Part 20

KOCH, ROBERT (1843-1910), German bacteriologist, was born at Klausthal, Hanover, on the 11th of December 1843. He studied medicine at Göttingen, and it was while he was practising as a physician at Wollstein that he began those bacteriological researches that made his name famous. In 1876 he obtained a pure culture of the bacillus of anthrax, announcing a method of preventive inoculation against that disease seven years later. He became a member of the Sanitary Commission at Berlin and a professor at the School of Medicine in 1880, and five years later he was appointed to a chair in Berlin University and director of the Institute of Health. In 1882, largely as the result of the improved methods of bacteriological investigation he was able to elaborate, he discovered the bacillus of tuberculosis; and in the following year, having been sent on an official mission to Egypt and India to study the aetiology of Asiatic cholera, he identified the comma bacillus as the specific organism of that malady. In 1890 great hopes were aroused by the announcement that in tuberculin he had prepared an agent which exercised an inimical influence on the growth of the tubercle bacillus, but the expectations that were formed of it as a remedy for consumption were not fulfilled, though it came into considerable vogue as a means of diagnosing the existence of tuberculosis in animals intended for food. At the Congress on Tuberculosis held in London in 1901 he maintained that tuberculosis in man and in cattle is not the same disease, the practical inference being that the danger to men of infection from milk and meat is less than from other human subjects suffering from the disease. This statement, however, was not regarded as properly proved, and one of its results was the appointment of a British Royal Commission to study the question. Dr Koch also investigated the nature of rinderpest in South Africa in 1896, and found means of combating the disease. In 1897 he went to Bombay at the head of a commission formed to investigate the bubonic plague, and he subsequently undertook extensive travels in pursuit of his studies on the origin and treatment of malaria. He was summoned to South Africa a second time in 1903 to give expert advice on other cattle diseases, and on his return was elected a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1906-1907 he spent eighteen months in East Africa, investigating sleeping-sickness. He died at Baden-Baden of heart-disease on the 28th of May 1910. Koch was undoubtedly one of the greatest bacteriologists ever known, and a great benefactor of humanity by his discoveries. Honours were showered upon him, and in 1905 he was awarded the Nobel prize for medicine.

Among his works may be mentioned: _Weitere Mitteilungen über ein Heilmittel gegen Tuberkulose_ (Leipzig, 1891); and _Reiseberichte über Rinderpest, Bubonenpest in Indien und Afrika, Tsetse- oder Surra-Krankheit, Texasfieber, tropische Malaria, Schwarzwasserfieber_ (Berlin, 1898). From 1886 onwards he edited, with Dr Karl Flügge, the _Zeitschrift für Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten_ (published at Leipzig). See Loeffler, "Robert Koch, zum 60ten Geburtstage" in _Deut. Medizin. Wochenschr._ (No. 50, 1903).

KOCH, a tribe of north-eastern India, which has given its name to the state of Kuch Behar (q.v.). They are probably of Mongolian stock, akin to the Mech, Kachari, Garo and Tippera tribes, and originally spoke, like these, a language of the Bodo group. But since one of their chiefs established a powerful kingdom at Kuch Behar in the 16th century they have gradually become Hinduized, and now adopt the name of Rajbansi (= "of royal blood"). In 1901 the number in Eastern Bengal and Assam was returned at nearly 2½ millions.

KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE (1793-1871), French novelist, was born at Passy on the 21st of May 1793. He was a posthumous child, his father, a banker of Dutch extraction, having been a victim of the Terror. Paul de Kock began life as a banker's clerk. For the most part he resided on the Boulevard St Martin, and was one of the most inveterate of Parisians. He died in Paris on the 27th of April 1871. He began to write for the stage very early, and composed many operatic libretti. His first novel, _L'Enfant de ma femme_ (1811), was published at his own expense. In 1820 he began his long and successful series of novels dealing with Parisian life with _Georgette, ou la mère du Tabellion_. His period of greatest and most successful activity was the Restoration and the early days of Louis Philippe. He was relatively less popular in France itself than abroad, where he was considered as the special painter of life in Paris. Major Pendennis's remark that he had read nothing of the novel kind for thirty years except Paul de Kock, "who certainly made him laugh," is likely to remain one of the most durable of his testimonials, and may be classed with the legendary question of a foreign sovereign to a Frenchman who was paying his respects, "Vous venez de Paris et vous devez savoir des nouvelles. Comment se porte Paul de Kock?" The disappearance of the _grisette_ and of the cheap dissipation described by Henri Murger practically made Paul de Kock obsolete. But to the student of manners his portraiture of low and middle class life in the first half of the 19th century at Paris still has its value.

