Louis Pasteur would certainly be back in his laboratory in a flurry of urgency over the 
recent surges of dangerous viruses lurking around today. The father of bacteriology, microbiology, vaccinology and the germ theory of disease has more discoveries to his credit than any modern scientist.
He totally revolutionised world wide medicine, veterinary science, the dairy industry, silkworm production, brewers and vintners. His personal life was beset by multiple tragedies and grief, which provided much impetus and motivation in his triumphs over infectious diseases.
He was born in 1822 in Dole, France, a mountainous, mostly rural and rugged part of France, called the Jura, that borders Switzerland. He was the third born and came from a long line of tanners, including his father who took up the family business.
He was raised in the small town of Arbois, a picturesque small town surrounded by vineyards, and noted as the center of Jura wine production. You can visit his natal home, alongside the Cuisance river and a museum housing some of his works.
He was not known as a brilliant student by any means, who by the time he was seven first experienced the devastating effects of infectious diseases, when his sister suffered impairments due to having contracted encephalitis.
In junior high, he showed more talent in painting pastels than the sciences. His father served at one time in one of Napoleon’s wars and young Louis was raised with a lot of nationalist pride in his country.
As his town was too little to have a high school, he was sent away to study first at Besançon and then Paris. Parisian life made him very depressed and homesick for the green mountains of Jura and he left to return home to study again in Arbois and Bescaçon where he obtained his baccalaureate of lettres and after a second try, finally his bac in math and science.
He then returned to Paris, where he repeated preparative courses to enable him to be in be admitted to Ecole Normal Superior in 1843. During this time he began to show more interest in chemistry and physics.
After graduating with a Masters of Science in 1845, he became a professor first in Dijon, then in Strasbourg. By this time he presented to the Academy of Sciences his first major discovery of molecular asymmetry.
He taught chemistry at the University of Strasbourg in their science department and at the pharmacy school. In 1848, his mother, with whom he was very close died unexpectedly.
As fate would have it, he met the woman of his life Marie Laurent, who was the University rector’s daughter. They married in 1849 and she was to remain his faithful collaborator the rest of his life.
In 1850, their first child Jeanne was born. That same year, Pasteur was to experience the tragic death of his sister who died at age 25 from tuberculosis.
In 1854 he went to teach at the newly opened University of Lille, in the northwestern part of France near the Belgium border. In 1857, he returned to his alma mater, Ecole Normal Superior, where he was director of studies.
This proved a real challenge to him, as he was not gifted with a diplomatic personality. His colleagues and students found him often gruff, and very authoritarian, which frankly was the average personality of professors back then.
In 1859 Pasteur was devastated by the lost of his first child Jeanne, who died of typhoid fever, plunging him into a state of sever melancholy. Work seemed to be his only outlet, therapy and distraction from his intense grief.
More deaths were to be in his destiny. In June of 1865, his father dies and a few months later his two year daughter Camille dies of cancer of the liver. Eight months later, his third daughter, Cecile dies of typhoid fever at age 12, leaving he and his wife two surviving children out of five.
Personal tragedies had taken its toll on Pasteur, and along with continued conflictual relations at Ecole Normale, including two student revolts, lead him to resigning his post there in 1867 and taking a chair in organic chemistry at the Sorbonne. There he established another laboratory to continue his research.
By this time, Louis Pasteur had already refuted the theory of “spontaneous generation”, that implied that living organisms could be generated from non living things. Using goose neck shaped flasks where he had boiled nutrients, they had stayed unspoiled despite being exposed to air at the end of the long tip, due to gravity trapping particles for over a year.
When he broke of the goose neck stem, the nutrient spoiled due to microbes in the air within a few days. This gave rise to the germ theory of spoilage and sickness and eventually lead to the process of pasteurization to preserve milk, beer and wines from spoilage.
Napoleon III had asked him to investigate what was killing off silkworms, which was a major industry in Lyon in central France. Pasteur was able to isolate a microbe carried by parasites therefore saving silkworm producers from losing entire flocks.
