Louis Pasteur by Nicola Kingsley - National STEM Centre

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Pasteur in his laboratory 12 Pasteur's model of fermentation began to change scientific understanding of the part microbes play in the world. It also helped to solve the problems of the local vinegar industry. Now they were able to detect the microbe that spoiled the vinegar and get rid of it before it did any more damage. In addition, Pasteur worked out all the conditions that the yeast needed to thrive and make good vinegar: the right food, right amount of oxygen, and the best temperature. As a result of this the manufacturers were able to control the process much better than before. Seeing the practical results of Pasteur's work made people much more inclined to listen to his theories. Pasteur liked knowledge for its own sake. He enjoyed the voyages of discovery that lead to new ideas. Equally, he was delighted when a new theory produced practical results which helped people. His investigation of vinegar fermentation ,was one link in a chain of ideas and experiments which would produce practical results of great importance to the whole world.
I ChoQter 3 Crocodiles and bad soup Having begun to discover the part that microbes played in life, Pasteur took up a question that had been bothering scientists for a long time: where did microbes come from? It was easy for people to see that cows gave birth to new cows, and dogs to new dogs, but for a long time it seemed to most people that some living things just appeared, as if from nowhere. They felt it was possible for living things to arise from dead matter-that maggots, for instance, came from dead meat. Crocodiles were said to be created from the mud of river banks-someone even published a recipe giving the exact quantities of flour, dust, sacking and other bits and pieces found on the floor of a mill that were needed to make mice! This idea that living things could arise out of dead things, without the need of a living parent to produce them, was called the Theory of Spontaneous Generation. Back in 1668, an Italian biologist called Francesco Redi had wondered if the maggots which appeared in decaying meat had anything to do with the flies he noticed buzzing around the meat. So he experimented. He put pieces of meat in several little pots, and over the top of half of the pots he stretched gauze, to keep the flies out. The rest of the pots he left uncovered. All the meat decayed, but maggots appeared only in the meat left in open pots-the meat on which flies could land. Redi decided that flies must lay eggs on decaying meat which hatched into maggots, and that the maggots fed on the meat and eventually changed into flies, rather like caterpillars turned into 13
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Page 4 and 5: • Louis Pasteur
Page 6 and 7: Pasteur's house 6 at Dole Pasteur g
Page 8 and 9: Pasteur dictating notes on silkworm
Page 10 and 11: Budding in yeast cells 10 bad vineg
Page 14 and 15: A drop of pond water magnified to s
Page 16 and 17: 16 By 1859 no one had come any clos
Page 18 and 19: Mer de Glace on Mont Blanc where Pa
Page 20 and 21: 20 I ChaQter 4 A theory of disease
Page 22 and 23: The microscope used by Pasteur at W
Page 24 and 25: Lister greets Pasteur at the Sorbon
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Page 28 and 29: Early vaccination for diphtheria 28
Page 30 and 31: Anthrax bacilli 30 with the disease
Page 32 and 33: A sheep being vaccinated 32 When he
Page 34 and 35: 34 His assistants brought the news
Page 36 and 37: Pasteur experimenting on a chlorofo
Page 38 and 39: Statue at the Pasteur Institute of
Page 40 and 41: The Pasteur Institute 40 The news o
Page 42: 42 Before his success with rabies,

Louis Pasteur by Nicola Kingsley - National STEM Centre

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