Louis Pasteur

Louis PASTEUR

1. I was born in France in 1822 in a family of tanners, I entered the Collège d'Arbois in 1837. At my early age I showed little interest in anything but drawing and produced a number of pastels, portraits of my parents and friends, and I was an enthusiastic angler. I continued school where I discovered a passion for science. The director of the college recognized I could do much better and convinced my father and me to try for the École Normale Superieure in Paris. It’s a most prestigious French university where outstanding students are trained for careers in science and letters. So he received his bachelor's degree of science and later a master of science. For a period he was the laboratory assistant to Antoine J. Ballard.

1. In the 19th century, illnesses caused by food and drink represented a significant number of outbreaks and deaths. In 1864, intrigued, I began experimenting with a process that involved heating wine. I found that heat-treated wine killed a large number of the dangerous bacteria responsible for many illnesses.  Moreover, the wine remained safe to drink for a longer period of time. It was the first pasteurization. Later, I developed microbiology and I established that diseases were caused by microorganisms and then I searched for a way to fight them. In 1880, I worked with Emile Roux on a production of a vaccine with attenuated virulence, for fighting the illness of rabies. We suspended sections of spinal cord from rabid rabbits inside flasks to dry in a moisture-free atmosphere. We realized that the virulence gradually declined until disappearing. Then, we injected these spinal cord sections into rabid dogs, they did not develop rabies. We had created the vaccine.

1. The 19th century really began in 1815 with the fall of Napoleon’s empire. After the defeat of Napoleon, France was greatly affected by the terror and the war led by Napoleon. The monarchy was restored and it was Louis XVIII one of Louis XVI’s brothers who took power. To summarize the 19th century there was a succession of changes in political régime in France.

1. People were really grateful. If he hadn’t died six years before the first Nobel Prize was won, he would probably have got it.
2. Without their invention the world would not have discovered stereochemistry, pasteurization it was very important currently. The world doesn’t know about the existence of microbes ! Certain deadly diseases of the time are not more dangerous part thanks to me.

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