Our studies have shown that all cases of typhoid of this type have arisen by contact, that is, carried directly from one person to another. There was no trace of a connection to drinking water.
'Die Bekämpfing des Typhus', Veröffentlichungen aus dem Gebiete des Militär-Sanitätswesens, 1903, 21. Quoted in English in Thomas D. Brock, Robert Koch: A Life in Medicine and Bacteriology (1988)