| Date | 1877 |
| Author | Koch |
| Contribution | a. Published powerful evidence of the bacterial causation of anthrax, and described life cycle of the responsible bacillus. |
| Reference | Brock (1961) |
| Notes | The work had been announced the previous year, see 1876. The 1877 paper became a classic in the history of medicine, and a translation appears in Brock, 1961. In Bull. Hist. Med. c. 1991, K. C. Carter emphasizes the element of "necessary" causation in this work (essentially the demonstration that the germs are always present in a case of the disease), and downplays the element of "sufficient" causation (essentially the demonstration of transmission by isolation and inoculation of germs). He concedes that "for most medical purposes necessity was more useful than sufficiency", but suggests that sufficiency was the much-sought key to proof of causation. In his view, Koch and Pasteur were, in a sense, complementary in that Koch provided the necessity component and Pasteur the sufficiency component. This is a simplification of Carter's analysis, and the original should be consulted. |
| Category | Causation |
| Pathogen Class | Bacteria |
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