“The
builders of empires always justified their actions by their beliefs
that they and their cultures were superior to the cultures of those
they conquered… believed in their superiority and strength,
and that their actions were instruments of the divine order.”
—Adam
Jamrozik
Berlin,
October 1905
The
autumn was getting fierce. Extremely early this year. Everything in
the city was soaked and wet. The streets were pierced by the cold
wind that was bothering the leaves turning red and falling down onto
watery roads and occasional tram rails. People were hiding in homes
and shops warmed by the fireplace. Theater posters were unsticking
and hanging down from the post. Ladies in elegant dresses were
scurrying from their coaches to the small street cafes, holding
umbrellas and jumping over the puddles. Berlin was breathing the
fresh smell of the recent evening rain that made most people stay at
home, baking buns with their grandchildren or play music in the
living room.
Robert
Koch, who was never entertained by piano talent or cooking skills of
his wife was exactly where he felt he had to be, in his study in the
Imperial Health Bureau, the building consisting of four stories of
the wisest minds of the German Empire. He was sitting in the room
next to his laboratory, behind the thick wooden door saying
‘Professor of Hygiene, Director of the Institute of Hygiene,
Doctor Robert Koch.’ Next to the door stood the coat hanger
with Koch’s black coat and a bowler hat, resting while he was
as always busy.
Having
inclined over his desk he was diligently scratching the paper,
leaving on it dozens of lines of his fine handwriting. The caption
said ‘The importance of improvement of sanitary facilities in
the public buildings’. From time to time Koch brought his
writing to rest, lifted the paper from the table, closer to the white
dome lamp and reread everything that was on paper. Sometimes he
frowned or thoughtfully stroked his beard and added some words or
crossed some out and rewrote, and after pushing the oval glasses back
to its place, went on writing.
The
room was
absolutely silent but for those scratching sounds he made when
writing. Koch’s new study was a piece of art, every inch of it
was a scientific sanctuary, filled with the best ideas of the epoch,
the genius of the time. In the middle stood the massive wooden table
with stacks of paper and a pile of finest books in bacteriology, half
of them were written by Koch himself. Famous people, including
politicians and doctors were watching him from the paintings hanging
on the walls. Koch was paying his best attention to what he was
writing, just like always.
Totally
dedicating himself to work, Robert did not notice the vast shadow
that appeared on the glass of his door, behind the door there stood a
person that Koch would prefer to never meet in his life. But having
such a great success in developing sciences and human knowledge as he
did one usually does not have a choice. The shadow knocked the door
and came in without waiting for invitation. Koch got distracted from
his writing and looked at his late guest. It was a middle-aged man
wearing the black uniform that looked way more serious than the
police one. Koch pushed back in his chair and said:
‘Please
take a seat. What can I do for you?’.
‘I
believe we can omit the introduction as it is of no importance’,
his voice was deep and calm. The face seemed to have no emotions at
all.
‘Well,
as you know, the Empire is proud about your discoveries in South
Africa and India and your fascinating work on tuberculosis,
rinderpest, malaria, plague and especially anthrax’,
the man looked at all of those honors and medals resting on the walls
around them and continued ‘and as soon as all of these were
properly studied here, in German Empire, and are a very serious
matters we feel the need to have the examples of those bacilli and
tissues of infected
animals as samples not only in the medical laboratories, but also…
in the governmental ones. Especially the bacterium
Bacillus
anthracis’
‘Aren’t
the laboratories of the medical institute the governmental ones? Or
do we understand the word ‘governmental’ in a different
way?’, replied Koch.
‘They
are governmental,’ the man’s voice turned impatient ‘I
was trying to say we need all those samples in the military
laboratories’.
‘And
what made you come here and not just take them from the institute?’
Koch did not seem to be scared.
‘We
need more than just samples of the bacteria. We need to perform the
synthesis of the resilient bacteria
spores that are able to survive for very long periods of time and in
many different environments. In your recent experiment you isolated
and grew Bacillus
anthracis in
pure culture and injected animals with the bacteria, we need the
samples of these isolated and grown bacteria
as we need to study how easily this disease can be transmitted.’
‘I
am too old to believe in the tale that this is for scientific
purposes only and for the good only’, Koch frowned.
‘What
is good for the German Empire is good for you too. Think of
everything you were given. If you refuse to do it, there will be
someone else willing to take this … project and probably this
room’.
Koch
heavily sighed. In the deep of his heart he always knew that this day
will come and he was always scared of it, but hoped that when it
comes there will be others to lead the world in a brave new epoch.
*****
The
first deliberate uses of anthrax as an act of aggression happened
during World War I, seven years after Robert Koch’s death.
There is the evidence that the German army used anthrax to infect
livestock and animal feed traded to the Allied Nations, using the
world’s
first biological weapon.
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