Koch
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
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.
ROBERT (kōh), a German (kōh), a German bacteriologist; born in Klausthal, in the Klausthal, in the Harz Mountains, Dec. 11, 1843. He 11, 1843. He studied medicine at Göttingen, receiving Göttingen, receiving his doctor's degree in 1866. In 1879 he in 1866. In 1879 he had begun his investigations of the nvestigations of the ion, and on March 24, causes of consumption, and on March 24, 1882, he announced the discovery of the the discovery of the tubercle bacillus before the Physiological fore the Physiological Society of Berlin. In 1883 he was made In 1888 he was made a privy-councilor and placed in charge and placed in charge of the German expedition sent to Egypt edition sent to Egypt and India to investigate the causes of stigate the causes of rney resulted in the cholera. This journey resulted in the discovery of the comma bacillus, or comma bacillus, or cholera germ, in May, 1884. He was May, 1884. He was rewarded with a gift of $25,000 by the ft of $25,000 by the government, and imperial titles and honmperial titles and honors were showered upon him. In 1885 upon him. In 1885 he was appointed a professor in the Uniprofessor in the University of Berlin, the new chair of hythe new chair of hygiene being created for him, and dited for him, and director of the Hygienic Institute. In ygienic Institute. In 1901 he announced his conclusion that d his conclusion that meat from tuberculous cattle may be lous cattle may be safely eaten. He died May 27, 1910. died May 27, 1910
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's, writing in 1921, ends with Koch's 1901 conclusion "that meat from tuberculous cattle may be safely eaten" — the claim that bovine tuberculosis did not pass to people. That was his most consequential mistake: Mycobacterium bovis does infect humans, and compulsory milk pasteurization and cattle testing through the twentieth century cut a large source of childhood tuberculosis in the industrialised world. The entry also omits the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine he received in 1905, and the failure of tuberculin as a cure, though it survives as the skin test for infection. His bacillus is still with us: the WHO marks March 24, the date of his 1882 announcement, as World TB Day, and tuberculosis still kills over a million people a year, now with drug-resistant strains.
Written for this edition, 2026.