Louis Pasteur's major scientific discoveries and inventions influenced the development of chemistry, biology and other sciences. What is Louis Pasteur famous for? You will find out in this article.
Louis Pasteur and his discoveries
The French scientist Louis Pasteur, being a chemist by training, devoted his entire life to the study and research of microorganisms, and also developed methods to combat diseases.
Microbiologist Louis Pasteur studied the spontaneous generation of microbes and fermentation processes, silkworms and diseases of beer and wine. The scientist developed vaccines against rabies and anthrax.
Louis Pasteur's invention
Louis Pasteur, the founder of microbiology, who received a prize from the French Academy for something disproved the long-held theory of spontaneous generation of microorganisms.
Louis Pasteur proved that many known processes, such as putrefaction and fermentation, are caused by microorganisms. The scientist was the first to discovered anaerobes- these are microbes that can easily multiply and live without access to oxygen. His work in this direction was very significant, because it implied practical significance.
Louis Pasteur also discovered that beer and wine diseases are also caused by microorganisms, they cause them to sour and ferment. He was involved in the development of practical measures to protect drinks from spoilage. The scientist concluded that heating them at 60-70°C and warming up the drinks kills microbes and protects them from souring. This method is called pasteurization and is still used in industry.
Louis Pasteur's scientific discoveries are also associated with the proof that microorganisms cause putrefactive processes. This discovery was of great importance for surgery. The famous English surgeon Joseph Lister proposed, based on Pasteur's discovery, a system of measures to protect wounds from the ingress of microbes and the subsequent development of inflammatory processes.
Also great are the achievements of the microbiologist in the field studying rabies and anthrax. He proved that the causative agent of the disease is a rod-shaped bacterium. He proposed his own system for combating pathogens by creating a vaccine. Pasteur derived a vaccine against rabies from the brain of a rabbit.
The discoveries made by the great French scientist Louis Pasteur are commemorated on a plaque at the entrance to his first laboratory: “Here was Pasteur's laboratory; 1857 - ; 1860 - spontaneous generation; 1865 - diseases of wine and beer; 1863 - diseases of silkworms; 1881 - infection and vaccine; 1885 - protection against rabies."
“To the Worker of Miracles” was written instead of an address on the envelope of one of the letters to Pasteur.
Who is he, this amazing scientist? A chemist by training, he considered himself a bacteriologist. He understood science as a living, loving service to humanity.
At the age of 25, Pasteur successfully completed a course in physics and chemistry at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. His first work was related to the optical activity of chemicals and later led to the emergence of stereochemistry. At the age of 27 he became a professor at the University of Strasbourg, and at 32 he became the dean of the Faculty of Natural History at the University of Lille. Here he began studying mechanisms, was the first to establish the difference between processes and determined the role of certain organisms in various processes.
Pasteur was interested in the question of the origin of microorganisms. At that time, it was believed that many living beings arise through spontaneous generation with the participation of a certain “life force.” Pasteur resolved endless discussions and disputes with adherents of the theory of spontaneous generation in the following simple and witty way. Sterilized culture media for microorganisms in two glass vessels. In one of them, the neck was left open, and microorganisms could easily penetrate through it into the vessel. The second was closed, and the nutrient medium remained inaccessible. Not a single one appeared in the second vessel for four years. This is how the theory of spontaneous generation of microorganisms was refuted.
The scientist introduced into practice a quickly adopted method of processing milk by heating to a temperature of 60-70 ° C to destroy microbes, called pasteurization. (The same principle was applied in the production of wine and beer). He identified bacterial pathogens of silkworms and developed methods for preventing these diseases.
In 1868, Pasteur became seriously ill, but continued to work intensively, and made subsequent important discoveries while semi-paralyzed. He discovered many pathogenic microorganisms. Among them is the causative agent of anthrax, a deadly disease of many animals that is also dangerous to humans. Pasteur created a vaccine to inoculate against this disease.
Pasteur's last greatest discovery was the rabies vaccine. The genius of the scientist was that, without knowing anything specific about the causes of rabies, except for the indisputable fact of its infectious nature, he used the principle of weakening the pathogen when developing a vaccine. July 6, 1885 is a significant day in the history of medicine. The mother of a nine-year-old boy, bitten by a rabid dog and doomed to death, turned to Pasteur. Pasteur first used his method of vaccination. The 20 days of waiting for the result were the most difficult for the scientist. Both the boy and the scientist passed the test. Pasteur's method spread widely in many countries and saved many people.