In 1868, Pasteur suffers from a cerebral hemorrhage causing initially aphasia and partial paralysis. He slowly recovered his speech but the paralysis left him walking with a severe limp for the rest of his life.
Perhaps it was this latest blow to Pasteur, along with the deaths of his three children that seemed to direct his research more towards application of his germ theories to medicine. This did not prove to be easy, because he was trained as a chemist primarily, not a doctor.
Initially there was much resentment of him invading medicine’s territory. Pasteur was encouraging doctors to adopt an aseptic technique in caring for patients on the wards and in surgery, that lead Joseph Lister to commend him for developing the science of asepsis to fight infectious disease.
He explained the importance of throughly washing hands and even passing them briefly through an open flame and of sterilizing bandages. He openly confronted obstetricians about the necessity of strict hygienic measures in delivery of infants, where new mothers often succumbed to childbed fever.
He was elected to the Academy of Medicine in 1873 by a very slim margin. He received an honorary Doctor of Medicine from Bonn university which he later dropped due to the Franco Prussian war.
Because of the imposing limits of applying his germ theories directly to patients, Pasteur began to associate with a doctor of medicine Emile Roux, who literally became his right hand man.
What Pasteur would not have been allowed to do to humans, Emile Roux could. They made for a formidable team, along with other collaborateurs who were called “Pastorians”.
The focus of his research was now on developing vaccines to abolish infectious diseases. In 1879 he inoculated chickens with a weaken version of chicken cholera and when exposed to the disease, none developed the malady.
In 1880, he experimented on sheep to develop an anthrax vaccine. This time his control group of sheep who did not receive any vaccine all died, whereas those who did all lived.
In 1882 he went on to develop a vaccine against porcine measles. By 1885 he felt ready to apply the same theories of vaccinations against rabies in humans, with initial failure.
The first two patients to receive the weakened rabies virus had already begun to show 
symptoms and the vaccines did not prevent their deaths. In the same year, a young Alsatian boy named Joseph Meister was brought to Pasteur by his parents who begged him to try to save their son, who was bitten by an infected dog.
The boy had just been bitten and received 13 inoculations of the weakened virus and recovered uneventfully. A second success was achieved with a young man Jean Baptiste Jupille, who also was recently bitten by a rabid dog, who likewise never developed any symptoms.
You can imagine the wild acclaim for Louis Pasteur begin to extend far beyond his native France for all of his advances in medicine and especially in developing vaccines to saves lives not only of human beings but animals.
In 1888, the Institute Pasteur was inaugurated in the 15 th arrondissement of Paris. Fortunately for us all, The Pasteur Institute of Paris has been committed to carrying on his research for well over a hundred years.
The campus is very lively, offering prestigious positions to post doctoral students from all over the world. Currently they have 33 branches conducting research in microbiology, virology and infectious diseases in 33 countries.
In 1894 Pasteur suffered another stroke, which left him very weak. He died on September 28, 1895, leaving behind a legacy of achievements that touched many fields of veterinary and medical sciences , as well as many agricultural industries applying pasteurization methods today.
Today the Pasteur Institute can boast of having eight Nobel prise winners since 1908 and two share winners in 2008. It houses the Pasteur Museum and his personal apartment where he and his wife lived till their deaths.
Pasteur is buried there in an elaborate chapel and crypt composed of beautiful mosaics representing his scientific discoveries. His wife who died 15 years later is buried in the small chapel.
Although the sorrows of mankind remain the same, viruses and bacteria are mutating as I write to seeking new ravages on human hosts. Louis Pasteur would not be surprised by this event, but at least we can thank him for drastically reducing the mortality rate of his time and ours.
Cherry,
Another interesting blog article. Most people don’t realize that prior to Pasteur and a few other doctors, prior to the 1850s, doctors generally did not believe in “germs” . . . and that was only about 170 years ago. With the rather exponential progress and advancement in science and medicine during OUR life times, it is a little difficult to imagine what the medical professional “standards and practices” were just 170 years ago. I think that it was President Taft who lost a child, a son, due to what we would now days just consider to be a mild infection from a cut injury. There were no antibiotics during even that time; and it was common for people to die from simple infections. .
