute of Infectious Diseases. During this period, Koch returned to his work in the fight against tuberculosis. He tried to stop the disease with a drug he called tuberculin, created from mycobacteria. Two versions of the drug were created. The first of which immediately caused significant controversy. Unfortunately, the healing power of this drug was greatly exaggerated, and the hopes placed on it were not justified. The new tuberculin (second version) was announced by Koch in 1896 and its medicinal value was also a disappointment, but it nevertheless led to the discovery of substances of diagnostic value.
And then plague, malaria, trypanosomiasis...
In 1896 Koch went to South Africa to study the origin of rinderpest. Despite the fact that the cause of this disease could not be found out, the outbreak was still contained. This was followed by work in India and Africa on malaria, Blackwater fever, trypanosomiasis, and rinderpest. The publication of his observations on these diseases was in 1898. Soon after his return to Germany, his travels around the world continued. This time it was Italy, where he confirmed Sir Ronald Ross's work on malaria and carried out useful work on the etiology of various forms of malaria and their control with quinine.
Contribution to microbiology: honorary prizes and medals
It is during these last years During his life, Koch came to the conclusion that the bacilli that cause tuberculosis in humans and cattle are not identical. His statement at the International Medical Congress against Tuberculosis in London in 1901 caused much controversy, but it is now known that Koch's point of view was correct. His work on typhus led to the idea that the disease was transmitted much more often from person to person than from person to person. drinking water, and this has led to new control measures.
In December 1904, Koch was sent to East Africa to study cattle fever, where he made important observations not only of the disease, but of the pathogenic Babesia and Trypanosoma species and tickborne spirochaetosis. Professor Robert Koch was awarded many prizes and medals, honorary membership in scientific societies and academies in Berlin, Vienna, Naples, New York and others. He was awarded the German Order of the Crown, the Grand Cross of the German Order of the Red Eagle. In a number of countries, memorials and monuments were erected in honor of the great microbiologist. Dr. Koch died on May 27, 1910 in Baden-Baden.
Germany has produced many innovative scientific minds over many centuries, one of the greatest scientists of his time can rightly be called Robert Heinrich Hermann Koch, who laid the foundation for the study of bacteriology, and also helped in explaining the causes and possible methods treatment of various bacterial diseases.
He was a fearless researcher as he was responsible for conducting unprecedented efforts to study life-threatening diseases such as anthrax, tuberculosis and many others. This erudite scientist also played an important role in the creation of modern laboratories. Robert Koch was not just a gifted scientist, he was a genius, and the number of awards and medals he received throughout his life serves as the best proof of the contribution he made to world medical science.
Institute of Hygiene
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch(German) Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch; December 11, Clausthal-Zellerfeld - May 27, Baden-Baden) - German microbiologist. He discovered the anthrax bacillus, Vibrio cholera and the tuberculosis bacillus. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded for his research into tuberculosis.
Early life
Robert Koch was born on December 11, 1843 in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, the son of Hermann and Mathilde Henriette Koch. He was the third of thirteen children. From childhood, encouraged by his grandfather (mother's father) and uncle - amateur naturalists, he was interested in nature.
In 1848 he went to the local primary school. At this time he already knew how to read and write.
Having finished school well, Robert Koch entered the Clausthal gymnasium in 1851, where after four years he became the best student in the class.
Higher education
In 1862, Koch graduated from high school and then entered the University of Göttingen, famous for its scientific traditions. There he studied physics, botany, and then medicine. The most important role in shaping the interest of the future great scientist in scientific research played by many of his university teachers, including the anatomist Jacob Henle, the physiologist Georg Meissner and the clinician Karl Hesse. It is their participation in discussions about microbes and nature various diseases sparked young Koch's interest in this problem.
Koch's work brought him wide fame and in the year, thanks to the efforts of Conheim, Koch became a government adviser at the Reichs Public Health Office in Berlin.
On March 24, 1882, when he announced that he had isolated the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, Koch achieved the greatest triumph of his entire life. At that time, this disease was one of the main causes of death. In his publications, Koch developed the principles of “obtaining evidence that a particular microorganism causes certain diseases.” These principles still form the basis of medical microbiology.