The works of Paul de Kock are very numerous. With the exception of a few not very felicitous excursions into historical romance and some miscellaneous works of which his share in _La Grande ville, Paris_ (1842), is the chief, they are all stories of middle-class Parisian life, of _guinguettes_ and _cabarets_ and equivocal adventures of one sort or another. The most famous are _André le Savoyard_ (1825) and _Le Barbier de Paris_ (1826).

His _Mémoires_ were published in 1873. See also Th. Trimm, _La Vie de Charles Paul de Kock_ (1873).

KODAIKANAL, a sanatorium of southern India, in the Madura district of Madras, situated in the Palni hills, about 7000 ft. above sea-level; pop. (1901), 1912, but the number in the hot season would be much larger. It is difficult of access, being 44 m. from a railway station, and the last 11 m. are impracticable for wheeled vehicles. It contains a government observatory, the appliances of which are specially adapted for the study of terrestrial magnetism, seismology and solar physics.

KODAMA, GENTARO, COUNT (1852-1907), Japanese general, was born in Choshu. He studied military science in Germany, and was appointed vice-minister of war in 1892. He became governor-general of Formosa in 1900, holding at the same time the portfolio of war. When the conflict with Russia became imminent in 1903, he gave up his portfolio to become vice-chief of the general staff, a sacrifice which elicited much public applause. Throughout the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) he served as chief of staff to Field Marshal Oyama, and it was well understood that his genius guided the strategy of the whole campaign, as that of General Kawakami had done in the war with China ten years previously. General Kodama was raised in rapid succession to the ranks of baron, viscount and count, and his death in 1907 was regarded as a national calamity.

KODUNGALUR (or CRANGANUR), a town of southern India, in Cochin state, within the presidency of Madras. Though now a place of little importance, its historical interest is considerable. Tradition assigns to it the double honour of having been the first field of St Thomas's labours (A.D. 52) in India and the seat of Cheraman Perumal's government. The visit of St Thomas is generally considered mythical; but it is certain that the Syrian Church was firmly established here before the 9th century (Burnell), and probably the Jews' settlement was still earlier. The latter, in fact, claim to hold grants dated A.D. 378. The cruelty of the Portuguese drove most of the Jews to Cochin. Up to 1314, when the Vypin harbour was formed, the only opening in the Cochin backwater, and outlet for the Periyar, was at Kodungalur, which must then have been the best harbour on the coast. In 1502 the Syrian Christians invoked the protection of the Portuguese. In 1523 the latter built their first fort there, and in 1565 enlarged it. In 1661 the Dutch took the fort, the possession of which for the next forty years was contested between this nation, the zamorin, and the raja of Kodungalur. In 1776 Tippoo seized the stronghold. The Dutch recaptured it two years later, and, having ceded it to Tippoo in 1784, sold it to the Travancore raja, and again in 1789 to Tippoo, who destroyed it in the following year. The country round Kodungalur now forms an autonomous principality, tributary to the raja of Cochin.

KOENIG, KARL DIETRICH EBERHARD (1774-1851), German palaeontologist, was born at Brunswick in 1774, and was educated at Göttingen. In 1807 he became assistant keeper, and in 1813 he was appointed keeper, of the department of natural history in the British Museum, and afterwards of geology and mineralogy, retaining the post until the close of his life. He described many fossils in the British Museum in a classic work entitled _Icones fossilium sectiles_ (1820-1825). He died in London on the 6th of September 1851.

KOESFELD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Berkel, 38 m. by rail N.N.W. of Dortmund. Pop. (1905), 8449. It has three Roman Catholic churches, one of which--the Gymnasial Kirche--is used by the Protestant community. Here are the ruins of the Ludgeri Castle, formerly the residence of the bishops of Münster, and also the castle of Varlar, the residence of the princes of Salm-Horstmar. The leading industries include the making of linen goods and machinery.

