16

UNIT 1 Principles of Microbiology

KOCH'S POSTULATES

The Postulates:

Tools:

1. The suspected pathogen

must be present in all
cases of the disease
and absent from healthy
animals.

Microscopy,
staining

2. The suspected pathogen

must be grown in pure
culture.

Laboratory
culture

Diseased
animal

Red
blood
cell

Healthy
animal

Observe
blood/tissue
under the
microscope

Suspected
pathogen

Streak agar plate

with sample
from either
diseased or
healthy animal

Colonies of
suspected
pathogen

Red
blood
cell

No
organisms
present

Inoculate healthy animal with

cells of suspected pathogen

3. Cells from a pure culture

of the suspected pathogen
must cause disease in a
healthy animal.

Experimental
animals
Diseased animal
Remove blood or tissue sample
and observe by microscopy

4. The suspected pathogen

must be reisolated and
shown to be the same as
the original.

Laboratory
reisolation
and culture

Suspected
pathogen

Laboratory
culture

Pure culture
(must be
same
organism
as before)

Figure 1.19

Kochs postulates for proving cause and effect in infectious diseases. Note that following
isolation of a pure culture of the suspected pathogen, the cultured organism must both initiate the disease
and be recovered from the diseased animal. Establishing the correct conditions for growing the pathogen is
essential; otherwise it will be missed.

infectious diseases of humans and domestic animals. These discoveries led to the development of successful treatments for the
prevention and cure of many of these diseases, thereby greatly
improving the scientic basis of clinical medicine and human
health and welfare (Figure 1.8).

Koch and Pure Cultures

To satisfy the second of Kochs postulates, the suspected
pathogen must be isolated and grown away from other microorganisms in laboratory culture; in microbiology we say that such a
culture is pure. The importance of this was not lost on Robert
Koch in formulating his famous postulates, and to accomplish
this goal, he and his associates developed several simple but
ingenious methods of obtaining and growing bacteria in pure
culture.

Koch started by using solid nutrients such as a potato slice to

culture bacteria, but quickly developed more reliable methods,
many of which are still in use today. Koch observed that when a
solid surface was incubated in air, bacterial colonies developed,
each having a characteristic shape and color. He inferred that
each colony had arisen from a single bacterial cell that had fallen
on the surface, found suitable nutrients, and multiplied. Each
colony was a population of identical cells, or in other words, a
pure culture, and Koch quickly realized that solid media provided
an easy way to obtain pure cultures. However, because not all
organisms grow on potato slices, Koch devised more exacting
and reproducible nutrient solutions solidied with gelatin and,
later, with agarlaboratory techniques that remain with us to
this day (see the Microbial Sidebar, Solid Media, Pure Cultures,
and the Birth of Microbial Systematics).