The fact that cheese, cream and other products important for human life is made from pasteurized milk and can be eaten for a short period of time, today every schoolchild knows. But few people know that we owe such a discovery to the brilliant French scientist Louis Pasteur, whose biography will be considered in this article.
The pasteurization process was invented by the French microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur many years ago, he was already a respected scientist during his lifetime. He discovered that microbes are responsible for acidification of alcohol, and during pasteurization, bacteria are destroyed by heating. His work led him and his team to create a vaccine against anthrax and rabies. He is known for many achievements and discoveries, for example, modern medicine owes him fundamental developments in the field of maintaining and developing immunity. In the course of many years of experiments, he managed to develop vaccines against various animal diseases, and his rabies vaccinations saved many people’s lives even then.
Louis Pasteur biography: childhood
Louis Pasteur, the third of five children, was born on December 27, 1822 in the French city of Dole, where he lived with his parents, brothers and sisters for three years. After the family moved, he grew up and studied in the city of Arbois. In the early school years, Louis Pasteur, whose interesting biographies we are considering, first showed an unexpressed talent in the field of scientific subjects, but rather artistic, because he spent a lot of time writing portraits and landscapes. He studied hard and attended school, then spent some time studying at a college in Arbois before moving to King's College in Besancon.
Education of the future great scientist
Every year, Louis Pasteur, whose biography is considered in this article, has increased his knowledge. As a result, his academic achievements did not go unnoticed, because of which he soon began to teach at the Higher Normal Paris School. He received a Bachelor of Arts (1840) and a Bachelor of Science (1842) from the Royal College of Besancon, as well as a Doctor of Science (1847) from Ecol Normal in Paris.
Pasteur spent several years studying and teaching at the Dijon Lyceum. Louis received his doctorate in 1847 in the field of natural sciences, for which he prepared two dissertations in the chemical and physical fields. During his stay in Paris, he attended many lectures at the Sorbonne, and spent a particularly long time in chemistry classes.
First discoveries in chemistry
During his studies, Pasteur conducted several experiments to study the crystal structure and activity of tartaric acid. In 1849, a scientist tried to solve a problem regarding the nature of tartaric acid, a chemical found in wine fermentation deposits. He used the rotation of polarized light as a means to study crystals. When polarized light passed through a solution of tartaric acid, the angle of inclination of the plane of light rotated. Pasteur noted that another compound, called grape acid, is also found in wine fermentation products and has the same composition as tartaric acid. Most scientists assumed that the two compounds were identical. However, Pasteur noted that grape acid does not rotate plane-polarized light. He determined that although these two compounds have the same chemical composition, they still have different structures.
Looking at grape acid under a microscope, Pasteur discovered the presence of two different types of tiny crystals. Although they looked almost the same, in fact they were a mirror image of each other. He separated these two types of crystals and began to study them carefully. When polarized light passes through them, the scientist saw that both crystals rotate, but in the opposite direction. When both crystals are in a liquid, the effect of polarized light does not differ. This experiment found that just studying the composition is not enough to understand how a chemical behaves. The structure and shape are also important, and this led the researcher to the field of stereochemistry.
Academic career and scientific achievements
Initially, Pasteur planned to become a teacher of natural sciences, as he was greatly inspired by the knowledge and abilities of Professor Dumas, whose lectures he attended at the Sorbonne. For several months he worked as a professor of physics at the Lyceum in Dijon, then at the beginning of 1849 he was invited to the University of Strasbourg, where he was offered the position of professor of chemistry. From the first years of his work, Pasteur took an active part in intensive research, developed professionalism and soon in the scientific world began to enjoy a well-deserved reputation as a chemist.
In the biography of Louis Pasteur (in English Louis Pasteur), 1854 is especially mentioned when he moved to Lille, where the Department of Chemistry was opened only a few months ago. It was then that he became dean of the department. At a new job, Louis Pasteur proved to be an extremely innovative teacher, he tried to educate students, focusing primarily on practice, which was largely helped by new laboratories. He also implemented this principle as director of scientific work at the Higher Normal School in Paris; he took this position in 1857. There he continued his pioneering work and set up rather daring experiments. He published the results of his research at that time in the journal of the Higher Normal School, the creation of which was initiated by himself. In the sixties of the XIX century, he received a profitable order from the French government for the study of silkworm, which took him several years. In 1867, Louis Pasteur was invited to the Sorbonne, where he taught as a professor of chemistry for several years.
Successful chemical discoveries and biography of Louis Pasteur
In addition to his outstanding academic career, Louis Pasteur made a big name for himself in the field of chemical discoveries. Already in the first half of the XIX century, scientists knew about the existence of the smallest living things in the products of wine fermentation and in the souring of food products. Their exact origin, however, was not yet fully known. But Louis Pasteur, during various experiments in his laboratory, found that these organisms enter the products through the air, cause various processes there, and also cause various diseases, and they can exist there without oxygen. Pasteur called them microorganisms or microbes. Thus, he proved that fermentation is not a chemical, but a biological process.
The practical benefits of Pasteur's scientific discoveries
Its discovery quickly spread among experts, and also found its place in the food industry. The scientist began to look for ways to prevent the fermentation of wine or at least slow down this process. Louis Pasteur, whose biography is known today to every scientist, found out during his research that when heated, bacteria are destroyed. He continued the experiments and found out that by briefly heating to 55 degrees Celsius and then instantly cooling, you can kill bacteria and at the same time get the characteristic taste of wine. So the chemist developed a new method of short heating, which today is called "pasteurization". Today it is widely used in the food industry for the preservation of milk, products made from it, as well as vegetables and fruit juices.
Work in the field of medicine
In the seventies of the XIX century, Louis Pasteur, whose biography and achievements are known to every student today, devoted himself to developing a method that is now known as immunization. He first focused his research on chicken cholera, a contagious disease that is deadly to humans. Working with experimental pathogens, he found that the antibodies formed by the animals helped to withstand the disease. His research helped in the coming years to develop vaccines against other deadly diseases, such as anthrax and rabies.
An important breakthrough in the field of medicine was due to the scientist's idea about rabies vaccination, which he developed in 1885 during his work with rabbits. The first patient to be saved this way was a little boy infected with a rabid dog bite. Since Pasteur introduced the vaccine even before the disease entered the brain, the small patient survived. Pasteur's vaccine made him internationally renowned and brought him an award of 25,000 francs.
Personal life
In 1849, Louis Pasteur, whose biography and photo are discussed in this article, met in Strasbourg with Anne Marie Laurent, daughter of the university rector, and in the same year married her. In a happy marriage, five children were born, of whom only two survived to adulthood. The death of his nine-year-old daughter Jeanne, who died of typhus, prompted the scientist to study later and vaccination against this terrible disease.
Great explorer sunset
The biography of Louis Pasteur (in French Louis Pasteur) is rich in historical events and discoveries. But no one is completely immune from disease. Since 1868, the scientist was partially paralyzed due to a severe brain stroke, but he was able to continue his research. He celebrated his 70th birthday at the Sorbonne, where a number of prominent scientists, including the British surgeon Joseph Lister, took part. At this time, his condition worsened, and he died on September 28, 1895. The biography of Louis Pasteur in English and many others today is available for study by his descendants.