Koch's Postulates

Hello everyone, 

Today I will be talking about one of the topics from Medical Microbiology ie Koch's Postulate

It was thought back something that induce a disease in a diseased person could transfer it to other person and microorganisms are responsible for disease,but definitive route was not known. Robert Koch gave the hope that concept of infectious disease was given experimental support.

In his early work he studied anthrax a disease of cattle's. By careful microscopy and using special stains Koch proved that bacteria responsible for disease was always present in blood of animals.

Koch's postulates were developed in the 19^th century as general guidelines to identify pathogens that could be isolated with the techniques of the day.

Four criteria that were established by Robert Koch to identify the causative agent of a particular disease, these include:

1. The microorganism or other pathogen must be present in all cases of the disease




2. The pathogen can be isolated from the diseased host and grown in pure culture




3. The pathogen from the pure culture must cause the disease when inoculated into a healthy, susceptible laboratory animal




4. The pathogen must be re-isolated from the new host and shown to be the same as the originally inoculated pathogen.

Koch postulate was monumental step in the study of infectious disease . The postulate not only provides the need for linking and cause of infectious disease but also showed the importance of laboratory culture of infectious agent.

 with love 

-Dixy