Although forced to earn a living as a country doctor, Koch devoted much of his time to the study of natural history, photography, public health, hygiene, bacteriology, and microscopy. His first successful research project was his 1876 demonstration that a specific bacillus causes anthrax. In 1905 he was awarded a Nobel Prize for the greatest achievement of his career, the discovery of the tubercule bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. During the last years of his life, Koch continued to conduct research that he hoped would lead to a cure for tuberculosis. Two years after his death, Germany's Institute for Infectious Diseases became the Robert Koch
