Summary:
Describes the life of French Scientist Louis Pasteur. Describes his early life, education and training. Details much of his work and founding of the Pasteur Institute.
Louis Pasture was born on December 27, 1822 in Dole, an eastern French town. Dole is in the region of Jura, France. His father was a tanner and was a former veteran of Napoleon's Grande Armee. He moved to Arbois when he was a young boy. He was not a particularly good student but he liked math and painting.
In 1840, he was given a BA degree from the Royal College in Besancon. Then he went to the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris to study chemistry. He got the award of Master of Science in 1845. Later he got an advanced degree in physical sciences and won his doctor of philosophy in 1847.
In 1848, he became professor of Physics at Dijon Lycee. Then in 1849 he became a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Strasbourg. On May 29, 1849 he married Marie Laurent. Together they had five children and only two survived their childhood.
He did many things in his life that were part of science. He found preventions and treatments of rabies, made other vaccinations, made basic rules for sterilization, he did research on spontaneous generation, he studied of fermentation, and work with silkworm disease.
First of all, he studied fermentation. He received a request from Bigo, from North of France, to study the production of alcohol form beet sugar. The industry was worried because the beer was becoming contaminated after fermentation. He investigated the problem of lactic fermentation and found yeast was an organism that could reproduce itself without free oxygen. This became known as the Pasteur Effect. He discovered that fermentation involved microorganisms and that certain yeasts needed to be used. This discovery was the basis of microbiology. To prevent the souring he found that wine should be heated to 50*C. This heating process is today known as Pasteurization.
Secondly, he studied Spontaneous Generation. He recognized the fact that both lactic and alcohol fermentations were delayed by exposure to air. This led him to wonder whether his invisible organisms were always present in the atmosphere or whether they were spontaneously generated. He was able to show that air contained capsules of living organisms. When they were placed into a nutrient broth the organisms multiplied. When he boiled the broth in a special "Swan Knecked" container, that allowed air in but kept dust out, the broth remained free of living organisms. This experiment helped to shoot down his theory of Spontaneous Generation.
Another thing he did was research silkworm disease. In 1865, he went to study silkworm disease that was killing the silkworms in France. First, he had to move to move to South France because this was the center of silkworm breeding. Three years later he redeemed that he found the parasite that was killing the worms. He advised that the isolate and then kill the infected silkworms.
While doing the silkworm project thing he also did discovered other important thing to our lives. He started the basics of sterilization. He also found each disease is caused by microbes, this started the Germ Theory.
Some of the final things he did that are affecting everyday life today were developing vaccinations for chicken cholera, anthrax, and swine erysipelas. After making all those vaccines he focused his time on rabies. On July 6, 1865, he tested his vaccine for rabies on the first human, Joseph Meister, a nine year old boy ho was bitten by a rabid dog. It was successful and he saved Joseph's life.
In 1888, the Pasteur Institute was established in Paris. Louis Pasteur was he head of the institute until his death on September 8, 1895.
This is the complete article, containing 600 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
