Robert Koch

Bacteriologist, born in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, C Germany. He studied at Göttingen, became a physician and surgeon, and settled in Wollstein. He discovered the tuberculosis bacillus (1882), and led a German expedition to Egypt and India, where he discovered the cholera bacillus (1883). He became professor and director of the Hygienic Institute at Berlin (1885), and director of the new Institute for Infectious Diseases (1891). The major figure in medical bacteriology, he was awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.