KOHAT, a town and district of British India, in the Peshawar division of the North-West Frontier Province. The town is 37 m. south of Peshawar by the Kohat Pass, along which a military road was opened in 1901. The population in 1901 was 30,762, including 12,670 in the cantonment, which is garrisoned by artillery, cavalry and infantry. In the Tirah campaign of 1897-98 Kohat was the starting-point of Sir William Lockhart's expedition against the Orakzais and Afridis. It is the military base for the southern Afridi frontier as Peshawar is for the northern frontier of the same tribe, and it lies in the heart of the Pathan country.

The DISTRICT OF KOHAT has an area of 2973 sq. m. It consists chiefly of a bare and intricate mountain region east of the Indus, deeply scored with river valleys and ravines, but enclosing a few scattered patches of cultivated lowland. The eastern or Khattak country especially comprises a perfect labyrinth of ranges, which fall, however, into two principal groups, to the north and south of the Teri Toi river. The Miranzai valley, in the extreme west, appears by comparison a rich and fertile tract. In its small but carefully tilled glens, the plane, palm, fig and many orchard trees flourish luxuriantly; while a brushwood of wild olive, mimosa and other thorny bushes clothes the rugged ravines upon the upper slopes. Occasional grassy glades upon their sides form favourite pasture grounds for the Waziri tribes. The Teri Toi, rising on the eastern limit of Upper Miranzai, runs due eastward to the Indus, which it joins 12 m. N. of Makhad, dividing the district into two main portions. The drainage from the northern half flows southward into the Teri Toi itself, and northward into the parallel stream of the Kohat Toi. That of the southern tract falls northwards also into the Teri Toi, and southwards towards the Kurram and the Indus. The frontier mountains, continuations of the Safed Koh system, attain in places a considerable elevation, the two principal peaks, Dupa Sir and Mazi Garh, just beyond the British frontier, being 8260 and 7940 ft. above the sea respectively. The Waziri hills, on the south, extend like a wedge between the boundaries of Bannu and Kohat, with a general elevation of less than 4000 ft. The salt-mines are situated in the low line of hills crossing the valley of the Teri Toi, and extending along both banks of that river. The deposit has a width of a quarter of a mile, with a thickness of 1000 ft.; it sometimes forms hills 200 ft. in height, almost entirely composed of solid rock-salt, and may probably rank as one of the largest veins of its kind in the world. The most extensive exposure occurs at Bahadur Khel, on the south bank of the Teri Toi. The annual output is about 16,000 tons, yielding a revenue of £40,000. Petroleum springs exude from a rock at Panoba, 23 m. east of Kohat; and sulphur abounds in the northern range. In 1901 the population was 217,865, showing an increase of 11% in the decade. The frontier tribes on the Kohat border are the Afridis, Orakzais, Zaimukhts and Turis. All these are described under their separate names. A railway runs from Kushalgarh through Kohat to Thal, and the river Indus has been bridged at Kushalgarh.

KOHAT PASS, a mountain pass in the North-West Frontier Province of India, connecting Kohat with Peshawar. From the north side the defile commences at 4½ m. S.W. of Fort Mackeson, whence it is about 12 or 13 m. to the Kohat entrance. The pass varies from 400 yds. to 1¼ m. in width, and its summit is some 600 to 700 ft. above the plain. It is inhabited by the Adam Khel Afridis, and nearly all British relations with that tribe have been concerned with this pass, which is the only connexion between two British districts without crossing and recrossing the Indus (see AFRIDI). It is now traversed by a cart-road.

KOHISTAN, a tract of country on the Peshawar border of the North-West Frontier Province of India. Kohistan means the "country of the hills" and corresponds to the English word highlands; but it is specially applied to a district, which is very little known, to the south and west of Chilas, between the Kagan valley and the river Indus. It comprises an area of over 1000 sq. m., and is bounded on the N.W. by the river Indus, on the N.E. by Chilas, and on the S. by Kagan, the Chor Glen and Allai. It consists roughly of two main valleys running east and west, and separated from each other by a mountain range over 16,000 ft. high. Like the mountains of Chilas, those in Kohistan are snow-bound and rocky wastes from their crests downwards to 12,000 ft. Below this the hills are covered with fine forest and grass to 5000 or 6000 ft., and in the valleys, especially near the Indus, are fertile basins under cultivation. The Kohistanis are Mahommedans, but not of Pathan race, and appear to be closely allied to the Chilasis. They are a well-built, brave but quiet people who carry on a trade with British districts, and have never given the government much trouble. There is little doubt that the Kohistanis are, like the Kafirs of Kafiristan, the remnants of old races driven by Mahommedan invasions from the valleys and plains into the higher mountains. The majority have been converted to Islam within the last 200 years. The total population is about 16,000.

