Response to Koch Reading
It’s pretty cool how Koch did the bulk of his research alone; while scientists like Davaine, Rayer, and Pasteur were well integrated within the broader scientific community of Europe, Koch was making his discoveries in remote Prussian village, which somehow makes them more impressive.
Koch’s engineering genius is also just as impressive - while he was obviously a great scientist, his ability to figure out the best way he could accomplish the goals he had (like giving a mouse a fatal dose of anthrax) with limited equipment and no prior experience was just uncanny.
It’s pretty incredible how such a realization as “one certain kind of microbe causes one definite kind of disease” - something incredibly obvious to us today - was once incredibly unobvious, and Koch was the one who discovered it. He truly jumpstarted microbial research as we know it today.
Wow! He also discovered that some bacteria can form spores, allowing them to survive in inhospitable conditions? Koch was truly visionary.
It’s really unfortunate that even after presenting his wonderful discoveries to the researchers at the University, Koch eventually found himself unrecognized for a period of time, finding himself beaten and returning to Wollstein. It’s one of the unfortunate parts of scientific research - the showmanship and politics involved.
WOW - Pettenkofer swallowed an entire bottle of bacteria, and didn’t get cholera? Even with today’s medical advances and knowledge, that still seems almost unbelievable.
uid: 202008302359 tags: #mcb55