2025

Robert Koch Autograph Letter Signed

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:3,000.00 - 4,000.00 USD
Robert Koch Autograph Letter Signed

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Auction Date:2020 Jul 16 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:15th Floor WeWork, Boston, Massachusetts, 02108, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS in German, signed “R. Koch,” one page, 4.75 x 3, South African govenrment postcard letterhead, March 22, 1897. Letter to Dr. Kohler, director of the Royal Health Authority in Berlin, written from Kimberley, Cape Colony, South Africa. Koch traveled there to assist in fighting the spread of rinderpest, which had ravaged cattle stocks across Africa in the 1890s. He stayed at Kimberley for three months between and 1896-7; he concluded his work on cattle plague and left Kimberly on the day he wrote this letter. In full (translated): "I was lucky to get last minute tickets for passage on the German East Africa line's 'Admiral,' and I will depart from Durban on March 28. I will take the liberty to send you cards along the way from each of the countries we have to pass, in accordance with your request. Unfortunately, they do not have picture postcards yet, culture has not reached them yet." In very good to fine condition, with a stain to the right edge affecting several words of text.

The rinderpest epidemic seriously affected the Transvaal and Northern Cape particularly, bringing socioeconomic disaster to President Kruger's Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. The disease, attributed to imported cattle, was highly contagious, but Koch found that an inoculation of bile from an infected animal safeguarded the rest of the herd. Koch propounded the theory that 'one germ causes one disease—every disease has its specific germ.' Although he could not isolate the specific pathogen, he developed an effective vaccine against rinderpest in February 1897 and stemmed the spread of the cattle plague, which would only reappear about a century later.