A quiz question · hard
In which two cities did Robert Koch identify and confirm the cholera bacillus in 1883–84?
Koch's Imperial Cholera Commission arrived at Alexandria in August 1883 where he identified the comma-shaped bacterium in cholera victims. The commission then moved to Calcutta from November 1883 to February 1884 to confirm the finding in the disease's endemic Bengali home. Both phases used the same gelatin-plate culture method.
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The German Doctor Who Caught Cholera in a Bottle Robert Koch went to Alexandria in 1883 to find the cause of cholera. He found it on the second day and confirmed it in Calcutta four months later. John Snow had been right thirty years earlier without ever seeing the bacterium.
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