Koch, Robert


Koch, Robert

(1843–1910) German bacteriologist who first introduced the method of making bacterial smears and fixing them with heat. He worked on bubonic plague and sleeping sickness and discovered how they are transmitted. He also developed means of culturing bacteria on AGAR, and rules for properly identifying the agents of various diseases. He is most famous for establishing a series of criteria necessary to establish whether a specific microorganism causes a specific disease. These criteria are known as Koch's Postulates:
  1. the microorganisms must be present in every case of the disease.
  2. the microorganisms must be isolated from the diseased organism and grown in culture in vitro.
  3. the disease must be reproduced when a pure culture is reintroduced to a nondiseased, susceptible host.
  4. the microorganism must be recoverable from the experimentally infected host.

Koch,

Robert, German bacteriologist and Nobel laureate, 1843-1910. Koch bacillus - (1) a species that causes tuberculosis. Synonym(s): Mycobacterium tuberculosis; - (2) a species that causes cholera. Synonym(s): Vibrio choleraeKoch blue bodies - schizonts of Theileria parva, the causative agent of East Coast fever.Koch law - Synonym(s): Koch postulatesKoch old tuberculinKoch original tuberculinKoch phenomenon - infection immunity.Koch postulates - to establish the specificity of a pathogenic microorganism, it must be present in all cases of the disease; inoculations of its pure cultures must produce disease in animals, and from these it must be again obtained and be propagated in pure cultures. Synonym(s): Koch lawKoch-Weeks bacillus - a species found in the respiratory tract; causes acute respiratory infections. Synonym(s): Haemophilus influenzae; Weeks bacillus