"Day We Discovered Cause of 'White Death'"

by Dr. Howard Markel

Like many young physicians of this era, Koch was struck by an intense fascination with all things microscopic, a fixation some medical critics derided as “bacteriomania.” Unlike his senior colleagues who ascribed epidemics to the contamination of the air with foul or unpleasant emanations, a notion referred to as the miasmatic theory, Dr. Koch sided with those who would become the scientific revolutionaries of their day by asserting and ultimately proving that specific microbes were the cause of specific infectious diseases.

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Question
Use the passage to answer the question.

Which states a cause-and-effect relationship found in the excerpt?

(1 point)
Responses

Doctors challenged Dr. Koch, so he sided with revolutionaries.
Doctors challenged Dr. Koch, so he sided with revolutionaries.

Dr. Koch’s colleagues unwittingly caused disease.
Dr. Koch’s colleagues unwittingly caused disease.

Diseases caused foul or unpleasant emanations.
Diseases caused foul or unpleasant emanations.

Epidemics are caused by specific microbes.

1 answer

The cause-and-effect relationship found in the excerpt is:

Epidemics are caused by specific microbes.

This statement reflects Dr. Koch's belief that specific microbes were the cause of specific infectious diseases, in contrast to the miasmatic theory held by many of his contemporaries.