In the 1880s Dr. Robert Koch discovered cholera bacteria, traveling from Germany to Egypt and India during outbreaks. They confirmed the bacteria during autopsies and concluded it was linked to infected water supplies. Koch also discovered that people infected with cholera were protected from it afterwards.
In 1885, Spanish doctor Jaime Ferran, who studied under Louis Pasteur (Koch’s rival), created the first cholera vaccine from working with live bacteria. He did a mass vaccination (50,000 people) during an outbreak in Spain.
Two scientists, Sawtschenko and Sabolotny, experimented with a killed cholera bacteria “broth” in 1893, which prevented cholera but was impractical because it required many doses.
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Video produced by Byron Motion Pictures around 1946 of the U.S. Navy in Calcutta, India to do a controlled experiment using chemotherapy against cholera. (Click the image above to be taken to the video)
