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Show KOCH SOLVED GREAT PROBLEM -l " t - ' Jv . : Robert Koch, thb German j Doctor Who Discovered th j Tuberclb Bacillus j OBERT KOCH, A German countrj doctor, startled the world fifty years ago with absolute proof that tuberculosis is caused by tiny germs so small that thousands can ride on speck of dust. And after some of the most celebrated scientists of tha world had sought unsuccessfully to find the germ of tuberculosis and many had denied the disease could be spread by a germ he devised methods whereby it could be cultivated and studied through a microscope. I It was known at that time that ' many varieties of infinitestimal living liv-ing organisms had their abode in the body of man. But that some of them caused disease, while others he-lped man to live, was largely a matter of conjecture. For too first time, h showed the whole scientific world how to separate one of these tiny mites from others not of the same family, and how to grow them in incubators. He proved that certain rod-like orea-tures orea-tures only one eight-thousandth of an inch long caused tuberculosis. When he had this germ in solitary confinement and gave it food it reproduced repro-duced millions more all exactly the same kind. And incontestable evidence evi-dence when these were injected into the bodies of healthy animals, tuberculosis tuber-culosis always resulted. j Without Koch's discovery, an- ! nounced March 24, 1832, mankind would be without a sure footing in its battle against the unseen enemy, j Koch made it possible to test sputum to learn if a person had tuberculosis; ! he proved that each case must come ( from another case, that tuberculosis doesn't just happen. Today, 50 years after Koch's dis-oovery, dis-oovery, tuberculosis associations from eoast to coast are engaged in a campaign cam-paign to find the unknown case which has infected the known case; to teach the sick the simple rules of hygiene which prevent infection in others, as well as to help the patients themselves them-selves get well. |