Simply Charly: German physician Robert Koch’s discovery of the anthrax bacillus in 1876 launched the field of medical bacteriology and led to a “golden age” of scientific discovery. Can you give us a brief background of the medical milieu from which Koch made his most important and enduring discoveries?
Peter Duesberg: Koch is the father of “the germ theory” of disease, which is perhaps the greatest ever success story in medicine and biology. Therefore, it is on the mind of every medical researcher and student as a model for new careers. The germ theory has been the background for the discovery of many microbial pathogens and beyond—meaning efforts to blame non-microbial diseases on microbes—as with AIDS now.
SC: Koch’s postulates, his criteria for establishing whether a microbe and a disease share a causative relationship, have been cited by many in your field as being crucial to the advances of modern medicine. What discoveries did his criteria lead him to discover?
PD: Anthrax was one. But even more important, clinically and epidemiologically, was the discovery of the Tuberculosis bacillus, because tuberculosis was a major cause of death in the 19th and early 20th century in Europe and the US. Mortality from tuberculosis has since been much reduced by improved sanitation, nutrition, and, last not least, by antibiotics.
SC: Aside from Koch’s own discoveries, what are some of the most important advances (including those you have contributed) we’ve made thanks to his work?
PD: The “germ theory of disease” is the sum of it. See Google / Wikipedia for endless examples of pathogenic germs: Syphilis, Pneumococcus, polio, measles, mumps, yellow fever, the plague, the flu, tuberculosis, etc.