Chapter 17 : The Berlin Professor

Abstract:

Robert Koch's triumph with cholera confirmed to the world that his earlier success with tuberculosis had not been an accident. He soon became one of the most illustrious lights in German science, and his methods and accomplishments attracted visitors from all over the world. Koch's postulates are essentially a series of steps or procedures that should be followed in order to prove that a specific microorganism is the causal agent of a specific infectious disease. As emphasized by Carter, Koch used different criteria for establishing causality over the course of his research, and it was not until 1884 that he published the postulates in the form we use today. A key requirement of the postulates which can often not be fulfilled is that for animal inoculation studies. Koch himself was certainly aware of the difficulties this sometimes presented. The difficulty of developing an adequate animal model to fulfill Koch's postulates is one that has plagued medical researchers ever since Koch's first work. The background of the founding of the Institute of Hygiene is interesting, since it provides insight into how the whole discipline of public health became established.