The German physician and bacteriologist Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (1843-1910) devised many bacteriological techniques and established the bacterial causes of a number of infectious diseases.

Robert Koch was born at Clausthal, Hanover, on Dec. 11, 1843, the third of a family of 13. He enrolled in medical classes at the University of Göttingen in 1862, and in 1866 he passed the qualifying examinations. He spent some time in clinical study in Berlin but did not wish to engage in general practice. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, he was accepted for service in the army.

In 1872 Koch was appointed district medical officer at Wollstein. That year he began his bacteriological research with a microscope his wife gave him. Following the publication of some of his early findings, Koch was appointed to the Imperial Health Office at Berlin in 1880. In 1885 he became professor of hygiene at the University of Berlin and...