Pasteur is the founder of modern microbiology and immunology (see). In 1888, he created and headed the Research Institute of Microbiology (Pasteur Institute), where many famous scientists worked.
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), French microbiologist and chemist, founder of modern microbiology and immunology.
Born on December 27, 1822 in the city of Dole, Jura department. The only son of a tanner. First he studied at the college in Arbois, then at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. At the same time, Pasteur attended lectures at the Sorbonne, in particular listening to the famous chemist Jean Baptiste Dudma.
Having graduated with honors from the Lyceum, the young man was admitted in 1843 to the Ecole Normale - the Higher Normal School, where he studied natural sciences. At the end of the course (1847), within a year he defended two doctoral dissertations: one in physics, the other in chemistry. Then, with the rank of professor, he taught at Dijon (1847-1848), Strasbourg (1849-1854) and Lille (since 1854) universities, and in 1857 he became dean of the faculty of natural sciences at the Ecole Normale Supérieure.
Already at the age of 26, Pasteur was known for his work in the field of organic crystallography, which laid the foundation for stereochemistry (the science of the spatial arrangement of atoms in molecules). He revealed the optical asymmetry of molecules by separating two crystalline forms (dextro- and levorotatory) of tartaric acid from each other. Since asymmetric crystals were found in substances formed during fermentation, the scientist became interested in this chemical process. In 1857, he discovered that fermentation has a biological nature, being the result of the vital activity of special microorganisms - yeast fungi. Pasteur suggested that wine turns into vinegar under the influence of bacteria, and proposed treating wines by heating them to 60 °C (pasteurization).
In 1861, while researching the causes of the death of silkworms, he found a way to sort silkworm eggs under a microscope. These works led Pasteur to the idea that the pathogenic properties of microbes, the causative agents of infectious diseases, could be arbitrarily weakened. An organism that has been inoculated with a weakened bacterial culture (vaccine) subsequently acquires resistance to the disease itself, developing immunity.
Since 1867, Pasteur, then already a professor of chemistry at the University of Paris, and his students began many years of experiments, thanks to which it became possible to put into practice vaccines against chicken cholera, anthrax, rubella in pigs and rabies.
One of the first Pasteur stations where such vaccination was carried out appeared in 1886 in Odessa on the initiative of scientists I. I. Mechnikov and N. F. Gamaleya.
Of the 350 people who asked for help, Pasteur failed to save only a little girl who was bitten on the head by a dog 37 days before the vaccination. However, this was enough for him to be accused of charlatanism. Even within the walls of the French Academy of Sciences one had to listen to accusations that Pasteur did not cure, but spread rabies and that his methods contradicted modern science.
The scientist heard rumors that in some cities an angry crowd was destroying stations created for vaccination. All this could not but affect the researcher’s health.
When the famous Pasteur Institute was built in Paris with funds raised through international subscription (1888), Pasteur himself could no longer work in the laboratory.
New Year is coming soon - a very good time to remember the services of the great French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur to humanity: firstly, he was born on December 27, and this year we celebrate the 193rd anniversary of his birth. Secondly, his contribution to the development of science cannot be overestimated, and stories about such people and their achievements are usually inspiring and charged with enthusiasm. Agree, on the eve of the New Year this is very important.
Exposing the theory of spontaneous generation of life
In 1862, the French Academy of Sciences awarded Pasteur a prize for finally resolving the question of the spontaneous generation of life. The theory of the origin of living beings from inanimate matter has been taken for granted since the times of the Ancient World. This was believed in Ancient Egypt, Babylon, China, India, and Greece. It was believed, for example, that worms are born from rotten meat, and frogs and crocodiles are born from river silt.
Only in the Middle Ages did some scientists begin to question this theory, proving that spontaneous generation does not occur in a boiled and sealed flask with a nutrient solution. However, for every argument of scientists, adherents of the theory found a counterargument, coming up with either a “life-giving” force that died when boiled, or the need for natural unheated air.
Louis Pasteur conducted an ingenious experiment with a sterile nutrient medium, which he placed in a flask with an S-shaped neck specially made for this purpose. Ordinary air flowed freely into the flask, but microorganisms settled on the walls of the neck and did not reach the nutrient medium. Therefore, even after several days, no living microorganisms were found in the laboratory glassware. That is, despite ideal conditions, spontaneous generation did not occur. But as soon as the walls of the neck were rinsed with the solution, bacteria and spores began to actively develop in the flask.
