Louis Pasteur The Man Who Saved Billions of Lives

Louis Pasteur was the chemist who has gone down in history as one of the fathers of microbiology. He is famous for several accomplishments that changed science as we know it, including the pasteurization process of killing bacteria from liquids, and paving the way for immunology by creating life-saving vaccines. These accomplishments are just the tip of the iceberg, because without Pasteur’s revolutionary germ theory, modern medicine would not be anything like it is today. On this episode of Biographics, we are talking about the life and work of Louis Pasteur, and why he was one of the greatest minds in history. Early Life and Education Louis Pasteur was born in France on December 27, 1822. He was raised in town called Arbois by his parents, Jean-Joseph Pasteur, and Jeanne Etiennette Roqui. His father served as sergeant major during the Napoleonic Wars, and received the Legion of Honor. After the war, Jean-Joseph worked as full-time leather tanner, like generations of Pasteur men before him. Even though this was the family business, Jean-Joseph did not want to force his own son to carry on the tanning trade, and was open to allowing him to find his own passion. Usually, when we hear stories of accomplished academic minds like Louis Pasteur, we imagine that they may have been genius all their lives. In reality, young Louis was very average student in school. As young man, he was actually far more interested in sketching works of art than reading his textbooks. He spent lot of his time drawing and painting, using the Jura Mountains as his inspiration. Louis Pasteur’s father encouraged him to follow his passion for art, and considered the endeavour to be just as valuable as academic goals. Jean-Joseph always encouraged Louis to read as many books as possible so that he remained curious about the world around him. As veteran, he also instilled sense of national pride in Louis, and duty to the people of France. Since he spent most of his young life daydreaming and sketching, Louis actually fell so far behind academically, that he had to receive lot of tutoring at Collège d'Arbois, which is where he went to secondary school before he attended university at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. This is where he began taking classes in science. Chemistry became his new passion, and he had the goal of earning his PhD. In 1847, he received his doctorate degree, and this set the course for the rest of his life. Career in Chemistry While he was earning his PhD, Louis Pasteur taught chemistry at secondary school called Dijon Lycée before he became research chemist at the University of Strasbourg. When he was just 25 years old, he already made discoveries that became vital in developing vaccines in the future. Microscopes had existed for hundreds of years before Louis Pasteur was born, but new improvements on the machine helped scientists to discover the existence of microorganisms. Louis Pasteur was far from the only scientist to be studying microorganisms at the time, but he was one of the very first. He is widely considered to be one of the “fathers” of the field that would later be called “microbiology.” In 1849, Louis Pasteur was attempting to solve issues that wine makers were having while fermenting grapes. Some batches of wine would go sour very quickly while others were not, even when the ingredients and process were exactly the same every time. Wine makers could not figure out why this was happening. Pasteur was able to gather tartaric acid, which is one of the chemicals present in the sediment of the wine during the fermentation process. After dissolving the tartaric acid, Pasteur was able to pass polarized light through the sample in order to observe it. He discovered that there was nearly-identical compound known as “paratartaric acid” in the wine sediments. Every other scientist who had observed the same samples assumed that the chemical was the same, because it has the same composition as tartaric acid. However, while these molecules seem identical at first, they are actually mirror images of one another. You can think of it as being either left or right-handed versions of the same chemical, with one of them causing the grapes to go sour. Today, this process that Pasteur discovered of finding the mirror version of chemical compound is known as “molecular chirality”, and it is actually extremely important in pharmaceutical chemistry, because left-or-right handed version may react completely differently once it is metabolised in the human body, even though it has the same chemical composition. His discovery in the variations between the structure and shape of molecule also led to the field of stereochemistry. With just this one discovery, Louis Pasteur was able to fix problem, and also pave the way for future scientists in several fields of chemistry. This alone would have been huge accomplishment that would have put his name down in history, but he was far from finished with his life’s work. Personal Life Louis Pasteur