Pasteur was the son of a tanner. He spent his childhood in the small French village of Arbois. As a child, Louis was fond of drawing, was an excellent and ambitious student. He graduated from college, and then - a pedagogical school. A career as a teacher attracted Pasteur. He enjoyed teaching and was assigned as a teacher's assistant very early, before receiving special education. But Louis' fate changed dramatically when he discovered chemistry. Pasteur gave up drawing and devoted his life to chemistry and exciting experiments.
Pasteur's discoveries
Pasteur made his first discovery while still a student: he discovered the optical asymmetry of molecules, separating two crystalline forms of tartaric acid from each other and showing that they differ in their optical activity (right and left-handed forms). These studies formed the basis of a new scientific direction - stereochemistry - the science of the spatial arrangement of atoms in molecules. Later, Pasteur found that optical isomerism is characteristic of many organic compounds, while natural products, unlike synthetic ones, are represented by only one of two isomeric forms. He discovered a way to separate optical isomers using microorganisms that metabolize one of them.
With his characteristic keen powers of observation, Pasteur noticed that asymmetric crystals were found in substances formed during fermentation. Interested in the phenomena of fermentation, he began to study them. In a laboratory in Lille in 1857, Pasteur made a remarkable discovery, he proved that fermentation is a biological phenomenon resulting from the vital activity of special microscopic organisms - yeast fungi. By this he rejected the "chemical" theory of the German chemist J. Liebig. Developing these ideas further, he argued that each type of fermentation (lactic acid, alcohol, acetic) is caused by specific microorganisms ("embryos").
Pasteur also discovered that the little "animals" discovered two centuries ago by the Dutch glass grinder Anthony Leeuwenhoek were the cause of food spoilage. To protect products from the influence of microbes, they must be subjected to heat treatment. So, for example, if the wine is heated immediately after fermentation, without bringing it to the boiling point, and then tightly corked, then foreign microbes will not penetrate there and the drink will not deteriorate. This method of food preservation, discovered in the 19th century, is now called pasteurization and is widely used in the food industry. The same discovery had another important consequence: on its basis, the physician Lister from Edinburgh developed the principles of antisepsis in medical practice. This allowed doctors to prevent infection of wounds by using substances (carbolic acid, sublimate, etc.) that kill pyogenic bacteria.
Pasteur made another important discovery. He discovered organisms for which oxygen is not only unnecessary, but also harmful. Such organisms are called anaerobic. Their representatives are microbes that cause butyric fermentation. The reproduction of such microbes causes rancidity of wine and beer.
Pasteur devoted all his later life to the study of microorganisms and the search for means of combating pathogens of contagious diseases in animals and humans. In a scientific dispute with the French scientist F. Pouchet, he irrefutably proved by numerous experiments that all microorganisms can arise by reproduction. Where microscopic germs are killed and their penetration from the external environment is impossible, where there are no and cannot be microbes, there is neither fermentation nor putrefaction.
These works of Pasteur showed the fallacy of the view that was widespread in medicine of that time, according to which any diseases arise either inside the body or under the influence of spoiled air (miasma). Pasteur proved that diseases that are now called contagious can only occur as a result of infection - the penetration of microbes into the body from the external environment.
But the scientist was not satisfied with the discovery of the cause of these diseases. He was looking for a reliable way to deal with them, which turned out to be vaccines, as a result of which immunity to a specific disease (immunity) is created in the body.
In the 1980s, Pasteur was convinced by numerous experiments that the pathogenic properties of microbes, the causative agents of infectious diseases, can be arbitrarily weakened. If an animal is vaccinated, that is, sufficiently weakened microbes are introduced into its body that cause a contagious disease, then it does not get sick or suffers from a mild disease and subsequently becomes immune to this disease (acquires immunity to it). Such altered, but immunity-inducing breedings of pathogenic microbes have since been called vaccines at the suggestion of Pasteur. Pasteur introduced this term, wishing to perpetuate the great merits of the English physician E. Jenner, who, not yet knowing the principles of vaccination, gave mankind the first vaccine against smallpox. Thanks to the many years of work by Pasteur and his students, vaccines against chicken cholera, anthrax, swine rubella and against rabies began to be put into practice.
