Louis Pasture the legend from Chemistry & Microbiology
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Louis Pasture was a French chemist who played a remarkable role in the field of Chemistry & Microbiology. After his early education Pasteur went to Paris, studied at the Sorbonne, then began teaching chemistry while still a student. After being appointed chemistry professor at a new university in Lille, France, Pasteur began work on yeast cells and showed how they produce alcohol and carbon dioxide from sugar during the process of fermentation. He is best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of disease. Around 1960 scientists had begun to realize that there is a casual relationship between the development of microbes in organic infusions & the chemical changes that take place in these infusions. The great pioneer in these studies was Louis Pasture. He supported the theory of ‘Spontaneous Generation’. His work on this subject was published in 1961 as a Memoir on the Organized Bodies Which Exist in the Atmosphere. These contributions led him to be called as the founder of Microbiology.
Contribution to the Beverage Industry:
Establishing himself as a serious, hard-working chemist, Pasteur was called upon to tackle some of the problems plaguing the French beverage industry at the time. Of special concern was the spoiling of wine and beer, which caused great economic loss and tarnished France’s reputation for fine vintage wines. Vintners wanted to know the cause of l’amer, a condition that was destroying the best burgundies. Pasteur looked at wine under the microscope and noticed that when aged properly the liquid contained little spherical yeast cells. But when the wine turned sour, there was a proliferation of bacterial cells which were producing lactic acid. Pasteur suggested that heating the wine gently at about 120°F would kill the bacteria that produced lactic acid and let the wine age properly. Pasteur’s book Etudes sur le Vin, published in 1866 was a testament to two of his great passions–the scientific method and his love of wine. It caused another French Revolution–one in wine-making, as Pasteur suggested that greater cleanliness was need to eliminate bacteria and that this could be done with heat. Some wine-makers were aghast at the thought but doing so solved the industry’s problem.
Fermentation:
In his work with yeast, Pasteur also found that air should be kept from fermenting wine, but was necessary for the production of vinegar. In the presence of oxygen, yeasts and bacteria break down alcohol into acetic acid–vinegar. Pasteur also informed the vinegar industry that vinegar production could be increased by adding more microorganisms to the fermenting mixture. Pasteur carried on many experiments with yeast. He showed that fermentation can take place without oxygen (anaerobic conditions), but that the process still involved living things such as yeast.
These were few of Pastures contributions to the world of Microbiology.
Honors and final days
His death occurred in 1895, near Paris, from complications of a series of strokes that had started in 1868. He died while listening to the story of St Vincent de Paul, whom he admired and sought to emulate. He was buried in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, but his remains were reentered in a crypt in the Institute Pasteur, Paris, where he is remembered for his life-saving work.
Pasteur won the Leeuwenhoek medal, microbiology’s highest Dutch honor in Arts and Sciences, in 1895. He was a Grand Croix of the Legion of Honor–one of only 75 in all of France. Both Institute Pasteur and University Louis Pasteur were named after him.
In many localities worldwide, there are streets named in his honor. For example, in the USA: the Medical school at Stanford University, Palo Alto and Irvine, California, Boston, Massachusetts and Polk, Florida; Jonquière, Québec; San Salvador de Jujuy (Argentina), Yarmouth and Norfolk in the United Kingdom, Jericho and Wulguru in Queensland, (Australia); Phnom Penh in Cambodia; Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam; Batna in Algeria, Tehran in Iran, Milan in Italy and Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest in Romania.
Statements
In his triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in 1864, Pasteur said “Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment” (referring to his swan-neck flask experiment wherein he proved that fermenting microorganisms would not form in a flask containing fermentable juice until an entry path was created for them).
Article Contributed by: ketaki Pingale