Cholera
Koch's study of tuberculosis was interrupted when, on instructions from the German government, he went to Egypt and India as part of a scientific expedition to try to determine the cause of cholera. While working in India, Koch announced that he had isolated the microbe that causes the disease, Vibrio cholerae.
Resuming work with tuberculosis
In 1885, Koch became a professor at the University of Berlin and director of the newly created Institute of Hygiene. At the same time, he continues his research into tuberculosis, focusing on finding ways to treat the disease.
In 1890, Koch announced that such a method had been found. He isolated a sterile liquid containing substances produced by the tuberculosis bacillus during its life - tuberculin, which caused an allergic reaction in patients with tuberculosis. However, in practice, tuberculin was not used to treat tuberculosis, since it did not have any special therapeutic properties; on the contrary, its administration was accompanied by toxic reactions and caused poisoning, which became the reason for its sharpest criticism. Protests against the use of tuberculin subsided after it was discovered that the tuberculin test could be used in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, which played a major role in the fight against tuberculosis in cows.
Awards
In 1905, Robert Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his “research and discoveries concerning the treatment of tuberculosis.” In his Nobel lecture, the laureate said that if we look back at the path “that has been traveled in recent years in the fight against such a widespread disease as tuberculosis, we cannot help but note that the first important steps have been taken here.”
Koch was awarded many awards, including the Prussian Order of Honor, awarded by the German government in 2008, and honorary doctorates from the universities of Heidelberg and Bologna. He was also a foreign member of the French Academy of Sciences, the Royal Scientific Society of London, the British Medical Association and many other scientific societies.
Contribution to science
Robert Koch's discoveries made an invaluable contribution to the development of health care, as well as to the coordination of research and practical measures in the fight against infectious diseases such as typhoid fever, malaria, rinderpest, sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) and human plague.
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| Celebrity card | |
| Koch Robert | |
| Was born | December 11, 1843 |
|---|---|
| Died | 27 May 1910 |
| Activity | German bacteriologist, one of the founders of the science of bacteriology |
| Achievements | Developed and adapted the principles and methods of modern bacteriology. He discovered the anthrax bacillus, tuberculosis bacillus, and vibrio cholerae. Nobel Prize Laureate |
Biography
Robert was the third in a large family of Hermann Koch (a mining official) and his wife Matilda. When the boy was about ten years old, his father became the overseer of all the local mines. Herman took his son on trips, taught him to respect and study nature. Robert greedily absorbed knowledge, collected mosses and lichens, and insects with his father. Later he learned to dissect small animals and make their skeletons.
Robert Koch can read and write in 1848 before entering primary school. The boy learned quickly, so he was transferred to the Clausthal gymnasium already in 1851. Four years later he is at the top of his class. Graduated in 1862 with good recommendations in mathematics, physics, history, geography, German and English. Despite the level of “satisfactory” in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and French, he declares his intention to study philology in order to become a teacher. The gymnasium teachers talk about his abilities for further mastering mathematics, medicine, and natural sciences. This and family problems contributed to the solution young man comprehend natural Sciences at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, where he entered in the spring of 1862. Koch studied botany, physics, mathematics for two semesters, and then transferred to the Faculty of Medicine. Many years later, he admitted that his thirst for scientific research was awakened by the anatomist and pathologist Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle and the physiologist Georg Meissner.
One of Koch's fifth-year projects is tracking acceptable amounts of certain foods in a weekly diet. The results of the study appeared in 1865 in the journal Zeitschrift für Medizin rationelle, founded by Henle. This report was accepted as a doctoral dissertation. On final exams in Göttingen in January 1866 he received the highest award, and two months later he passed the state examination in Hanover.
Medical career
The next six years in the career of a young doctor are a period of tossing and turning. Robert strives to become a military doctor, then to see the world, hiring himself as a medic on a ship, or to go to practice abroad. Since 1866, Koch trained at a general hospital in Hamburg, where he worked during the cholera epidemic. Then he becomes an assistant in a boarding school for mentally retarded children in a village near Hannover.