This experiment by Pasteur refuted the prevailing opinion in medical science that diseases arise spontaneously inside the body or come from “bad” air (“miasms”). Pasteur laid the foundations of antiseptics, proving that infectious diseases are transmitted by infection - pathogens must penetrate into a healthy body from the outside.
Even before Pasteur refuted the theory of spontaneous generation of life, he studied the processes of fermentation. He proved that this is not a chemical process, as another outstanding chemist, Liebig, claimed, but a biological one, that is, the result of the reproduction of certain microorganisms. At the same time, the scientist discovered the existence of anaerobic organisms, which either do not need oxygen to exist, or it is even toxic to them.
In 1864, at the request of French wine producers, Pasteur began researching wine diseases. He discovered that they are caused by specific microorganisms, each disease having its own. To prevent wine from spoiling, he advised heating it to a temperature of approximately 50-60 °C. 
This is enough to kill harmful bacteria without affecting the quality of the product itself.
This method is now called pasteurization and is widely used in laboratories, food production and some non-food products. Currently, several types of pasteurization have been developed:
- long-term - 30-40 minutes at a temperature of no more than 65 °C;
- short - ½-1 minute at t 85-90 °C;
- instantaneous - a few seconds at 98 °C;
- ultra-pasteurization - a few seconds at temperatures above 100 °C.
Vaccination and the theory of artificial immunity
Beginning in 1876, Pasteur focused on the study of infectious diseases. He managed to isolate the causative agent of anthrax, cholera, puerperal fever, chicken cholera, swine rubella, rabies and some other infectious diseases. For treatment, he proposed using vaccinations with weakened cultures of microorganisms. This method became the basis of the theory of artificial immunity and is still used today.
The rabies vaccine brought particular fame to the scientist. 
After the first successful experiment on a person in July 1885, people from all over Europe began to come to Paris, hoping for a cure for a previously fatal disease. For example, in a group of 19 Russian peasants, 16 were cured, although a full 12 days had passed since the infection. Ilya Mechnikov, who worked with Pasteur, called the development of the rabies vaccine his “swan song.”
All over the world, Pasteur stations began to be organized that provided rabies vaccinations. In Russia, the first such station began operating in 1886.
Paris Pasteur Institute
In 1889, Pasteur headed the private institute he organized in Paris, funds for which were collected by subscription all over the world. He managed to gather the best biologists of that time at the institute and organize a scientific school of microbiology and immunology, from which many famous scientists emerged, including 8 Nobel laureates. For example, from the very beginning until his death, the 1908 Nobel Prize winner Ilya Mechnikov worked at the Pasteur Institute, whom Pasteur personally invited to head one of the laboratories.
About discoveries allegedly made by chance:
“Happiness smiles only on a well-prepared mind”
Louis Pasteur
French scientist, one of the founders of stereochemistry, microbiology and immunology. (Formally he Not had neither chemical, nor medical, nor biological education). Founder of the international scientific school of microbiologists.
In 1848, while still a student, Louis Pasteur made his first discovery by discovering the optical asymmetry of tartaric acid molecules.
In 1857, Louis Pasteur discovered the cause of the fermentation process - it turned out that it was caused by the vital activity of microorganisms (before that it was believed, in accordance with the views of an authoritative German chemist Yu. Libikha that this process is purely chemical in nature). In total, to study the processes of fermentation and decay, scientists were given 13 000 experiments.
"ABOUT Pasteur they remember that at dinner, even in the best houses, he brought plates and spoons to his very nose, examined them from all sides and wiped them with a napkin in order to teach others to be careful.”
Goncharenko N.V., Genius in art and science, M., “Art”, 1991, p. 296.
In 1860-1862, the scientist experimentally refuted the then popular hypothesis of the spontaneous generation of microorganisms.
In 1864, he proposed and patented (!) a method of disinfecting wine by heating it for a long time to 50-60 ° C, which is called “Pasteurization” in his honor. Being the owner of the patent, he offered everyone to get acquainted with the technology free of charge. And to the perplexed questions: “Why did he file a patent if he wasn’t going to use it?” - Louis Pasteur replied that he did not want some unscrupulous businessman, for his own benefit, to receive a patent before him... (formally, the owner of a patent has the right prohibit its use by others).
