Louis Pasteur

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Louis Pasteur was a chemist. His dicoveries have helped medical science to make the world a safer and healthier place to live in.

Louis Pasteur was born in 1822. He became a chemist and taught at many leading universities in France including the Sorbonne (the University of Paris). He began to experiment with bacteria and infection in the making of wine, beer and vinegar. His studies led him to develop the process called pasteurisation (called after its inventor).

Pasteurisation is a process in which milk is treated to reduce the bacteria it contains and so protect people from disease. In those days, milk could only be kept for three to four hours before it went sour. Disease was often transferred through drinking milk.

Some of Pasteur's equipment in his laboratory.

Pasteur's process means that milk is heated to a temperature between 62.8 degrees C and 65.5 degrees C, and kept at this temperature for 30 minutes. Then it is rpidly cooled to 10 degrees C or less. The harmful bacteria are killed and the development of others is delayed. This meant that milk could be kept much longer and was safer to drink. Nowadays, all our milk is pasteurised before it leaves the farm.

.Other studies led him to a solution to control silkworm disease, so that silk could be produced. Silk production was important industry for France in those days. He also studied many very dangerous contagious diseases for animals and people, such as anthrax and rabies.

In the 1800's, these were diseases which were very common and killed thousands of people and animals every year. Anthrax is a terrible and very painful disease of sheep which can be caught by people. Pasteur successfully developed a vaccine againstthis. Rabies may be caught from the bite of an infected dog. It makes people have fear of water so that they die of thirst. Pasteur successfully developed a vaccine against this disease too.

Pasteur works in his laboratory.

In 1888, the Pasteur Institute was founded in Paris. Today, this is still a leading teaching and research centre for dangerous and contagious diseases. Pasteur died in 1895.

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