German physician and bacteriologist who discovered the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), the cause of tuberculosis, and many other pathogenic bacteria.
Discovered Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a bacterium that causes tuberculosis
On March 24, 1882, Koch announced that he had discovered the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis, proving that tuberculosis is an infectious disease that spreads from person to person.
This announcement was great news and quickly spread throughout the world. This announcement was great news that quickly spread around the world, because it raised expectations that prevention and treatment would soon be possible now that the cause of tuberculosis, which was feared worldwide as an incurable disease, had been discovered.
In fact, 30 years after the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a number of drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis were developed.
(Heinrich Hermann
Robert Koch)
1843-1910, Germany
physician and bacteriologist
Even today, there is no end to the number of people who suffer from tuberculosis. In order to prevent Koch's great discovery from being wasted, it is important to know about prevention and treatment and to be prepared.
In addition to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Koch also discovered other infectious agents.
One is the bacillus tuberculosis, the cause of the anthrax epidemic that spread among cattle, pigs, and other livestock in Germany.
We also discovered the cholera bacteria that caused the cholera epidemic in India. Cholera is a terrible disease that causes severe abdominal pain and, in the worst cases, death within a day or two of infection.
For these achievements, Koch is revered as the "father of bacteriology" along with Pasteur, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905.
Once a person contracted a disease, he or she would suffer greatly and then die, and it was believed that the disease was caused by God's punishment.
Koch was a master of research.
He is particularly famous for his invention of a method of growing bacteria on gelatin-coated meat juices. This method allows the same type of bacteria to be grown in one place.
This method developed by Koch is called "pure culture. Thanks to this method, Koch was able to prove that "one bacterium causes one infectious disease. The pure culture method is still very useful today in the discovery of pathogenic bacteria.
It was also Koch who developed the technique of coloring bacteria.














