title: A spirit of scientific rigour: Koch's postulates in twentieth-century medicine.
abstract: This article explores one of a citation classics in medical literature-Koch's postulates. It analyses their creation in the nineteenth century and their popularity in the twentieth century. As a genre of historiography, references to the postulates are anecdotes. In referring to a historical event that never happened, such references serve to remind their audiences of a tradition of experimental medicine that supposedly originated with Robert Koch.
authors.affiliation: Section for Medical Anthropology and Medical History, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1130 Blindern, 0318 Oslo, Norway. Electronic address: christoph.gradmann@medisin.uio.no.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gradmann
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008829:Microbiology / Q000266:history / Q000592:standards*
keywords: Disease causation; Koch's postulates; Medical microbiology