Koch's Syndrome

These days, Koch’s Syndrome (or Koch's Syndrome) is a social psychological malady named after the infamous American billionaires Charles (1935) and David Koch (1940-2019)[1].

The Koch Syndrome combines an obsessive-compulsive need to accumulate money and a deep-seated fear of being found unworthy. Surrounded by spineless underlings all their lives, they've no idea if they've ever really deserved it. The condition was first used by the American columnist Gene Lyons.

But the original Koch's Syndrome or Koch's Disease was just one of the older and now virually forgotten names of tuberculosis.

Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (1843-1910) was a German microbiologist. He is regarded as the founder of modern bacteriology: he identified the specific causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax. He gave experimental support for the concept of infectious disease, which included experiments. His research led to the creation of Koch's postulates, a series of four generalized principles linking specific microorganisms to specific diseases that remain today the 'gold standard' in medical microbiology. For his research on tuberculosis, Koch received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905.

[1] Gene Lyons: Pity the plutocrats in Arkansas Times – 10 April 2014. See here.