Then, in 1883, Koch achieved the first great triumph of science over disease. Earlier in the nineteenth century, two cholera epidemics had devastated Europe and the United States. As a new epidemic in Egypt threatened the borders of Europe, France dispatched investigators in this new field of bacteriology to track down the cause of the disease. Germany dispatched Koch.
[…]
Both the French and Koch rationally designed an approach, then turned the general tools of the laboratory and bacteriology to a particular target.
The French failed. Louis Thuillier, the youngest member of the expedition, died of cholera. Despite the bitter and nationalistic rivalry between Pasteur and Koch, Koch returned with the body to France and served as pallbearer at Thuillier’s funeral, dropping into the grave a laurel wreath “such as are given to the brave.”
Source:
Barry, John M. “The Warriors.” The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. Penguin Books, 2009. 52-3. Print.
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