Koch announces the cause of tuberculosis

The outbreak had already begun to subside when the handle was removed; the episode supported later work on waterborne disease.

He used carbolic-acid-soaked lint on eleven-year-old James Greenlees’s open leg fracture.

James Greenlees was the patient whose case became central to Lister’s early account of antiseptic surgery.

The dressing was designed to keep damaging microorganisms from multiplying in an open wound.

Greenlees’s recovery strengthened Lister’s later published argument, although a single case could not establish the method alone.

The announcement connected tuberculosis to a specific bacterial agent.

Koch’s findings opened pathways to laboratory detection, although effective treatment took much longer.

The annual 24 March date commemorates Koch’s disclosure rather than the eradication of tuberculosis.

The nine-year-old boy received the first dose of a post-exposure rabies vaccination course after dog bites.

The boy’s case followed animal experiments; he did not develop rabies.