He studied medicine at the Universities of Bern and Leipzig, earning his doctorate in 1883. From 1884 he was an assistant to surgeon August Socin (1837–1899) at the University of Basel, where in 1886 he became privat-docent for surgery and bacteriology. In 1889 he became an associate professor of surgery at the University of Tübingen. From 1894 he was a full professor of surgery at several universities, including the Universities of Rostock (1894–1901) and Bonn (1907–1926). He died in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife on March 6, 1928.[9][10]
^de Kruif, Paul (August 1959). "Koch – The Death Fighter". The Microbe Hunters. New York: Pocket Books. p. 132. Archived from the original on 2009-02-09. Retrieved 2008-06-19. Another pupil of Koch was the now forgotten hero, Dr. Garré of Basel, who gravely rubbed whole test tubes full of another kind of microbe – which Pasteur had alleged was the cause of boils – into his own arm. Garré came down horribly with an enormous carbuncle and twenty boils – the tremendous dose of microbes he shot into himself might easily have finished him – but he dismissed his danger as merely "unpleasant" and shouted triumphantly: "I know that this microbe, this staphylococcus, is the true cause of boils and carbuncles!"