- a wonderful French biologist and chemist who, through his activities, left a great contribution to the development. Fame came to Pasteur for the development of preventive vaccination techniques. The idea of prevention came to Louis when he studied the theory of the development of the disease as a result of the activity of pathogenic microbes. Biography of Pasteur, tells us about the originality of this person and iron willpower. He was born in 1822 in France, in the city of Dole. As a teenager, he moved to Paris and graduated from a local college. During the years of study, the young man did not succeed in showing himself, then one of the teachers spoke of the student as “mediocrity in chemistry”.
Louis over the years of his life proved to the teacher that he was wrong. He soon received his doctorate, and his research on tartaric acid made him a popular and well-known chemist. Having achieved some success, Pasteur decided not to stop, and continued research and experiments. Studying the process of fermentation, the scientist proved that it is based on the activity of microorganisms of a certain type. The presence of other microorganisms in the fermentation process can adversely affect the process. Based on this, he suggested that such microorganisms can also live in the human or animal body, which secrete unwanted products and negatively affect the entire body. Soon, Louis managed to substantiate the theory of infectious diseases, it was a new word in medicine. If the disease is caused by an infection, then it could therefore be avoided. To do this, you just need to prevent the penetration of the microbe into the human body. Louis believed that antiseptics should acquire special importance in medical practice.
As a result, the surgeon Joseph Lister began to practice antiseptic methods in his work. Also, microbes could enter the body through food and drink. Then Louis developed a method of "pasteurization", which destroyed harmful microbes in all liquids, with the exception of spoiled milk. At the end of his life, Pasteur began to seriously study the terrible disease - anthrax. As a result, he managed to develop a vaccine, which was a weakened bacillus. The vaccine has been tested on animals. The vaccine administered caused a mild form of the disease. It allowed the body to prepare for a severe form of the disease. It soon became clear to the scientific world that many life-threatening diseases could be prevented with a vaccine. Louis died in 1895 near Paris.
The scientist left behind a great legacy for mankind. We owe him the existence of vaccinations that help us teach the body to resist various diseases. Pasteur's discovery helped to increase life expectancy, his contribution to development can hardly be overestimated.
French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822 and died at 72. He is famous for his work on vaccination and pasteurization.
Scientific merits of Louis Pasteur: 1. He proved that most infectious diseases are caused by the smallest living organisms, microorganisms. 2. Created vaccines for the treatment of rabies, anthrax and fowl cholera. 3. Developed a method of pasteurization - disinfection of liquids by heating.
The cure for a deadly disease
Scientific goals: The search for a vaccine against rabies is a disease with almost one hundred percent mortality.
Difficulties: risk of infection; scandal and possible arrest for experimenting on a child
Who: LOUIS PASTER and his assistant Émile Roux. Where: Paris, France. When: from 1882 to 1885
How: Pasteur spent years on painstaking research and was able to isolate the micro-organisms that cause disease. To obtain a sample of the infection, he conducted experiments on animals.
Results: In the 19th century, rabies was not uncommon - people became infected from sick dogs and wild animals. Louis Pasteur found an effective way to treat.
Louis Pasteur made people's lives safer.
A doctor injects a young Frenchman with a fresh rabies vaccine. Pasteur watches the procedure, wondering if the medicine will help or if the patient will only get worse.
Can Pasteur overcome the ruthless rabies virus?
July 6, 1885 Louis Pasteur was embroiled in a life-and-death struggle. Nine-year-old Josef Meister was brought to his laboratory from Alsace, 400 km from Paris. Two days before, Josef had been badly bitten by a rabid dog - as many as 14 bites. Pasteur asked two doctors, Alfred Vulpin and Jacques Joseph Tranchet, to examine the boy. Doctors agreed that without treatment, the patient is in danger of death.
A student tries to save his life from a rabid dog on the streets of a French town. In the 19th century, hundreds of people died from rabies in Europe.
From childhood, Pasteur remembered the torment experienced by patients with rabies. The virus, which is contained in the saliva of animals, attacks the nervous system, spinal cord and brain for several weeks. His victims are writhing in spasms and convulsions, they are thrown into a fever. They experience hallucinations - they see something that is not really there. They cannot drink or eat and eventually fall into a coma. Death is coming soon.
How to recognize a dog with rabies?
Without proper treatment, the rabies virus will kill a dog in a matter of weeks. Symptoms:
- strange changes in behavior: for example, incessant growling;
- fever and loss of appetite;
- foam from the mouth;
- muscle weakness, unsteady gait, paralysis.
Pasteur examines a vial of grape juice. As a young man, he began exploring the microworld by studying yeasts that convert sugar into alcohol. This process is called fermentation.