In our rather fast paced world, we tend to forget how primitive and limited things were only 170 years ago . . . which really is not that long ago in the history of humanity. With the exponential progress of science and medicine, it is difficult to foresee the fantastic advances that will occur during our life times and that of our children and grand children. It is all advancing faster than society can assimilate it into useful services for the masses of people. It will be interesting . . . . new cures for cancers and all other types of diseases, etc. I wonder what Pasteur and his contemporaries would think about our modern medicines and procedures.
Thanks you David for your explicit reminder of how primitive our insight was just a short time ago. It was not at all unusual for families to lose several children due to infectious diseases. I find it scary that there are a fair amount of parents out there who are not vaccinating their children. Measles which is spread very easy through school age children can cause horrible birth defects if caught by pregnant women, including blindness, deafness and death. Yes, Zika is frightening too, but let us not forget the older infectious diseases easily prevented by vaccines. I remember very well the images of polio victims in iron lungs and helping in distributing the Salk vaccine in sugar cubes as a preteen red cross volunteer.
I hate to admit that my step daughter and her husband, both educated people, were adamantly AGAINST vaccinations for several years. We normally stay out of the kid’s ‘business”; but that was one time that I expressed my opinion. They distrust Big Pharama (which I distrust too); but they bought into the theories about the possible cause of autism and other problems being side effects of vaccinations. Their pediatrician finally gave them an ultimatum to either get the three children vaccinated or find another doctor . . . . they found a new doctor. My wife and I were rather aggravated and frustrated by it all. I think that it was finally the schools requiring vaccinations that finally convinced them to get the children fully vaccinated. Educated people can make some rather irrational, dumb emotional decisions. June and I were somewhat amazed and disconcerted by the kids being influenced by the unproven propaganda against vaccination; but our society has a lot of misinformation and false claims. Fortunately it was all finally resolved and all of the grandchildren got their vaccinations years ago.
The advances in science and the medical field have been advancing exponentially especially after they managed to map the human DNA . . . .and it is all progressively exponentially advancing. Like Pasteur trying to foresee the modern advances to our time (which he could never have done), we cannot foresee the advances that will probably occur, much less 170 years from now. We do live in amazing times. (If we were all twenty years younger, there is no telling how much our productive life span might be increased . . . but we are where we are at, which is a lot better than our parents times. We have a lot to be thankful for.
I too have a distrust of big pharma, but when it comes to viruses and bacteria capable of causing deadly disease or human malformations, I am all for any protection available.
These infectious agents are much more adaptable than we humans, and can multiply a lot faster as well to consume their host. They also have the unique ability to mutate, which humans do not. Ebola is a perfect example of how powerful they are in sneaking past protective gear and measures.
I am glad your step daughter caved in to getting the children vaccinated, but can understand how they could be swayed out of fear by the propaganda around autism.
Cherry, I remember reading about him in school, and thinking sure am glad that he was able to pasteurized milk. Because as a kid I had some unpasteurized milk at my grandparents farm,it tasted so horrible.
I wonder if the unpasteurized milk you tasted many years ago was spoiled? Normally very fresh unpasteurized milk tastes delicious, and I would prefer it, if it weren’t so expensive here.
There was a farm in Shreveport I believe that used to deliver fresh milk, and I loved scooping off the cream settled to the top.
France excels in cheeses made from raw milk, because without the necessary good bacteria they would taste flat and be without the gustative properties that render them famous!
One of my young (40ish) neighbors is a French gal from the wine country of Bordeaux; she sort of raves about the natural whole milk and cheese products in France. Our area used to be mostly citrus orchards, dairies, and farm land; but that has all been displaced by the sprawling suburbs. However, Caroline has managed to find a small dairy farm not too far away that still sells untreated, natural whole milk and even some cheeses. She did mention that it was a little more expensive than pasteurized dairy products.
