The German bacteriologist Robert Koch, 1843-1910. Koch is considered, together with Pasteur, as the founder of modern medical bacteriology. He devised new techniques such as the use of dyes to stain bacteria to make them more visible under the microscope and the use of a new medium (agar gel) to grow cultures of bacilli. He isolated many bacteria responsible for major diseases such as anthrax, a disease of cattle and cholera. His most famous success was the isolation in 1882 of the tubercle bacillus responsible for one in seven of all European deaths at that time. In 1905 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine.