Louis Pasteur Is The Father Of Modern Hygiene
September 28, 2020 at 7:21 p.m.
By Max [email protected]
Both he and Robert Koch were the forefathers of modern bacteriology. Both men are responsible for adding years to our life expectancy. Before those gentlemen’s seminal discoveries, the causes of infectious diseases were unknown.
Malaria was believed to arise from miasmas emanating from swampy ground, outbreaks of plague were attributed to unfavorable constellations, to comets, to the wrath of God, or even to poisoning of wells by Jews.
Bacteria, called animalcules, were believed to arise spontaneously in decaying meat or vegetable matter. They had not as yet been connected with disease. As Gerald Geison noted in his controversial book “The Private Science of Louis Pasteur,” “Pasteur revolutionized science by proving that fermentation and putrefaction are organic processes invariably linked to the growth of microorganisms; that these never arise spontaneously from inanimate matter but only by reproduction of their own kind; that they are ubiquitous in the environment, but can be killed by subjecting them to heat, the process known as pasteurization.”
Pasteur’s ideas so impressed the English surgeon Joseph Lister that in 1865 he began dipping bandages and surgical instruments in a disinfecting solution of carbolic acid and even pouring the caustic liquid directly into wounds. Because of Pasteur, Lister quickly earned international fame for unprecedented survival rates of his patients.
Early History
Pasteur was born in 1822 at Dole, halfway between Dijon and Besancon in eastern France, where his father owned and ran a small tannery. He attended school in nearby Arbois, obtained his first science degrees in Bescacon and in 1847 graduated with a doctorate in science from the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.
Major Discoveries
Pasteur’s major discoveries, both chemical and biological, included the asymmetry of biological compounds, fermentation, the vaccines against rabies and anthrax and his demonstration that life is not generated spontaneously from nonliving matter.
Pasteur transformed medicine, but started out as a chemist and devoted the first 10 years of his career to the study of the relationship between crystalline forms of certain salts of tartaric acid, a compound found in wine gone sour and the effects of solutions containing them on polarized light and transmitted through them.
Acute observation and brilliant reasoning led him to discover that tartaric acid can exist in two alternate forms which are chemically indistinguishable. Since such asymmetries had never been observed in compounds synthesized in the laboratory, Pasteur reasoned that the capacity to produce them must be an intrinsic property of the living cell and soon proved his point with other examples. This is one of the great discoveries in chemistry and established Pasteur’s reputation.
Pasteur’s discovery that all fermentation was caused by the action of microorganisms convinced him that the same must be true of contagious diseases. He observed that animals which had recovered from a disease became immune to re-infection by the same disease. From there it was only a short step to the idea that if virulent (disease causing) microorganisms could somehow be reduced in potency, they might serve as vaccines that would make animals immune to infection by fully potent forms of the same microorganism. He first put this idea into practice against a type of cholera that affects chickens and other domestic birds. Pasteur published his work in 1880, and his new cholera vaccine for poultry became available soon afterward. His next target was anthrax, which had been killing French cattle and sheep. The vaccine contained live anthrax bacilli, whose effect was attenuated (weakened) so as to render them non-infectious.
In 1881, Pasteur’s first publications about his vaccine drew a challenge for a public trial from veterinarians who were upset that a chemist was poaching on their territory. Twenty four sheep, one goat, and four cows were given two successive protective vaccinations before the trial: another twenty four sheep, one goat and four cows were left unvaccinated. On May 31 all animals received injection of the virulent anthrax.
By the day of the public trial on June 2, all of the unvaccinated sheep and goat were dead and the cows were very sick, while the vaccinated animals were alive and healthy. The vaccine was soon successfully used by farmers throughout the world. The next vaccine Pasteur developed was against the rabies virus and the first treatment occurred on July 6, 1885, and by April 12, 1886, 726 patients had been treated 688 after having been bitten by dogs, 38 by wolves, and remarkably there were only four deaths.
Despite many modifications, confidence in the original product was so strong that it was used until 1953 when the last person was vaccinated at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with Pasteur’s original preparation. Pasteur is surely one of France’s greatest sons.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. His new book “Science Snippets” is available from Amazon and other book sellers. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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Both he and Robert Koch were the forefathers of modern bacteriology. Both men are responsible for adding years to our life expectancy. Before those gentlemen’s seminal discoveries, the causes of infectious diseases were unknown.
Malaria was believed to arise from miasmas emanating from swampy ground, outbreaks of plague were attributed to unfavorable constellations, to comets, to the wrath of God, or even to poisoning of wells by Jews.
Bacteria, called animalcules, were believed to arise spontaneously in decaying meat or vegetable matter. They had not as yet been connected with disease. As Gerald Geison noted in his controversial book “The Private Science of Louis Pasteur,” “Pasteur revolutionized science by proving that fermentation and putrefaction are organic processes invariably linked to the growth of microorganisms; that these never arise spontaneously from inanimate matter but only by reproduction of their own kind; that they are ubiquitous in the environment, but can be killed by subjecting them to heat, the process known as pasteurization.”
Pasteur’s ideas so impressed the English surgeon Joseph Lister that in 1865 he began dipping bandages and surgical instruments in a disinfecting solution of carbolic acid and even pouring the caustic liquid directly into wounds. Because of Pasteur, Lister quickly earned international fame for unprecedented survival rates of his patients.
Early History
Pasteur was born in 1822 at Dole, halfway between Dijon and Besancon in eastern France, where his father owned and ran a small tannery. He attended school in nearby Arbois, obtained his first science degrees in Bescacon and in 1847 graduated with a doctorate in science from the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.
Major Discoveries
Pasteur’s major discoveries, both chemical and biological, included the asymmetry of biological compounds, fermentation, the vaccines against rabies and anthrax and his demonstration that life is not generated spontaneously from nonliving matter.
Pasteur transformed medicine, but started out as a chemist and devoted the first 10 years of his career to the study of the relationship between crystalline forms of certain salts of tartaric acid, a compound found in wine gone sour and the effects of solutions containing them on polarized light and transmitted through them.
Acute observation and brilliant reasoning led him to discover that tartaric acid can exist in two alternate forms which are chemically indistinguishable. Since such asymmetries had never been observed in compounds synthesized in the laboratory, Pasteur reasoned that the capacity to produce them must be an intrinsic property of the living cell and soon proved his point with other examples. This is one of the great discoveries in chemistry and established Pasteur’s reputation.
Pasteur’s discovery that all fermentation was caused by the action of microorganisms convinced him that the same must be true of contagious diseases. He observed that animals which had recovered from a disease became immune to re-infection by the same disease. From there it was only a short step to the idea that if virulent (disease causing) microorganisms could somehow be reduced in potency, they might serve as vaccines that would make animals immune to infection by fully potent forms of the same microorganism. He first put this idea into practice against a type of cholera that affects chickens and other domestic birds. Pasteur published his work in 1880, and his new cholera vaccine for poultry became available soon afterward. His next target was anthrax, which had been killing French cattle and sheep. The vaccine contained live anthrax bacilli, whose effect was attenuated (weakened) so as to render them non-infectious.
In 1881, Pasteur’s first publications about his vaccine drew a challenge for a public trial from veterinarians who were upset that a chemist was poaching on their territory. Twenty four sheep, one goat, and four cows were given two successive protective vaccinations before the trial: another twenty four sheep, one goat and four cows were left unvaccinated. On May 31 all animals received injection of the virulent anthrax.
By the day of the public trial on June 2, all of the unvaccinated sheep and goat were dead and the cows were very sick, while the vaccinated animals were alive and healthy. The vaccine was soon successfully used by farmers throughout the world. The next vaccine Pasteur developed was against the rabies virus and the first treatment occurred on July 6, 1885, and by April 12, 1886, 726 patients had been treated 688 after having been bitten by dogs, 38 by wolves, and remarkably there were only four deaths.
Despite many modifications, confidence in the original product was so strong that it was used until 1953 when the last person was vaccinated at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with Pasteur’s original preparation. Pasteur is surely one of France’s greatest sons.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. His new book “Science Snippets” is available from Amazon and other book sellers. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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