Talk:Koch's postulates
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[edit] Older comments
Note:
I am currently away from my reference books at my home and will fix the above text as soon as I am able.
[edit] Postulates
I don't really understand this. Does the second postulate say that the pathogen must be able to be grown in a a pure culture, or this this merely a step before postulate 3? Also, my biology textbook thinks that postulate 4 continues with the two cultures being shown to be identical. Any advice from knowledgeable persons is much appreciated! Thanks. -- postglock 16:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
There is some information here regarding the example of leprosy not being able to be grown in a pure culture. I am still unsure of the implications though. I suppose it suggests Koch's postulates are just that, postulates with exemptions, not laws? -- postglock 17:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
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- they are postulates, not laws. I have updated the article with a little more information, as there are always exceptions to rules... --Grcampbell 19:43, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
There are multiple variants of the postulates on the Internet, some more coherent than others. Which is the original? Here is one sample:
- The organism must be found in all animals suffering from the disease but not in healthy animals.
- The organism must be isolated from a diseased animal and grown in pure culture.
- The cultured organism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy animal.
- The organism must be isolated again from the animal into which it was introduced.
Could someone who has Koch's 1890 paper please check this for us? --Una Smith 15:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
- I've got access to the paper, but it's not translated and Ich spreche Deutsch nicht so gut. MastCell Talk 17:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
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- MastCell, without translating, does the paper match the German wikipedia version of Koch's (1890) postulates? How about we get a translation of their "modern" postulates? --Una Smith 20:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
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- In Inventing the Aids Virus (1996), German author Peter Duesberg writes that in 1884 Koch published a paper on tuberculosis that “spelled out the key criteria for proving a microbe guilty of causing a disease." Duesberg states them in English as follows:
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- "First, the germ must be found growing abundantly [my italics] in every patient and every diseased tissue.
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- Second, the germ must be isolated and grown in the laboratory.
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- Third, the purified germ must cause the disease again in another host.”
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- If asymptomatic carriers don't have the germ in abundance then the postulates hold for them too. Although I'm not a scientist, I suspect this is indeed the case.
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- Regarding cholera, Duesberg writes that Koch isolated the correct bacterium, but couldn't induce the disease in test animals, and so used statistical correlations as proof instead of laboratory results. Duesberg theorizes that Koch used animals that had been vaccinated by natural infection. Presumably natural infection results in vaccination in many animals and people, thus making them asymptomatic carriers. Scientists have since induced cholera in unimmunized animals, Duesberg writes. Eye.earth 21:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
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- I would rephrase that by replacing cautiously with strictly. Eye.earth 22:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
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It appears this section is being adjusted to oppose Duesberg rather than to provide information on Koch's postulates.Nukeh (talk) 07:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's been "adjusted", in keeping with Wikipedia's policies, to avoid giving undue weight to a fringe view which is already covered in great detail elsewhere on Wikipedia. MastCell Talk 21:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Can you explain to me why an HPC plus HIV contaminated needle stick is treated as an HPC stick? Duesberg's "weight", as you cite above is not "none". Weight = 0, is a mathematical / physics concept. If you mean Duesberg is wrong, you might be right. But that is not for us to decide as editors. I still assert that a discussion of Duesberg and HIV=AIDS has no place behind an article on Koch's postulates. This indicates a biased agenga to fix-up Koch for referencing from other articles in WP.Nukeh (talk) 19:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Hello
I've changed the text (see history) to say he abandoned the second part of the fiorst postulate. I.E. the organism must still be in all affected animals, but not neccesari;y absent in healthy one. Rich Farmbrough 23:18 3 March 2006 (UTC).
[edit] References
This is a stray, I don't know where it belongs. --Una Smith 21:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
- Koch R. Über die Ätiologie der Tuberkulose. In: "Verhandlungen des Kongresses für Innere Medizin. Erster Kongress, Wiesbaden 1882".
[edit] Bias
This article appears to have been adjusted such that anyone investigating HIV=AIDS theories would find nothing here for support. Nukeh (talk) 07:09, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean that Koch's postulates (today) are the same as Koch's postulates (when he wrote) from the proper historical perspective? Or do you mean that anyone who believes there is the very slightest question as to whether HIV = AIDS would find nothing here? If the latter is what you mean to imply, then why do Duesberg's views get mentioned on this article's discussion pages? If Koch's postulates change over time, then I suggest we disambiguate into the historic Koch's postulates (this article) and place modern modifications of Koch elsewhere.
Please try to follow this analogy: If one changes a single note in a Mozart piece, it is no longer Mozart. As one changes a large number of his notes in a musical piece, the work becomes substantialy different to the point that it might be considered a new work. The same would hold true in mathematics, where, in fact, changing a single 'note' is probably an error. Biology is not as solid as mathematics except in the historical perspective, where historians (editors like us) do not change the original work, whether it is right or wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nukeh (talk • contribs) 18:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC) Nukeh (talk) 18:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC) neat bot! Nukeh (talk) 18:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
- This talk page is intended for discussion of concrete and specific improvements to this article. I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest in that regard. AIDS denialism is a fringe view which is already given more than its due weight on Wikipedia in the articles dedicated to it; it really has no place here. MastCell Talk 22:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
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- The name "Duesberg" is on this discussion page more frequently than "Koch", and I agree that Duesberg is a fringe view, but he has more than his due weight here.Nukeh (talk) 07:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
