Louis Pasteur Essay
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was an example of a truly gifted person who made many wildly diverse discoveries in
many different areas of science. He was a world–renowned French chemist and biologist whose
work paved the way for branches of science and medicine such as stereochemistry, microbiology,
virology, immunology, and molecular biology. He also proved the germ theory of disease, invented
the process of pasteurization, fermentation, and developed vaccines for many diseases, including
rabies.
Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822 in Dole, France, and grew up in the small town of Arbois.
As a young boy, Pasteur showed no particular interest in science. His talents were mainly drawing
and painting. At age thirteen, he could draw ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
The souring of wine and beer had caused a major economic problem in France. Pasteur helped to
solve the problem by proving that heating the starting sugar solutions to a high temperature would
eliminate the bacteria.
Pasteur then extended his studies of this subject to other problems like the souring of milk, and
proposed a similar solution, which consisted of heating the milk to high temperatures and pressure
before bottling. This process kills disease–causing bacteria and viruses and became known as
pasteurization.
After his studies on fermentation and pasteurization, Louis was convinced the microbes were useful
for many tasks in the world, but also at the heart of a thousand dangerous things, too. Many
scientists at the time believed humans, animals, and insects were not produced by parents of their
own kind, but that they were spontaneously generated. Fermentation and rotting never took place
unless the microbes were present, but it was generally believed that the microbes were caused by the
rotting, instead of the microbes themselves causing the rotting. To prove this to the scientific
community, Pasteur had to do many experiments to prove that things do not spontaneously generate.
To prove this, he, with the help of Professor Antonie–Jrme Balard, invented a
flask with a long downward S–shape. He then did many experiments, and all
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