Question

rite a research paper detailing the principles of Koch's postulates.How did his discoveries contribute to chemotherapy. What are the exceptions to Koch's postulates and how do these apply to your nursing profession.

Answer 1

A German bacteriologists named Robert Koch describes a cause and effect relationship between a bacteria and a disease. The inventor believes is there is a disease exist it must be due to the presence of microbes. Two diseases namely cholera and tuberculosis are described under koch postulates.

The principles go Koch's postulates are :

1) The microbes presence must be positive in all persons suffering from the disease. There must be absence of bacteria in a healthy person.

2) The microbes isolated and can be grow in a pure medium and when it is inoculated into the healthy person all leads to disease.

3) When the disease caused microbes is reinoculated it must resemble to the original microbes that grow in the culture medium.

Chemotherapy a group of drug helps in controlling abnormal proliferation of cancer cells. As per koch postulates a microbe is causative agent for a disease. Cancer is a life threatening condition that results in fatal complications. The bacteria also leads to cause of cancer. For ex Helicobacter pylori has a strong relationship with gastric cancer. Thus koch postulate act as a motivating theory to understand during world war those people exposed to the nitrogen mustard gas has significant reduction in WBC that contributes to the invention of chemotherapeutic drugs.

The exception are : Certain microbes are difficult to grow in an artificial culture media. Pneumonia a disease that affects the lungs can be caused as a result of several pathogens like viral,bacterial or fungi. It is unethical to inoculate microbes into a healthy person knowing that it will cause disease.

Koch postulate is an eye opener for nurses to understand the spread of infection.It is essential for all nurses to understand the chain of infection and to follow standard precaution to break the chain of infection.