Topic of the month: Robert Koch

The 24th of March has been commemorated as World Tuberculosis Day for over 30 years as a way of keeping the memory and awareness of tuberculosis alive. On 24 March 1882, exactly 131 years ago, the ‘father of bacteriology’ Robert Koch delivered his famous lecture ‘On Tuberculosis’ to the Physiological Society of Berlin. It caused a worldwide sensation. Already famous at this point in his career, the physician and microbiologist presented to the audience the pathogen, viewed under microscopes and on cultures.

With the discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus, Robert Koch laid the groundwork for the later development of microbiology, hygiene, and immunology. This ground-breaking discovery resulted in him receiving the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1905. Koch presumably only received the award so many years after the fact, because his subsequent assertion that tuberculin provided a remedy to tuberculosis proved false.

Robert Koch would remain dedicated to the fight against tuberculosis for the rest of his life. His demands for good TB control programmes and reform of social living conditions, which underpinned the successful fight against tuberculosis, remain true to this day. They remain a lesson that cannot be forgotten, for tuberculosis still poses a threat to life today. Every year 1.7 million people die from the disease, even though the discovery of antibiotic medicines led physicians to proclaim its demise decades ago. At the DDB, the memory of Robert Koch and his discovery is being kept alive in a wealth of images and writings.

A series of haunting photographs shows everyday life in a tuberculosis day clinic in 1950s Dresden.

The picture from the archives of the Museum Europäischer Kulturen (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) shows the harsh reality faced by soldiers in the First World War suffering from tuberculosis.

Sources:

http://www.rki.de
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Koch