Important: Safety Warning
This page gives advice for salvaging or disguising food that has begun to spoil. Spoiled food can carry dangerous bacteria and toxins that no washing, soaking, or seasoning removes; it should be discarded.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Koch
ROBERT (kōh), a German bacteriologist; born in Klausthal, in the Harz Mountains, Dec. 11, 1843. He studied medicine at Göttingen, receiving his doctor's degree in 1866. In 1879 he had begun his investigations of the causes of consumption, and on March 24, 1882, he announced the discovery of the tubercle bacillus before the Physiological Society of Berlin. In 1883 he was made a privy-councilor and placed in charge of the German expedition sent to Egypt and India to investigate the causes of cholera. This journey resulted in the discovery of the comma bacillus, or cholera germ, in May, 1884. He was rewarded with a gift of $25,000 by the government, and imperial titles and honors were showered upon him. In 1885 he was appointed a professor in the University of Berlin, the new chair of hygiene being created for him, and director of the Hygienic Institute. In 1901 he announced his conclusion that meat from tuberculous cattle may be safely eaten. He died May 27, 1910.