| Date | 1877 |
| Author | Koch |
| Contribution | b. Published the first photomicrographs of bacteria. |
| Reference | Brock |
| Notes | Koch combined a long-standing interest in photography with his new interest in bacteriology to improve documentation and communication of developments in the latter. He thought that examination of a photograph could be even better for seeing fine detail than direct observation through the microscope. Included in the publication were photomicrographs of anthrax bacilli as stained rods in spleen tissue and unstained spores in culture. The photos were made by the wet-plate method. In the published paper the photos were actual photographic prints, fixed by hand onto each plate on each copy of the journal. In contrast, the photomicrograph made by Donné some 30 years earlier of a protozoan parasite, was a daguerrotype and was published in the form of an engraving because there was no negative (see entry for Donné, 1845; and Campbell, W. C., Trends in Parasitology, 17: 499-500, 2001). |
| Category | Microscopy |
| Pathogen Class | Bacteria |
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