Many, many years ago, I had several occasions where I went through some “modern dairies”, and I have to admit that it seemed to be so unsanitary in some ways that I didn’t care to drink milk for several weeks afterwards . . . Ha!
Having to pay more for unpasteurized milk and cheeses is somewhat like having to pay more for “unleaded gasoline”; it would seem that the “natural”, untreated products would / should be less expensive; but “marketing” controls the prices. Americans have to refrigerate eggs, while Europeans don’t do that . . . the difference between washed and unwashed eggs which retain a natural “protection. A lot is in the perceptions, practices, and bureaucratic “health standards”. (Long aro, Americans did not refrigerate eggs either.)
I’m sure that you’ve heard about the horrific bureaucratic disaster in Flint, Michigan where the city changed their source of water for the city, and , to save money (or due to incompetence, the bureaucrats did not treat the water to control against the 100+ year old lead water pipes from leeching into the water . . . WOW, what a disaster that has become. In many homes and businesses the “lead count” in the water supply is HUNDREDS of times higher than the safety standards. They estimate that it will take a decade or two, and hundreds of millions, or maybe a billion plus, to resolve the problems. A lot of irreversible damage has already occurred, esp. in young children.
The bureaucrats allowed this unconscionable problem to exists for almost TWO YEARS without doing anything. Can you imagine a city of well over 130,000 people having to use bottled water for a decade or longer? (The city is still billing the residents monthly for the lead poisoned water also.) “They”, the government STILL have not identified the bureaucratic individuals who are responsible for this horrific fiasco.
Pasteurization of dairy products has good applications and intentions for public heath standards; but shouldn’t the public have the choice of access to natural products also. Pasteurization does inadvertently take away some good portions of the products as well as the undesirable elements. The contaminated water incident in Flint Michigan demonstrates that we can not always depend on the government programs and bureaucrats to “defend the people’s safety” competently. It took numerous people a lot of effort to bring these problems to the attention of the public to get the government to acknowledge and to react to the problems.
Last night there was a TV show about Bernie Madoff, the infamous multi-billion dollar Ponzi Schemer. He had held the position of Chairman of the NASDAQ; and the SEC had for many years ignored the attempts by one financial analyst to expose the Ponzi scheme . . . . The moral of the stories behind these events is that “the people” simply cannot rely on government bureaucrats and other agencies to have the integrity to protect the public’s interests.
LOL . . . I guess that is “a long stretch” from the issues of pasteurization to these other issues . . . Ha! People just have to use common sense and be responsible to become informed about matters that may dramatically impact their lives . . . their health, finances, etc. There is a lot of mis-information and propaganda too . . . like the false claims of there being a connection between vaccinations and Autism, and the dangers of unpasteurized dairy products.
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An afterthought: Pasteurization might be a little like chemotherapy: They both have their applications for health purposes; but they both kill some of the good cells as well as bad cells. As long as health standards are adhered to, unpasteurized products can be fairly safe . . . . and tasty.
This morning my French neighbor came by walking her dog as she usually does most mornings. I told her about your blog about the unpasteurized milk and cheese products being so delicious; and she began to go on and on about how delicious all of those products could be. She lived on a farm in France most of her life. (And like a lot of French people, she thinks that Americans are “a little crazy” for not enjoying the wholesome and delicious natural foods . . . Ha!)
David, I like your analogy vis a vis pasteurization and chemotherapy. A giant step to preserve milk for the multitudes, but in so far as cheeses, takes away their uniqueness. Farmers here in Frances have been fighting the E.U. commision for wanting them to pasteurize too many of their cheeses. Farmers test each lot for Listeria, etc and are scrupulously hygienic in fabricating their cheeses, which are rarely recalled.
Thank goodness the majority of cheeses here are not pasteurised. France has well over 254 kinds of cheeses and every region is proud of their own. One of the delights of the French cheese board is trying to choose from so many delectable ones.