[…] a minority, both in the United States and Europe, still resisted the germ theory, believing that Pasteur, Koch, and others had proven that germs existed but not that germs caused disease – or at least that they were the sole cause of disease.
The most notable critic was Max von Pettenkofer, who had made real and major scientific contributions. He insisted that Koch’s bacteria were only one of many factors in the causation of cholera. His dispute with Koch became increasingly bitter and passionate. With a touch of both Barnum and a tightrope walker about him, Pettenkofer, determined to prove himself right, prepared test tubes thick with lethal cholera bacteria. Then he and several of his students drank them down. Amazingly, although two students developed minor cases of cholera, all survived. Pettenkofer claimed victory, and vindication.
It was a costly claim. In 1892 cholera contaminated the water supply of Hamburg and Altona, a smaller adjacent city. Altona filtered the water, and its citizens escaped the disease; Hamburg did not filter the water, and there 8,606 people died of cholera. Pettenkofer became not only a mocked but a reviled figure. He later committed suicide.
Source:
Barry, John M. “The Warriors.” The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. Penguin Books, 2009. 53. Print.
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