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Louis Pasteur
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{{Infobox_Biography |
subject_name=Louis Pasteur |
image_name=Louis Pasteur.jpg |
image_caption=French
microbiologist and
chemist |
quotation=In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind. |
date_of_birth=
December 27,
1822 |
place_of_birth=
Dole, Jura Dole,
Jura (département) Jura,
France |
dead=dead |
date_of_death=
September 28,
1895 |
place_of_death=
Saint-Cloud,
Hauts-de-Seine,
Dole, Jura Dole
}}
'''Louis Pasteur''' (
December 27 1822 –
September 28 1895) was a
France French microbiologist and
chemist. He is known most famously for demonstrating how to prevent milk and wine going sour, which came to be called ''
Pasteurization''. He is scientifically notable and known for the experiments confirming the
germ theory of disease and his
vaccinations, most notably the first vaccine against
rabies. He also made many discoveries in the field of chemistry, most notably the asymmetry of crystals.
Early life
Pasteur was born in
Dole, Jura Dole (also Ole) in the
Jura (département) Jura region of
France, and grew up in the town of Arbois. His father, Jean Pasteur, was a tanner and a veteran of the
Napoleonic wars. Louis' aptitude was recognised by his college headmaster, who recommended that the young man apply for the
École Normale Supérieure, which accepted him. After serving briefly as professor of
physics at
Dijon Lycee in
1848, he became professor of chemistry at
Strasbourg University, where he met and married
Marie Laurent, daughter of the university's rector in
1849. Together they had five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood. Throughout his life, Louis Pasteur remained a member of the
Roman Catholic Church Catholic Church.
Work on chirality and the polarization of light
In Pasteur's early works as a
chemist, he resolved a problem concerning the nature of
tartaric acid (
1849). A solution of this compound derived from living things (specifically, wine lees) rotated the plane of
polarization of light passing through it. The mystery was that tartaric acid, derived by
chemical synthesis, had no such effect, even though its reactions were identical and its elemental composition was the same.
Image:Ppolarz.jpg thumb|220px|right|Pasteur's experiment proved [[tartaric acid|paratartrate does not rotate polarized light while
tartrate does.]]
Upon examination of the minuscule
crystals of tartaric acid, Pasteur noticed, the crystals came in two asymmetric forms that were mirror images of one another. Tediously sorting the crystals by hand gave two forms of tartaric acid: solutions of one form rotated polarised light clockwise, while the other form rotated light counterclockwise. An equal mix of the two had no polarizing effect on light. Pasteur correctly deduced the tartaric acid molecule was asymmetric and could exist in two different forms that resemble one another as would left- and right-hand gloves. As the first demonstration of
chirality (chemistry) chiral molecules, it was quite an achievement, but Pasteur then went on to his more famous work in the field of biology/medicine.
Image:Pcrstals.jpg thumb|250px|left|Pasteur separated the left and right [[crystal shapes from each other to form two piles of crystals; in solution one form
rotated light to the left, the other to the right while an equal mixture of the two forms cancels each other's rotation. Hence, the mixture does not rotate
polarized light.]]
Pasteur's doctoral thesis on
crystallography garnered him a position of professor of chemistry at the ''Faculté'' (College) of
Strasbourg.
In
1854, he was named Dean of the new College of Science in
Lille. In
1856, he was made administrator and director of scientific studies of the
École Normale Supérieure.
Germ theory
Louis Pasteur demonstrated that the
fermentation process is caused by the growth of
microorganisms, and that the growth of microorganisms in nutrient broths is not due to
spontaneous generation.
Image:Ballon.gif thumb|right|Modified version of [[florence flask ''(Swan flask)'' made by Pasteur in his experiment for disproving spontaneous generation theory.]]
He exposed boiled broths to air in vessels that contained a filter to prevent all particles from passing through to the growth medium, and even in vessels with no filter at all, with air being admitted via a long tortuous tube that would not allow dust particles to pass. Nothing grew in the broths; therefore, the living organisms that grew in such broths came from outside, as spores on dust, rather than spontaneously generated within the broth. Thus, Pasteur dealt the death blow to the
theory of spontaneous generation and supported germ theory.
