ROBERT KOCH (1843-1910) Autograph letter signed, 1887 About his colleague's work on pebrine and the donation of works on cholera to the Museum of Hygiene.

ROBERT KOCH (1843-1910) Autograph letter signed "R. Koch" to a colleague. Berlin, "Klosterstr. 36", 11 Nov. 1887. 2 and a half pages in-8 (18 x 11.5 cm). Double sheet. In German. About his colleague's work on pebrine and the donation of works on cholera to the Museum of Hygiene. He gratefully accepts his colleague's kind offer of pebrine material, as he had never before had the opportunity to see reliable pebrine preparations. "Ihr gütiges Anerbieten bezüglich des Pebrine-Materials nehme ich mit Dank an, da ich bis jetzt noch niemals Gelegenheit hatte, zuverlässige Pebrine-Präparate zu sehen”. He thanks him, on behalf of the library of the Museum of Hygiene to which he will hand over the collection, for the literary references on cholera so meticulously collected by Dr Huschke. "Für die Ihrem Briefe beigelegten Blätter, die von Dr. Huschke mit so unendlichem Fleiße gesammelte Choleraliteratur enthaltend, sage ich Ihnen im Namen der Bibliothek des Hygiene-Museums, der ich die Sammlung einverleiben werde, den besten Dank”. He hopes that in this way the work will not have been in vain and will be valued. He also intends to offer them the considerable library on cholera that he himself has built up to date, and which he will try to complete with the means of the museum... Robert Koch, German physician and one of the founders of medical bacteriology, embarked on various research projects (anthrax, sleeping sickness) and finally isolated the tuberculosis bacillus, "Koch's bacillus", in 1882. He then turned to the study of cholera and succeeded in determining its origin and how it was transmitted to humans. His career devoted to medical research and numerous discoveries earned him the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Pebrine is an epidemic disease of silkworms, caused by a fungus, the microsporidia Nosema bombycis. Affected worms are dotted with black spots reminiscent of pepper and have given the disease its name (from the Occitan pebre for pepper). Pebrine caused the ruin of the French silk industry from 1854 to 1867. In France, Louis Pasteur, not least, identified tiny parasites as the cause of the disease.