Robert Koch tries to establish a small practice in the province of Posen (now Poznan, Poland), then in Potsdam. It was only in 1869, having settled in Rakwitz, that Koch managed to create a thriving practice and became a popular figure. The idyllic life was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War, which began in July 1870. Despite his severe myopia, he volunteers to serve as a doctor in a field hospital. The medic gains invaluable experience, especially during a typhus epidemic in the Neufchâteau hospital and in the infirmary for the wounded near Orleans.
Research and achievements
Robert Koch discovered the cause of several infectious diseases and refuted the previously widespread medical belief that most diseases were caused by “bad air.” He explained the development cycle of the anthrax pathogen (1876), found the cause of tuberculosis (1882), and discovered the bacteria that causes cholera (1883).
Koch developed new methods for producing microscopic media by applying liquid gelatin to glass plates. In 1881, he described his method of obtaining pure cultures, which formed the basis of the developing field of bacteriology - the study of isolated pathogens. In 1890, he introduced what are now called Koch's postulates - four elementary rules used to determine the "culpability" of a particular bacterium as the cause of a particular disease:
- Bacteria must be present in absolutely every case of disease;
- Bacteria must be extracted, “separated” from the patient, and grown in a pure culture (medium);
- A specific disease is caused by inoculation of a pure culture of bacteria into a healthy, susceptible organism;
- The bacteria must be obtained from an experimentally infected host.
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905.
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German doctor, bacteriologist, one of the founders of modern bacteriology and epidemiology.
In 1905 Robert Koch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery and isolation of the causative agent of tuberculosis, which he awarded after 17 years of work in the laboratory.
In 1871, my wife gave it as a birthday present Robert Koch microscope, and from then on he spent whole days at the device, examining various tissues...
Later Robert Koch investigated the causative agent of anthrax; Vibrio cholerae; tuberculosis bacillus (at that time in Germany every seventh person died from tuberculosis). The bacteriologist was close to discovering the role of mosquitoes in transmitting malaria pathogens, but the Englishman Ronald Ross was ahead of him.
« Robert Koch was rightfully considered the head of European microbiologists. A simple rural doctor, he burned with an unquenchable passion for scientific research. Working in a primitive rural laboratory, Koch developed a number of new methods in the study of microbes. Three of them were truly revolutionary. First, Koch began to stain the bacteria. Before him, all researchers observed microbes as colorless, which, given the level of optics of the last century, led to numerous errors, and sometimes simply did not make it possible to see the microbe if its optical density differed little from the optical density of surrounding tissues. Koch used aniline dyes, which selectively stained only microbial bodies, and the researchers saw a completely new world microscopic creatures. Looking ahead, I want to say that from a simple methodological technique, a whole section of microbiology subsequently developed, dealing with the tinctorial properties of microbes (that is, their ability to perceive one color or another depending on the metabolic characteristics of these microorganisms). Thus, by staining bacteria, Koch made it possible to conduct microbiological research at a new scientific level.
Secondly, Koch invented solid nutrient media. They say that this happened purely by accident. Allegedly, Koch forgot a cut boiled potato in the laboratory, and the next morning he discovered colonies of microorganisms on it. The scientist realized that the case had given him a new research method. The fact is that before Koch’s work, microbes were grown in broth, that is, in a liquid medium where it is impossible to separate different microorganisms, and therefore it is very difficult to obtain a pure culture of the pathogen. To do this, it was necessary to resort to complex methodological tricks, which did not always produce an effect. When a mixture of microbes was applied to a solid nutrient medium, each microorganism became the founder of an entire colony of microbes exactly at the place where it fell on the nutrient medium. And in this colony there was a pure type of microbe. By experimenting with various nutritional products (gelatin, agar-agar - a substance isolated from algae, etc.), Koch developed a whole range of solid nutrient media and thereby gave microbiology opportunities that it had not had before.
The third innovation proposed by Koch was the immersion lens. Before Koch, the maximum microscope magnification at which microbes could be examined was 400-500 times. The use of an objective lens immersed in oil made it possible to use lenses with greater curvature, sharply increase the resolution of the microscope and obtain images with magnification of 900-1400 times».
Frolov V.A., Ahead of its time, M., “ Soviet Russia", 1980, p. 166-167.
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