Heroes and Cultural Identity Project
SCE Heroes - Robert Koch
Robert Koch (1843-1910)
"Hero in the fight against infectious diseases"
Robert
Koch was born in Klausthal, Germany in 1843.In 1862 he went to The University
of Gottingen where he Studied mathematics and natural science. His real
passion was medicine, however, being from a poor background he found that
it was too expensive to study.
In 1881 Koch gathered a team of researchers in Berlin and began to Work
on one of the worst diseases of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis (TB).
In 1882 he discovered the Mycobacterium Tuberculosis and also a method
of growing the pure culture. Koch came to the conclusion that the bacilli
that caused human and bovine tuberculosis are not identical and his statement
of this view at the International Medical Congress on Tuberculosis in
London 1901 caused much controversy and opposition but it is now known
that Koch's view was the right one. In 1883 Koch was sent to Egypt to
investigate an outbreak of cholera.
He was appointed Professor of hygiene at the University of Berlin and
Director of the Institute of hygiene at the university.
He was one of the most influential figures within his chosen field and
in 1905 won the Nobel Prize for medicine.
The reason I chose Robert Koch to be my hero is because he was the first
person to isolate to anthrax bacillus and show that a specific organism
was the cause of a disease.
Nahed Abuaouf is a science student following a one year university access course in biological sciences.
