Robert Koch was the district medical officer in Wollstein, a small town in the Prussian province of Posen. He also ran a private practice as a country doctor. In 1873 he set up a private laboratory in part of his consulting room. There he studied bacteria, above all the anthrax bacillus. He sent the first version of his article on anthrax to the botanist Ferdinand Cohn in Breslau. Cohn reacted with enthusiasm and invited Koch to present his work in Breslau over several days. A student named Paul Ehrlich met Koch for the first time on this occasion. The article was published in 1876. Today Koch is regarded as a founder of modern bacteriology.