Final answer:
The man who first identified the bacillus that causes Tuberculosis was Robert Koch. His contributions to microbiology, including Koch's postulates and laboratory techniques, have made significant impacts on the diagnosis and understanding of bacterial diseases.
Step-by-step explanation:
Robert Koch was the pioneering scientist who first identified the bacillus that causes Tuberculosis.
Koch was a German physician and one of the main founders of modern bacteriology. His work on tuberculosis is regarded as one of the greatest discoveries of modern science.
Thanks to his innovative laboratory techniques, such as the use of staining and growth media, and the development of Koch’s postulates, he was able to attribute specific diseases to particular microbes.
His assistant Julius Petri created the Petri dish, which remains essential in laboratories today for culturing organisms.
Robert Koch worked primarily with the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium, cultivating it on media such as Löwenstein-Jensen agar, and using special staining techniques to visualize it due to its waxy mycolic acid coat which impedes common staining.
His research has had a longstanding impact on the medical community and diagnostics, confirming that M. tuberculosis was the cause of the chronic granulomatous disease that most often affects the lungs.