A GREAT SCIENTIST.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 829, 30 May 1910, Page 7

A GREAT SCIENTIST.

DEATH OF DR. KOCH. THE STORY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK. By TelegraDli—Preßs Association—Copyright (lire. May 29, 5 p.m.) Berlin, May 28. The dentil is announced of Professor Robert Koch, the famous bacteriologist, aged 67. lie died from heart disease while undergoing the cure at BadenBaden.

WHAT MEDICINE OWES TO KOCH.

Bacteriology, since it became a real science, has been the foundation of much of the progress made in medicine and surgery during tho quarter of a century. In this ad%ance no mime occupies y more illustrious and honoured plftce than that, of Kobert. Koch, who developed and elaborated the discoveries and theories of Lister, Pasteur, and others, and vastly improved the • methods and technique of bacteriological investigation until it has becomo the real science of preventive* medicine. Dr. Koch's entire life has beeu given to painstaking and persevering but bold and original research in medicine, • particularly in the development and extension of our knowledge of the disease-bearing jjerms and their behaviour under all possible conditions affecting human health..This hearty, geuial, spectacled German professor some time ago spent n year and a half of close study in Africa on an island in Lake Victoria studying tho "sleeping sickness." . tor this'strange, fatal malady he claimed to have already discovered a palliative, if not a cure. The Bacillus of Anthrax, Dr. Koch's career as investigator began after his graduation in. 1866 from the University of Gottingen. _ During tne fourteen years following, which he spent as a humble practising physician in several small towns of eastern Prussia, he was studying bacteriology, then a comparatively unknown science. As early as 1576 he had isolated the bacillus of anthrax. That this disease-splenic fever, as it is sometimes called—to which cattle aiid shebp are subject, and which sometimes attacks man, was caused by a bacillus had been demonstrated in 1860 bj the French scientist Davaine. It was Koch, however, who first worked out the life history of this organism and showed conclusively casual relation to the disease itself. The germs of anthrax was the first discovery of those micro-organ-1 isms, of bacilli, which we now know to j bo tho cause of infectious disease in men ! and animals. . Preventive inoculation against disease by the use of a serum or lymph—the development of the .lenner method of vac-1 cination—is a method one might almost I sav originated by Dr. Koeh. Afler his discoveries as to the* nature of the bacil-. lus causing anthrax, and the publication ol some admirable literature on the sub- i iect, Koch dovoted himself to tne study j of the tuberculosis germ and to the so-1 called "comma" bacillus identified with ! the cause of cholera. It was by the discovery and use of tuberculin (populailj : known as "Koch's lymph"), that his fame became wjrld-wide. 'lliis tuberculin which he prepared in 1891, he himself claimed to be useful only in pulmonary tuberculosis, confining its use to the comparatively parlv stages of the carcase. A good deal of undeserved criticism was passed upon Dr. Koch because of the failure of thirf tuberculin to fulfil certain popular hopes. It was used in unsuitable cases, in too large doses, and with- j out certain necessary precautions which : lied been prescribed, aud, of course, failed to work almost miraculous cures expected of .it. As an agent of proved value in certain cases, however, its importance in medicine is unquestioned. Dr. Koch, strange to say, held that tuberculosis in man is a disease distinct from tuberculosis in cattle and other lower animals, and ho denied the I possibility of the transmission of the disj ease from these animals to man. The I 7veat majority of tho medical profession, I however, 'now holds to the contrary view.

Cholera. i Koch's investigations and discoveries, with regard to the cholera bacillus have been the foundation,of investigations carried on in Egypt, in India, and in other Asiatic countries, and have made possible a much more definite knowledge of epidemic cholera conditions and methods of preventing the spread of this dread disease. Wide and generous recognition of Dr. Koch's scientific achievements has been '-riven him, not only by his own, but by other. Governments. In 3SSO he became a member of the force of tlie Imperial Health Office at Berlin. Three vrars later he was made Privy Councillor, and in ISSS he was appointed director of the new Hygienic Institute of the University of Berlin.

He went to Italy. Egypt, and India in ISB4 as the liend of the German Cholera Commission, and on his return was decorated by, the Emperor and presented ivith 100.000 marks in recognition of his services in discovering the cholera bacillus. A year later he went to France as the German Government's official cholera commissioner. In 1891, upon the founding of the Institute for Infectious Diseases in the German capita!, Dr. Koch ivas made director. Twice, in 183G and in 1903, he went to South Africa to study the rinderpest, and in 1897 he took an extended trip through German East Africa to study malaria. In 1005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for achievements in physiology. His best-known works are (giving the English titles): "On Cholera Bacteria," 'On Bacteriological Investigation," and "The Investigation of Pathogenic Organisms."