An important district also known as Kohistan lies to the north of Kabul in Afghanistan, extending to the Hindu Kush. The Kohistani Tajiks proved to be the most powerful and the best organized clans that opposed the British occupation of Kabul in 1879-80. Part of their country is highly cultivated, abounding in fruit, and includes many important villages. It is here that the remains of an ancient city have been lately discovered by the amir's officials, which may prove to be the great city of Alexander's founding, known to be to the north of Kabul, but which had hitherto escaped identification.

The name of Kohistan is also applied to a tract of barren and hilly country on the east border of Karachi district, Sind.

KOHL. (1) The name of the cosmetic used from the earliest times in the East by women to darken the eyelids, in order to increase the lustre of the eyes. It is usually composed of finely powdered antimony, but smoke black obtained from burnt almond-shells or frankincense is also used. The Arabic word _kohl_, from which has been derived "alcohol," is derived from _kahala_, to stain. (2) "Kohl" or "kohl-rabi" (cole-rape, from Lat. _caulis_, cabbage) is a kind of cabbage (q.v.), with a turnip-shaped top, cultivated chiefly as food for cattle.

KOHLHASE, HANS, a German historical figure about whose personality some controversy exists. He is chiefly known as the hero of Heinrich von Kleist's novel, _Michael Kohlhaas_. He was a merchant, and not, as some have supposed, a horsedealer, and he lived at Kölln in Brandenburg. In October 1532, so the story runs, whilst proceeding to the fair at Leipzig, he was attacked and his horses were taken from him by the servants of a Saxon nobleman, one Günter von Zaschwitz. In consequence of the delay the merchant suffered some loss of business at the fair and on his return he refused to pay the small sum which Zaschwitz demanded as a condition of returning the horses. Instead Kohlhase asked for a substantial amount of money as compensation for his loss, and failing to secure this he invoked the aid of his sovereign, the elector of Brandenburg. Finding however that it was impossible to recover his horses, he paid Zaschwitz the sum required for them, but reserved to himself the right to take further action. Then unable to obtain redress in the courts of law, the merchant, in a _Fehdebrief_, threw down a challenge, not only to his aggressor, but to the whole of Saxony. Acts of lawlessness were soon attributed to him, and after an attempt to settle the feud had failed, the elector of Saxony, John Frederick I., set a price upon the head of the angry merchant. Kohlhase now sought revenge in earnest. Gathering around him a band of criminals and of desperadoes he spread terror throughout the whole of Saxony; travellers were robbed, villages were burned and towns were plundered. For some time the authorities were practically powerless to stop these outrages, but in March 1540 Kohlhase and his principal associate, Georg Nagelschmidt, were seized, and on the 22nd of the month they were broken on the wheel in Berlin.

The life and fate of Kohlhase are dealt with in several dramas. See Burkhardt, _Der historische Hans Kohlhase und H. von Kleists Michael Kohlhaas_ (Leipzig, 1864).

KOKOMO, a city and the county-seat of Howard county, Indiana, U.S.A., on the Wildcat River, about 50 m. N. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1890), 8261; (1900), 10,609 of whom 499 were foreign-born and 359 negroes; (1910 census), 17,010. It is served by the Lake Erie & Western, the Pittsburg Cincinnati Chicago & St Louis, and the Toledo St Louis & Western railways, and by two interurban electric lines. Kokomo is a centre of trade in agricultural products, and has various manufactures, including flint, plate and opalescent glass, &c. The total value of the factory product increased from $2,062,156 in 1900 to $3,651,105 in 1905, or 77.1%; and in 1905 the glass product was valued at $864,567, or 23.7% of the total. Kokomo was settled about 1840 and became a city (under a state law) in 1865.

