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Fri 16 May, 2008 09:49 am
When the nineteenth-century German bacteriologist Robert Koch identified a particular bacterium as responsible for cholera, Max von Pettenkoffer, a physician, expressed his skepticism by voluntarily drinking an entire bottle of the allegedly responsible bacteria. Although von Pettenkoffer took his failure to come down with the disease as a refutation of Koch's hypothesis that cholera was caused by bacteria, Koch argued that von Pettenkoffer had been protected by his own stomach acid. The acid secreted by the stomach, Koch explained, kills most ingested bacteria.
Although von Pettenkoffer took his failure to come down with the disease ??? his failure means ?
I dont understand this line.
can anybody simplify it ?
Robert Koch identified a certain bacteria as the cause for a disease called cholera.
Max von Pettenkoffer thought Koch was wrong. To prove that Koch was wrong, Pettenkoffer drank a whole bottle of the bacteria Koch thought caused cholera.
Pettenkoffer did NOT get cholera after drinking the bacteria.
Pettenkoffer thought that meant he had proved Koch wrong. Pettenkoffer failed to come down with the disease -- he didn't become ill with cholera.
Koch responded by saying that Pettenkkoffer had been protected from the bacteria by his stomach acids.
(Presumably, though it's not in your excerpt, Koch believed that the bacteria entered the body through other avenues -- eyes or nostrils, perhaps.)
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