Pasteur observes experimental dogs who have been vaccinated against rabies. He sees that his calculations are correct and the vaccine works.
For three years, Pasteur and his assistant, Emile Roux, had been trying to find a cure for rabies, but Pasteur believed that the work was far from over. He has tested the vaccine on several dogs, but has not yet done human trials. Pasteur and Roux risked their lives working with rabid dogs and collecting their contaminated saliva.
Over the course of ten intense days, Pasteur gave Josef Meister 13 injections of the rabies vaccine, gradually increasing his concentration. He waited and hoped that the vaccine would work. The reaction of Josef's body to the drug was decisive for Pasteur's career. The scientist knew that the scientific evidence was on his side: rabies was not the first deadly disease he had studied. In 1877, anthrax, a deadly plague, killed thousands of sheep across Europe.
Pasteur's powerful microscope allowed him to study bacteria, organisms that can cause disease. He divided them into different types and looked for ways to cope with those harmful to the body.
Anthrax is dangerous for both livestock and people.
Through his experiments, Pasteur discovered that he could create weakened forms (strains) of viruses. If such a strain is introduced to a sheep, then its body gets the opportunity to fight the disease. In 1881, Pasteur vaccinated a whole flock of sheep with his new anthrax vaccine.
Pasteur vaccinates sheep to protect them from anthrax. Ten years later, half a million cows and 3.5 million sheep were vaccinated against the disease.
Twenty days later, he infected those sheep and another unvaccinated flock with anthrax. All unvaccinated sheep died. All vaccinated survived. Pasteur applied this experience in the development of a rabies vaccine. It turned out that the dried spinal cord of infected rabbits contains a weakened form of the virus.
Louis Pasteur in his laboratory
Pasteur understood that dirt, that is, microbes, could frustrate all his experiments, so he insisted on impeccable cleanliness.
Electron microscope photograph of the microscopic but deadly rabies virus
The rabies virus infects a nerve cell and multiplies, infecting more and more new cells. Without treatment, the infection reaches the brain, and the patient dies.
Once in the body of an animal, the weakened virus did not cause symptoms of rabies. On the contrary, the body began to produce special cells - antibodies that fought the disease.
Pasteur's assistants prepare vaccines. Once a successful vaccine was created, large quantities were needed to treat people and animals that might have been infected.
It was thanks to this that the treatment of young Josef Meister was successful. He recovered and returned home. Pasteur became famous, and crowds of patients rushed to Paris. From October 1885 to December 1886, Pasteur and his colleagues vaccinated 2,682 people who were suspected of being infected with rabies. 98% of them survived. Joseph has grown up.
During the First World War he served in the army, and after that he worked as a gatekeeper at the Pasteur Institute, at that time the main research center for microbiology and infectious diseases.
The photo shows an adult Josef Meister next to the monument to Louis Pasteur in 1935. The Pasteur Institute, where Meister worked, is today a powerful scientific organization with 24 branches around the world.
Chronology of Louis Pasteur's Astonishing Discoveries
At the age of twenty, Pasteur was able to pass the exams only the second time, but in the future he made several breakthroughs in science and medicine.
1848
Makes a revolution in the ideas about the microscopic structure of molecules in crystals.
1859
Refutes the popular belief about the spontaneous generation of life from the air.
1863
It offers pasteurization technology - long-term one-time heating of products (as a result, microbes die in them).
1865
Unlocks two types of bacteria that cause silkworm diseases. Saves the French silk industry.
1877
Starts research on anthrax, a disease dangerous to animals and humans.
1879
Develops the first vaccine against avian cholera.
1884
He is the first to successfully vaccinate dogs against rabies.
1885
Josef Meister becomes the first person to be cured of rabies in Pasteur's laboratory.
1886
Nineteen people from Russia, bitten by a rabid wolf, visit Pasteur and are successfully cured.
1888
The Pasteur Institute is opened, which conducts the most important research in the fight against infections.
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The main merits of L. Pasteur are rightfully considered the founder of modern microbiology and immunology. The work of the scientist was multifaceted, it is a vivid example of a fruitful union of science and practice: the solution of applied problems led L. Pasteur to the most important biological generalizations. He owns the biological theory of fermentation and putrefaction, he shared the microbial theory of infectious diseases. With virtuoso experiments, he finally refuted the concept of spontaneous generation of organisms. On the basis of his theory of immunity, L. Pasteur developed a method of vaccination against rabies, anthrax and other diseases.
