100th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize to Robert Koch - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 2005 - 144 Euro Cent

Robert Koch was born on December 11, 1843, the third of thirteen children of a miner's family in Clausthal in the Harz Mountains. After studying medicine in Göttingen, he worked as a hospital doctor and then took a position as a district physicist in Wollstein / Poznan (now Wolstyn, Poland). His scientific career began with research into the disease anthrax. Koch developed crucial methodological foundations of bacteriological research, such as the use of solid culture media for the cultivation of bacteria or the introduction of micro-photography, whose images contributed significantly to the increase of scientific interest in bacteria in medicine. In 1876, he first succeeded in artificially transferring anthrax to animals and subsequently isolating the pathogen from them. Thus, Koch demonstrated the relationship between a microorganism and an infectious disease. From 1880 Koch worked at the Imperial Health Office in Berlin. There he succeeded in 1882 a discovery that was to save countless lives and established his world fame. Koch found the causative agent of tuberculosis, which at that time was notorious as a "public epidemic." In 1884 he also discovered the cholera pathogen. In 1891 he founded the »Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases« in Berlin, from which today's »Robert Koch Institute« emerged. It is dedicated as a federal agency of research into infectious diseases. With his work, Robert Koch has decisively shaped modern medicine. In 1905 he received the Nobel Prize in recognition of his discoveries in the field of tuberculosis. Robert Koch died on May 27, 1910 in Baden-Baden.