While Pasteur did not develop
germ theory (
Girolamo Fracastoro,
Agostino Bassi,
Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle Friedrich Henle and others had suggested it earlier), he conducted experiments that clearly indicated its correctness and managed to convince most of
Europe it was true.
Image:Lou_p.gif thumb|left|Louis Pasteur and his device for germ experiment.
Pasteur's research also showed that some microorganisms contaminated fermenting beverages. With this established, he invented a process in which liquids such as milk were heated to kill all bacteria and molds already present within them. He and
Claude Bernard completed the first test on
April 20,
1862. This process was soon afterwards known as
pasteurization.
Beverage contamination led Pasteur to conclude that microorganisms infected animals and humans as well. He proposed preventing the entry of microorganisms into the human body, leading
Joseph Lister to develop
antiseptic methods in
surgery.
In
1865, two parasitic diseases called
pébrine and
flacherie were killing great numbers of
silkworms. Pasteur worked several years proving it was a microbe attacking silkworm eggs which caused the disease, and that eliminating this microbe within silkworm nurseries would eradicate the disease.
Pasteur also discovered
anaerobe anaerobiosis, whereby some microorganisms can develop and live without air or
oxygen.
Immunology
Pasteur's later work on diseases included work on chicken
cholera. During this work, a culture of the responsible
bacterium bacteria had spoiled and failed to induce the disease in some
chickens he was infecting with the disease. Upon reusing these healthy chickens, Pasteur discovered that he could not infect them, even with fresh bacteria; the weakened bacteria had caused the chickens to become
immune to the disease, although they had not actually caused the disease.
This discovery was serendipitous. His assistant
Charles Chamberland had been instructed to inoculate the chickens after Pasteur went on holiday. Chamberland failed to do this, but instead went on holiday himself. On his return, the month old cultures made the chickens unwell, but instead of the infection being fatal, as usual, the chickens recovered completely. Chamberland assumed an error had been made, and wanted to discard the apparently faulty culture out when Pasteur stopped him. Pasteur guessed the recovered animals now might be immune to the disease, as were the animals at
Eure-et-Loir that had recovered from anthrax.
In the
1870s, he applied this immunization method to
anthrax, which affected
cows cattle, and aroused interest in combating other diseases.
Image:Tableau Louis Pasteur.jpg thumb|300px|Louis Pasteur in his laboratory, painting by [[Albert Edelfelt|A. Edelfeldt in
1885.]]
Pasteur publically claimed he had made the anthrax vaccine by exposing the bacilus to oxygen. His laboratory notebooks, now in the
Bibliotheque Nationale in
Paris, in fact show Pasteur used the method of rival
Jean-Joseph-Henri Toussaint, a
Toulouse veterinary surgeon, to create the anthrax vaccine. This method used the oxidizing agent
potassium dichromate. Pasteur's oxygen method did eventually produce a vaccine but only after he had been awarded a
patent on the production of an anthrax vaccine.
The notion of a weak form of a disease causing immunity to the virulent version was not new; this had been known for a long time for
smallpox. Inoculation with smallpox was known to result in far less scarring, and greatly reduced mortality, in comparison to the naturally acquired disease.
Edward Jenner had also discovered
vaccination, using
cowpox to give cross-immunity to smallpox, and by Pasteur's time this had generally replaced the use of actual smallpox material in inoculation. The difference with chicken cholera and anthrax was that the weakened form of the disease organism had been ''generated artificially'', and so a naturally weak form of the disease organism did not need to be found.
This discovery revolutionized work in infectious diseases, and Pasteur gave these artificially weakened diseases the generic name of ''
vaccines'', to honour Jenner's discovery. Pasteur produced the first vaccine for
rabies by growing the virus in rabbits, and then weakening it by drying the affected nerve tissue.
The rabies vaccine was initially created by
Emile Roux, a French doctor and a colleague of Pasteur who had been working with a killed vaccine produced by desiccating the spinal cords of infected rabbits. The vaccine had only been tested on eleven dogs before its first human trial.