met his future wife, Marie Laurent, while he was working at the University of Strasbourg. Marie was the daughter of the school’s rector, so she spent most of her life in an academic environment. She worked in the school’s laboratory, and was assigned as Louis Pasteur’s lab assistant and “amanuensis.” This is someone who writes down the scientific information, and assists in making sketches of his discoveries. Marie was very well-educated woman, and she would have had lot of scientific background knowledge in order for her to understand and record the information. If she was born in different time, there is no doubt that she would have been full-fledged chemist as well. French society at the time found it to be inappropriate for women to become scientists. But Marie and Louis respected one another, and the two of them were truly devoted to this work. It only makes sense that they were perfect for one another both inside and outside of the laboratory. Louis Pasteur was 25 years old when he made the discoveries in wine sediments, and the two of them were able to share the victory of job well done. This would be only the beginning of their teamwork. The two were married on May 29, 1849. Louis Pasteur was 26, and Marie was 23. As the years went on, Marie continued to assist Louis in his experiments. Without her knowledge and professionalism by his side, he may not have been able to accomplish as much as he did in his career. They went on to have five children together, but tragically, only two would survive childhood. As parents who lost three children, they knew the pain that all parents feel when their children die from disease that could have been prevented, if only there was vaccine that existed to help them. The two of them became determined to devote their careers to saving the lives of other children, and they were eventually able to accomplish just that. Germ Theory and Pasteurization Before he could begin studying diseases, Louis Pasteur still needed to do the scientific research that was paying the bills. In 1854, Pasteur became chemistry professor at the University of Lille, and he was paid to continue researching issues in alcohol manufacturing. He became the Dean of the Science department, as well, and helped to mentor the rest of the faculty. In 1861, Pasteur discovered anaerobiosis, which is crucial in understanding how yeast and sugar formed alcohol during the fermentation process. Even though fermentation had been going on for thousands of years of human history, no one else had been able to explain the “how” and “why” of the chemical process. So, today, everyone running hipster microbrewery has Louis Pasteur to thank for their careers making craft beer. Once he fully understood the fermentation process, Pasteur had theory that these invisible organisms called “germs” and “bacteria” were responsible for causing wine, beer, and milk to go sour. He proved that by boiling these liquids, he could kill the bacteria, and then cool to it to make it drinkable again. The first successful test was completed on April 20th, 1862. That process of heating and cooling was named after him; so it is now known as “pasteurization”. It is still used today. Louis Pasteur was able to move on from the food industry, and begin studying disease, which had been his goal. In 1865, he was able to prove that microbes were causing disease that destroyed silkworm eggs. His wife, Marie, assisted him in growing the silk worms, and keeping them alive during the course of the experiment. He was able to develop prevention for contamination, and saved the silk-making industry around the world. So, aside from our clean wine and beer, we also need to thank him for our fancy silk robes and pajamas. Once he was beginning to understand how bacteria caused illnesses, he was beginning to come up with his “germ theory”. For the majority of human history, people did not know about the existence of germs, and they did not fully understand the immune system. The widely-held belief was the “Miasma Theory”, which was that diseases are caused by poisonous vapor in the air that only came out at night. Yes, it sounds truly ridiculous in retrospect, but people had absolutely no idea how or why human beings contracted illnesses. In hospitals, doctors and nurses never even bothered to wash their hands, because they truly did not understand the spread of disease. Human waste would sometimes make its way into the water system, which would trigger huge outbreaks of infectious disease, all because people did not understand that germs existed. Other scientists had proposed germ theory long before Louis Pasteur, but it was often dismissed. People had believed in Miasma Theory for so long, it had become the truth. In England, scientist named Dr. John Snow (Not to be confused with the character from Game of Thrones) was able to save London from the cholera outbreak by convincing the town to shut down water pump that had been infected by human waste. Louis Pasteur would have probably read about Snow’s breakthrough in bacterial research, and