Alas, in 1868 Louis Pasteur a cerebral hemorrhage occurred. He remained disabled: his left arm was inactive, his left leg dragged along the ground. He almost died. But! After this he made the most significant discoveries... When the scientist died, it turned out that a huge part of his brain was destroyed. “And - an exceptional and even unprecedented case: he lived until he was almost 74 years old. That is, after the stroke he lived for more than 30 years, and during these 30 years he was distinguished by exceptional health and extraordinary nervous freshness. Moreover: the most valuable works and discoveries were made precisely in this second half of the life of this brilliant man. Biographers casually point out that Pasteur, slowly recovering from the blow, covered himself with medical books from home medicine to Smiles and, studying himself and his illness, step by step managed to regain his health and youth. True, until the end of his life, Pasteur slightly dragged his left leg, but there was probably mechanical damage to the brain tissue, and it was beyond the power of man to change.”
Zoshchenko M.M. , Comments and articles on the story “Youth Restored”, Collected Works in 2 volumes, Volume 2, Ekaterinburg “U-Factoria”, 2003, p. 342-343.
In 1881, he proposed a method of vaccination - preventive vaccinations against infectious diseases using weakened cultures of the corresponding pathogenic microorganisms.
“The Pasteur Institute was founded in 1888 specifically for Pasteur with funds raised by subscription in different countries, including Russia. Pasteur managed to work briefly at the new institute - by that time he was already very ill. In the basement of the institute, in the crypt where Pasteur is buried, the dates of all his works and discoveries are marked on the walls. And on the dome, to the image of the three traditional angels - Faith, Hope and Love - a fourth was added - Science. Animal figures are woven into the mosaic images decorating the chapel: a chicken and a rooster in memory of Pasteur’s fight against chicken cholera; sheep that Pasteur saved from anthrax..."
Pierre Grabar: “I love it when people sing and laugh in the laboratory. This means that everything is going well,” in Sat.: A brief moment of triumph. About how scientific discoveries are made / Compiled by: V. Chernikova, M., “Science”, 1989, p. 243-244.
Louis Pasteur“... who began by studying the process of bacterial fermentation, studied this problem all his life and, although he was not a doctor, actually revolutionized medicine, demonstrating the widespread participation of microorganisms in biological processes. He began by studying the fermentation process of grapes and discovered that what he thought was “wine disease” was actually caused by the enzymatic action of microorganisms. He then continued his search for microbes as a possible cause of silkworm disease and ultimately laid the foundations of clinical bacteriology. […] As said W. Lippman, “The genius of a true leader is to leave behind a situation that is accessible to common sense and not burdened with a touch of genius.”
Hans Selye, From dream to discovery: how to become a scientist, M., “Progress”, 1987, p. 50.
K.E. Tsiolkovsky:“The world has become ordinary. The colossi and luminaries of human thought are absorbed by small lights that surround them from all sides, and the “criterion of human significance” has disappeared from the consciousness of most leaders. Already in the last century they stopped distinguishing giants from pygmies. Fourty years tortured the great Pasteur, contrasting his brilliant works with all sorts of small fry like the mediocre Pouchet and a dozen others like him. The French government took notice of Pasteur when he was over seventy years old. Such situations cannot be considered normal. And this happened in the most progressive, most advanced country of that time - France, where revolutionary ideas in all areas were rated so highly! And this happened for the same reasons - small fry and mediocrity clogged all the roads to Science and followed the paths of geniuses. In this pit, which bears the lofty name of Science, the winner is the one who, thanks to his physical strength, dexterity and resourcefulness, emerges and climbs out to a higher level...”
Quoted from: Chizhevsky A.L., On the shore of the Universe: years of friendship with Tsiolkovsky (memories), M., “Thought”, 1995, p. 697.
Louis Pasteur there is an expression about the importance of microorganisms in nature: "The infinitely large role of infinitely small creatures."
"U Pasteur At a relatively early stage of his career, a hemorrhage occurred on the right side of the brain, after which he was left with a slight left-sided paralysis-hemiplegia. After his death, his brain was examined and it was discovered that Pasteur had suffered such severe damage to the right side of his brain that it was said that after this damage, “he only had half a brain left.” He had serious lesions in the parietal and temporal regions. However, it was after this damage that Pasteur made some of his most significant discoveries.”
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in Animals and Machines, in Sat.: Information Society, M., “Ast”, 2004, p.138.
The scientist had about 200 awards from around the world.
