Robert Koch (1843-1910)

Robert Koch was born on December 11, 1843 in Clausthal (Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Harz).
He was the third son in a family of thirteen children and his father worked as a miner.

 

  Studies and private life
     
  11.12.1843 Born in Clausthal, Harz
  16.01.1866 Doctorate in Göttingen
  12.03.1866 Passes medical examinations in Hanover
  1870/71 German-French war, duty in military hospitals
  1880 - 1885 Councillor of the government at the Imperial Health Authority in Berlin
  1885 - 1891 First professor for hygiene in Berlin, Friedrich Wilhelm University
  1891 - 1904 Director of the Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases
  1880 - 1910 Full member of the Imperial Health Authority
  10.12.1905 Nobel Prize awarded in Stockholm, Sweden
  27.05.1910 Died in Baden-Baden

Robert Koch suffered a severe heart attack at the beginning of April 1910 in Berlin and died on May 27, 1910 while staying
at a health resort in Baden-Baden. He was cremated there according to his own wishes and his ashes taken to Berlin.

Expeditions and congresses

The multitude of Robert Koch's expeditions to study infectious diseases and the congresses he attended indicate the breadth of his interests and the mobility of the researcher at a time when travelling was rather tedious.

  1883 - 1884 Cholera in Egypt and India
  1885 Major Conference on medical service (Sanitätskonferenz) in Rome
  1896 - 1897 Cattle pest in South Africa
  1897 Plague in India
  1897 - 1898 Plague, malaria, Texas fever, and tsetse disease in East Africa
  1898 Malaria in Italy
  1899 Malaria and quinine in Italy
  1899 - 1900 Malaria in Batavia (Jakarta) and New Guinea
  1901 International Tuberculosis Congress in London
  1901 - 1902 Malaria in Italy and Istria (Brioni Islands)
  1903 - 1904 Coast fever and horse sickness in British South Africa
  1904 - 1905 Tsetse flies and trypanosomes in East Africa (private expedition)
  1906 - 1907 Sleeping sickness in East Africa
  1908 International Conference on Sleeping Sickness in London
  1908 International Tuberculosis Congress in Washington D.C.