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Biography Louis Pasteur was born in the French Jura in 1822. His father, Jean Pasteur, was a tanner and veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. Louis studied at the College of Arbois, then Besancon. There, the teachers advised him to enter the Higher Normal School in Paris, which he succeeded in 1843. He graduated from it in 1847. Pasteur showed himself to be a talented artist, his name was listed in the reference books of portrait painters of the 19th century. Pasteur completed his first scientific work in 1848. Studying the physical properties of tartaric acid, he discovered that the acid obtained during fermentation has optical activity - the ability to rotate the plane of polarization of light, while the chemically synthesized isomeric tartaric acid does not have this property.
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Fermentation Pasteur began studying fermentation in 1857. By 1861 Pasteur showed that the formation of alcohol, glycerol and succinic acid during fermentation can only occur in the presence of microorganisms, often specific ones. Pasteur showed that fermentation was negatively affected by oxygen. Many fermentation-producing (for example, butyric) bacteria can only develop in an anoxic environment. These facts allowed him to divide all manifestations of life into aerobic and anaerobic. Fermentation thus was an anaerobic process, life without respiration.
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Immunology In 1865 Pasteur was invited by his former teacher to the south of France to find the cause of the silkworm disease. After the publication in 1876 of Robert Koch's work The Etiology of Anthrax, Pasteur devoted himself entirely to immunology, finally establishing the specificity of the pathogens of anthrax, puerperal fever, cholera, rabies, chicken cholera, and other diseases, developed ideas about artificial immunity, proposed a method of preventive vaccinations, in particular from anthrax (1881), rabies (together with Emile Roux 1885). The first rabies vaccination was given on July 6, 1885, to 9-year-old Josef Meister at the request of his mother. The treatment ended successfully, the boy recovered.
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THE REFUTATION OF THE THEORY OF MICROORGANISMS' SPONTANEOUS GENERATION After a long search, Pasteur found a way to set up an experiment that would prove that nothing can be born spontaneously from the air. A flask with a narrow, long, horizontally turned and curved neck was filled with a sterile nutrient broth on which microorganisms could grow. The neck of the flask allowed air to come into contact with the broth, but did not allow dust particles that had settled in this special neck to get into it. Under such conditions, the broth remained sterile for an arbitrarily long time, but if you tilt the flask, letting it come into contact with the dust in the neck, microbial growth immediately began. By the way, Pasteur's broths, which have been sterile for over 100 years, are still preserved at the Pasteur Institute in Paris!
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Victory over rabies Pasteur's last and most famous victory was his work on vaccination against rabies, an infection that at that time could not be controlled and inspired truly animal horror. At the first stage, Pasteur and Roux learned to reproduce rabies. At the next stage, scientists had to get a drug that would protect against the disease. The first tests on humans did not give grounds for conclusions. At the moment of the highest doubts, Pasteur was again helped by chance. On July 6, 1885, a 9-year-old boy, Joseph Meister, was brought to his laboratory. He was so bitten that no one, including his mother, believed in recovery. Pasteur's method was the last straw. The story was widely publicized, and Joseph's vaccination took place at a meeting of the public and the press. Fortunately, the boy made a full recovery, which brought Pasteur a truly worldwide fame.
Despite the fact that Louis Pasteur never had a medical education, his perseverance and ability to analyze the results obtained gave mankind a brilliant microbiologist. Pasteur saved thousands of lives by developing vaccines against many terrible diseases.
Family and studies
Louis Pasteur was born into the family of a veteran of the Napoleonic War, who had a small leather processing factory in the town of Dole. Since the father of the future chemist himself did not receive any education and could hardly read, he dreamed of seeing the success of his children. Louis did not disappoint his father: from a young age he showed success in reading and natural science. Among the other children, he hardly differed in anything, but after a few years, the teenager Louis was noted by teachers for his extraordinary powers of observation and accuracy in calculations.
He graduated from college in Arbois, where he was the youngest among the students, then went to work in Besançon as a junior teacher, and at the same time continued his studies at the Paris Higher Normal School. It was here that he became interested in chemistry, became a lecturer of the famous scientist Jean Baptiste Dumas at the Sorbonne, and began working in the laboratory on his own research.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Louis Pasteur graduated from school as an assistant professor in physical sciences, and a year later he wrote and defended his doctoral thesis.
He was not yet 26 years old when he became very famous thanks to the theory of the structure of crystals. It was Louis Pasteur who explained why the rays of polarized light are reflected differently on the crystals of substances of organic origin.
