100th anniversary - Germany / German Democratic Republic 1982

The German Robert Koch Commendation 1982 of the German Democratic Republic For the 1982 National Robert Koch Commendation of the GDR, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the German Democratic Republic issues a multicolour special postage stamp block. Special Cancellation from March 23 to May 22, 1982 Robert Koch (December 11, 1843 to May 27, 1910) On the special postage stamp block on the left half we see the illustration of Robert Koch's head with his own name, above and below the inscription "Discoverer of Tubercle Bacterium by Robert Koch 1882". The right half shows the reproduction of the first page of the Berlin Clinical Weekly Newsletter No. 15 of the year 1882 of April 10, 1882 with the article by Robert Koch "The etiology of tuberculosis (According to a physiological society in Berlin on March 24 cr. held lecture) ". In the seventies of the nineteenth century there was a violent dispute among the leading representatives of medicine and biology about the cause of epidemics. The proponents of miasmatic theory hypothesized that epidemics were caused by an airborne toxic substance released into the air by exhalations from the soil or in response to groundwater fluctuations. In contrast, the contagionists believed that a living pathogen (the contagium vivum) was the cause of infectious disease and transmitted from the sick to the healthy. In addition to the discovery of tuberculosis bacterium was Robert Koch's most significant research his published in 1876 work on the anthrax bacillus as the cause of widespread anthrax anthrax. With the microscopic technique developed by Robert Koch and the solid nutrient media introduced by him, he succeeded in cultivating the anthrax bacillus in pure culture. If he inoculated these a test animal, he could produce the disease experimentally and isolate the pathogen again from the disease. He had simultaneously demonstrated the constancy and specificity of the pathogens with this research. Thus, the dispute was indeed decided in favor of the Kontagonisten, but were still leading physicians, such as Max von Pettenkofer and Rudolf Virchow not yet convinced. They maintained their belief that the plagues are caused by miasms. Robert Koch had made these basic discoveries under primitive conditions in his small laboratory, which he had set up in his medical practice in what was then Wollstein, Pösen province. At that time he was already preoccupied with tuberculosis, which he found helpless in his medical practice on a daily basis. Tuberculosis, dubbed tuberculosis, had a devastating effect on public health and was the leading cause of death.When he was appointed to the Imperial Health Department in Berlin, Robert Koch had much better conditions for his research, devoting himself to discovering the tuberculosis pathogen He was able to solve this problem in the short time until 1882. But the 24th of March, 1882, was not only the day when it became known that there was a tuberculosis virus, and Robert Koch created the basis for the fight against tuberculosis and gave hope to humankind that this devastating plague could become master, and after this lecture became world famous, his workplace became a place of pilgrimage for many researchers and doctors from all over the world, becoming the teacher of many doctors and the founders of a new branch of medicine and medicine Biology, Bacteriology Robert Koch learned many honors at home and abroad; in 1905 he received the Nobel Prize for Medicine.