This vaccine was first used on 9-year old
Joseph Meister, on
July 6,
1885, after the boy was badly mauled by a rabid dog. This was done at some personal risk for Pasteur, since he was not a licensed physician and could have faced prosecution for treating the boy. Fortunately, the treatment proved to be a spectacular success, with Meister avoiding the disease; thus, Pasteur was hailed as a hero and the legal matter was not pursued. The treatment's success laid the foundations for the manufacture of many other vaccines. The first of the
Pasteur Institutes was also built on the basis of this achievement.
Honors and final days
Image:Pasteur.jpg thumb|right|Louis Pasteur portrait in his later years.
Pasteur won the
Leeuwenhoek medal,
microbiology's highest honor, in
1895.
He died in 1895, near Paris, from complications of a series of strokes that had started in
1868. He was buried in the
Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral of Notre Dame, but his remains were soon placed in a crypt in the
Institut Pasteur, Paris.
Legacy
Pasteur's method of immunization was effective and was employed by many other physicians, eventually leading to the eradication of
typhus and
polio as threats. Pasteurization led to the elimination of contaminated milk and other drinks as sources of disease. In fact, Pasteur inaugurated the modern age of
medicine, leading to an increase in the human life span and a surprising population explosion. Accordingly, he has been hailed as the "Father of Microbiology" and a "Benefactor of Humanity."
Impact crater Craters on
Mars (planet) Mars and the
Moon are named in his honor. In popular culture, Pasteur is the
eponym eponymous French scientist, his name appearing in science fiction shows like
Star Trek. A biographical film of his life has also been made, entitled ''
The Story of Louis Pasteur''.
Miscellaneous facts
One of the few streets in
Saigon,
Vietnam that has not been renamed since colonial times is named in honor of Pasteur.
Also a square in
Tehran,
Iran is named in honor of Pasteur. In addition, a street in Jaffa, Israel, is named after Pasteur.
External links
{{wikiquote}}
-
Biography and Pictures
-
AMBAFrance-ca.org - 'Louis Pasteur' (in English), Embassy of France in Canada
-
Pasteur.fr - 'The
Institut Pasteur: Foundation Dedicated to the prevention and treatment of diseases through biological research, education and public health activities' (in English)
-
Pasteur.net - 'The Pasteur Galaxy: The Pasteur diaspora',
Association of Pasteur Families
-
Pasteur-Lille.fr - 'Une Recherche d'excellence en biologie et en santé au service de la population et de son environnement' (biography of Pasteur, in French), Pasteur Institute at Lille
-
a modern history sourcebook: Pasteur
Literature
Biographies
*Debré, P.; Forster, E.: ''Louis Pasteur''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998; ISBN 0-8018-5808-9. A biography in English.
*Tiner, John Hudson: "Louis Pasteur: Founder of Modern Medicine". Mott Media, 1990; ISBN 0-88062-159-1 (paperback). A biography
Criticisms
*[1923] ''Pasteur Exposed (previously Bechamp or Pasteur)'' by Ethel Douglas Hume
*[1940] ''The Dream & Lie of Louis Pasteur'' by R. B. Pearson (originally Pasteur, Plagiarist, Imposter)
*''The Curse of Louis Pasteur'' by Nancy Appleton, Ph.D. ISBN 0967233704
*''Pasteur the Plagiarist'' by Dr M.R. Leverson. British Library ref: 07306.h.9.(5)
{{start box}}
{{succession box | title=
List of members of the Académie française#Seat 17 Seat 17Académie française .html">Émile Littré
after=Gaston Paris | years=1881–1895}}
{{end box}}
Category:1822 births Pasteur, Louis
Category:1895 deaths Pasteur, Louis
Category:French chemists Pasteur, Louis
Category:French physicians Pasteur, Louis
Category:Humanitarians
Category:History of medicine Pasteur, Louis
Category:Members of the Académie française Pasteur, Louis
Category:Microbiologists Pasteur, Louis
Category:Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure Pasteur, Louis
Category:National Inventors Hall of Fame Pasteur, Louis
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