| French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) has to be | | | | His work in the silkworm industry was an important |
| ranked up there as one of the greatest contributors | | | | step in proving the germ theory of disease. |
| to the areas of microbiology and infectious diseases. | | | | Alcohol fermentation and Pasteurization |
| A painter and a teacher, Pasteur studied chemistry in | | | | He discovered that carefully selected yeasts made |
| his spare time which eventually led to professorships | | | | good wine, but that mixtures of other |
| at several French universities and contributions to the | | | | microorganisms competed with the yeast for sugar |
| wine and silkworm industries. | | | | and made the wine taste oily and sour. His work in |
| Refuting spontaneous generation | | | | the wine industry later lead to his namesake method |
| The famous "swan necked" flask experiment that | | | | called pasteurization. This technique of heating the |
| Pasteur used in refuting spontaneous generation | | | | liquid that spoils easily, milk for example, heated to kill |
| worked like this: a fermentable juice was placed in a | | | | most bacteria and molds already present within them. |
| "swan neck" flask, and after sterilization the neck | | | | Rabies |
| was heated and drawn out as a thin tube taking a | | | | He did a lot of work in the field of vaccines, but he is |
| gentle downward then upward arc, resembling the | | | | most well known for his work with rabies. He used |
| neck of a swan. The end of neck was then sealed. | | | | dried spinal cord from rabbits infected with the |
| As long as it was sealed, the contents remained | | | | disease. He tested it on animals with success but |
| unchanged. | | | | wanted to test it on a human. |
| If the flask was opened by nipping off the end of | | | | In 1885, a 9 year old boy who was severely mauled |
| the neck, air could enter the flask, but the microbes | | | | by a rabid dog and his mother showed up to |
| and dust could not reach the liquid, being trapped in | | | | Pasteur's lab. The boy, who was doomed to die the |
| the curved neck of the flask, which remained sterile | | | | horrible death from rabies, was the first person to |
| despite exposure to air. | | | | get immunized against rabies. He survived and |
| Silkworms | | | | remained in good health for the rest of his life. |
| While studying silkworms, he discovered several | | | | Pasteur became a legend as newspapers from |
| diseases that were killing off the silkworms in the | | | | around the world reported this and others saved by |
| cocoon and damaging the silk industry. He was able | | | | his rabies vaccine. |
| to examine the worms microscopically and used only | | | | The list could go on and on with Louis Pasteur. He |
| uninfected worms for breeding. He taught silkworm | | | | later became director of the famous Pasteur |
| farmers how to detect infected worms with a | | | | Institute in 1894. He died the next year as a national |
| microscope so they could select disease free worms. | | | | hero. |