KOKO-NOR (or KUKU-NOR) (_Tsing-hai_ of the Chinese, and _Tso-ngombo_ of the Tanguts), a lake of Central Asia, situated at an altitude of 9975 ft., in the extreme N.E. of Tibet, 30 m. from the W. frontier of the Chinese province of Kan-suh, in 100° E. and 37° N. It lies amongst the eastern ranges of the Kuen-lun, having the Nan-shan Mountains to the north, and the southern Koko-nor range (10,000 ft.) on the south. It measures 66 m. by 40 m., and contains half a dozen islands, on one of which is a Buddhist (i.e. Lamaist) monastery, to which pilgrims resort. The water is salt, though an abundance of fish live in it, and it often remains frozen for three months together in winter. The surface is at times subject to considerable variations of level. The lake is entered on the west by the river Buhain-gol. The nomads who dwell round its shores are Tanguts.

KOKSHAROV, NIKOLAÍ IVANOVICH VON (1818-1893), Russian mineralogist and major-general in the Russian army, was born at Ust-Kamenogork in Tomsk, on the 5th of December 1818 (O.S.). He was educated at the military school of mines in St Petersburg. At the age of twenty-two he was selected to accompany R. I. Murchison and De Verneuil, and afterwards De Keyserling, in their geological survey of the Russian Empire. Subsequently he devoted his attention mainly to the study of mineralogy and mining, and was appointed director of the Institute of Mines. In 1865 he became director of the Imperial Mineralogical Society of St Petersburg. He contributed numerous papers on euclase, zircon, epidote, orthite, monazite and other mineralogical subjects to the St Petersburg and Vienna academies of science, to Poggendorf's _Annalen_, Leonhard and Brown's _Jahrbuch_, &c. He also issued as separate works _Materialen zur Mineralogie Russlands_ (10 vols., 1853-1891), and _Vorlesungen über Mineralogie_ (1865). He died in St Petersburg on the 3rd of January 1893 (O.S.).

KOKSTAD, a town of South Africa, the capital of Griqualand East, 236 m. by rail S.W. of Durban, 110 m. N. by W. of Port Shepstone, and 150 m. N. of Port St John, Pondoland. Pop. (1904), 2903, of whom a third were Griquas. The town is built on the outer slopes of the Drakensberg and is 4270 ft. above the sea. Behind it Mount Currie rises to a height of 7297 ft. An excellent water supply is derived from the mountains. The town is well laid out, and possesses several handsome public buildings. It is the centre of a thriving agricultural district and has a considerable trade in wool, grain, cattle and horses with Basutoland, Pondoland and the neighbouring regions of Natal. The town is named after the Griqua chief Adam Kok, who founded it in 1869. In 1879 it came into the possession of Cape Colony and was granted municipal government in 1893. It is the residence of the Headman of the Griqua nation. (See KAFFRARIA and GRIQUALAND.)

KOLA, a peninsula of northern Russia, lying between the Arctic Ocean on the N. and the White Sea on the S. It forms part of the region of Lapland and belongs administratively to the government of Archangel. The Arctic coast, known as the Murman coast (Murman being a corruption of Norman), is 260 m. long, and being subject to the influence of the North Atlantic drift, is free from ice all the year round. It is a rocky coast, built of granite, and rising to 650 ft., and is broken by several excellent bays. On one of these, Kola Bay, the Russian government founded in 1895 the naval harbour of Alexandrovsk. From May to August a productive fishery is carried on along this coast. Inland the peninsula rises up to a plateau, 1000 ft. in general elevation, and crossed by several ranges of low mountains, which go up to over 3000 ft. in altitude. The lower slopes of these mountains are clothed with forest up to 1300 ft., and in places thickly studded with lakes, some of them of very considerable extent, e.g. Imandra (330 sq. m.), Ump-jaur, Nuorti-järvi, Guolle-jaur or Kola Lake, and Lu-jaur. From these issue streams of appreciable magnitude, such as the Tuloma, Voronya, Yovkyok or Yokanka, and Ponoi, all flowing into the Arctic, and the Varsuga and Umba, into the White Sea. The area of the peninsula is estimated at 50,000 sq. m.

See A. O. Kihlmann and Palmén, _Die Expedition nach der Halbinsel Kola_ (1887-1892) (Helsingfors); A. O. Kihlmann, _Bericht einer naturwissenschaftlichen Reise durch Russisch-Lappland_ (Helsingfors, 1890); and W. Ramsay, _Geologische Beobachtungen auf der Halbinsel Kola_ (Helsingfors, 1899).