Koch Postulates

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birthday (Sakula 1983) he started his work that was to revolutionise the practice of bacteriology. (Lakhani 1993)

Although Koch was the first to devise a series of proofs to verify the ‘Germ Theory of Disease’, (Madigan et al 2005) it was Louis Pasteur between 1860 and 1864 demonstrated that fermentation is caused by the growth of micro-organisms and that the emergent growth of bacteria in broths was not due to spontaneous generation. (Goering et al 2008) Also John Lister, working in London and Edinburgh in the 1870s, had been linking the existence of micro-organisms with surgical sepsis. As ‘the germ theory of disease’ became more widely accepted, it was realised that infection could be better avoided by preventing bacteria from getting into wounds in the first place. Indeed Pasteur continued Listers’ work on antiseptics this in turn revolutionised further approaches to surgery. (Goering et al 2008)

In 1876 Koch investigated a disease prevalent in the sheep-raising ...

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a wide spectrum of clinical syndromes. (Kaufman & Schaible 2005) It is during this research, and after being offered the directorship of the bacteriological laboratory at the Imperial Health Office in Berlin that he developed new methods to enhance his practice. Staining, dying and the use of agar plates allowed Koch to grow pure bacteria, by introducing these different methods for examining bacteria he virtually laid the foundation of bacteriological techniques. (Sakula 1983)(Hitchens & Leikind 1938) It was also at this time, that Koch developed microscopy and microphotography. Koch had become much renowned in his own country and in 1881 had traveled to England and demonstrated his ...

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