Personal life and career advancement
But besides chemistry, Pasteur had another strong passion in his life - art. He was an excellent portrait painter and had a bachelor's degree in this industry.
In 1848, Louis was offered to become a professor of physics at the Dijon Lyceum, and a few months later he was lured to the same position, but already at the University of Strasbourg.
This move changed a lot in his life besides work and career. At the University of Strasbourg, he met the rector's daughter, whom he began to court, and they soon got married. Married to Marie Laurent, they had five children, but only two survived - the rest of the children died as babies due to typhoid fever.
This personal tragedy was also a fundamental reason why Louis Pasteur worked so hard on vaccines against dangerous diseases, among which was typhus.
In 1954, a new faculty was opened at the University of Lille - natural sciences, and Pasteur was offered to head it. He agreed. And it is in Lille that he begins to be interested in biology, and not just chemistry. Fermentation was his first discovery: Louis proved that this process is not the result of chemical reactions, but biological ones. He discovered yeast. And after that he made a revolution in the field of biology, proving that there are organisms that do not need oxygen. It is anaerobic microorganisms that lead to butyric acid fermentation, which negatively affects the quality of wine and beer - drinks become bitter in taste.
In a country where winemaking was an important part of the economy, this discovery made a splash.
In 1857, he was offered the post of director of studies at the Higher Primary School of Paris. Despite the fact that he did not even have his own laboratory there, Pasteur did not despair - he built a laboratory with his own money in the attic of one of the school buildings. It was there that he made his most important discoveries. And since the post of director significantly expanded his powers, he achieved a more scrupulous selection of students for the university, which had a positive effect on the further work of the university. The quality of students' knowledge has grown significantly, and the university itself has become even more prestigious than before.
Greatest discoveries
In 1869, Louis suffered an apoplexy, as a result of which the left half of the body was taken away from the scientist. But despite such a difficult condition, it was after a brain hemorrhage that Pasteur made his greatest discoveries, which are saving humanity so far.
In 1874, Pasteur was awarded a lifetime pension of 12,000 francs annually, nine years later, for new services to humanity, it was increased to 26,000.
Most of all, Pasteur was fascinated by practical research, the result of which could be verified very quickly. So he began by working on the diseases of wine and beer. He researched why wine, which is stored in the right conditions, often spoils. As a result of observations, he realized that foreign microorganisms are involved in the fermentation process. To get rid of them, the scientist advised to heat the drink to 50-60 degrees. Such a temperature could not harm the fermentation process, but extra microbes died because of it. The heating process was called "pasteurization" in honor of the scientist.
In addition, Pasteur worked on vaccines against infectious diseases in poultry and livestock. So, he successfully managed to develop a cure for cholera among chickens, diseases of the silkworm. In 1881, he successfully demonstrated a vaccine against anthrax, and a year later he developed a cure for rubella in pigs.
The next important step in Pasteur's work was an experimental rabies vaccine. Work on it lasted more than one year, and thanks to an accident, it was possible to test it in practice. Once, in 1885, a nine-year-old boy was brought to him, bitten by a yard mad dog. Pasteur injected the baby with medicine and it turned out that the vaccine worked. Despite the fact that the child received bites a few days before, the developed vaccine helped him - he did not get sick. A few months later, the medicine was administered to the shepherd, who had been bitten almost a week before - and the vaccine again showed an excellent result. After such an effect, in Paris alone, 350 people were vaccinated against rabies in a few weeks.
Louis Pasteur died on September 28, 1895 in the town of Vildeneuf-Lethan, near Paris. The cause of death was called a series of strokes that began with him in 1868, and uremia - the scientist's kidneys gradually failed. After the autopsy, it turned out that a huge part of his brain had been destroyed by private strokes. Moreover, this fact struck me that in such a state Pasteur made so many great discoveries.
First, Pasteur was buried in Notre Dame in Paris, but then his body was transferred to a crypt located in the institute named after him.
- Pasteur was engaged in biology all his life and treated people without receiving any medical or biological education.
- In addition, as a child, he was fond of drawing. Years later, J.-L. Gerome saw his work. The artist expressed satisfaction that Louis Pasteur chose science, as he could become a strong competitor in painting.
- His name was given to the genus of bacteria - Pasteurella (Pasteurella), causing septic diseases, to the discovery of which he, apparently, had nothing to do.
- Pasteur was awarded orders from almost all countries of the world. In total, he had about 200 awards.
- More than 2,000 streets around the world are named after Pasteur.