it would inspire him to push the germ theory as well. Soon enough, Pasteur and the other fathers of microbiology were able to prove that the Miasma Theory was nothing but fantasy, and the acknowledgement that germs existed would change the medical industry was we know it. The Accidental Invention of Vaccines In 1868, Louis Pasteur was just 46 years old when he suffered severe stroke, and he became partially paralyzed. Instead of going to hospital, Pasteur was treated in his home. Sixteen leeches were placed behind his ears to clear the blood that had pooled around his cerebral hemorrhage. After the doctor left with the leeches, Louis Pasteur was left in his wife Marie. He was very lucky that she had such an extensive science background, because she helped to rehabilitate him to overcome his paralysis. This story is usually glossed over in many of the history books. We tend to glorify the major accomplishments of successful people, and ignore the struggles. Louis Pasteur was still very human, and recovering from stroke is never an easy task. Back in the 1800’s, stroke would likely mean death, or permanent paralysis for the rest of his life. Marie nursed him back to health, and encouraged him to heal so that they could both return to the laboratory in order to continue their life’s work of curing diseases. Even though his health recovered, it would be years before Louis Pasteur was able to make another major scientific discovery. Eight years later, in 1876, Louis Pasteur made his first major breakthrough since having his stroke. At the time, scientists believed in the idea of “spontaneous generation”. This was the ridiculous notion that living creatures could spontaneously generate from inanimate substances. People believed that living creatures were “born” asexually, like mice forming in rotting food, food and frogs emerging from the mud. This belief was so common, there were even some scientific papers claiming to come up with “recipe” for growing your own mice. Pasteur publicly denounced this age-old belief of spontaneous generation, but there were still plenty of people who had their doubts. In the past, other scientists like Francesco Redi had attempted to prove that spontaneous generation was not real. He sealed piece of meat in jar with lid, proving that as long as flies did not land on food, larva did not appear. However, people did not believe this, because they thought oxygen may be necessary for the so-called “recipe”. The only way Pasteur was able to convince the public that animals are not born out of food was to design custom swan-necked bottles that curved in such way that allowed oxygen to get through, but it would be impossible for flies to crawl inside. He boiled beef broth, and left it inside this swan neck bottle. Finally, the idea of spontaneous generation was debunked. Two years later, in 1878, Pasteur was studying diseases when he accidently exposed chickens to an attenuated culture of chicken cholera. However, the chickens did not die from the disease. In fact, it had the exact opposite. When they were later exposed to the full-fledged chicken cholera virus, they had become immune. This was his very first vaccine. At the time, the idea that he could replicate these results in human beings was still years away from actually happening. But he theorized that if he could replicate that same process, he just may be able to create vaccines for some of the deadliest diseases of the time, like anthrax, tuberculosis, smallpox, and anthrax. year later, in 1881, Louis Pasteur developed vaccine for Anthrax, and cured several sheep in his laboratory from the disease. Even after conducting the same experiment hundreds of times, the scientific community still did not believe Louis Pasteur’s results. Even when everyone mocked and ridiculed him, he did not back down, because he knew that he was right. For years, people refused to believe him, until he traveled to the town of Pouilly le Fort, which had farm filled with sheep that had been infected with Anthrax. Pasteur injected his vaccine into all of the sick sheep in front of large crowd of people. Sure enough, all of the sheep recovered, and the newspapers finally declared that he truly had invented the cure. He once wrote this advice to future generations on how to deal with haters; “Do not let yourself be tainted with barren skepticism.” After Louis Pasteur’s germ theory was published in academic papers, and there was significant amount of proof that his animal vaccines were working. Educated people with open minds understood the concept of bacteria, and they began to make efforts to improve public health and safety in France. Following Louis Pasteur’s discoveries about germs, politician named Eugene Poubelle began enforcing the first garbage cans in Paris in 1884. At first, citizens were outraged that they could no longer throw their trash wherever they wanted. Despite dealing with all of the skepticism and push-back from the public, Poubelle continued to mandate that garbage cans were necessary in every home. Today, we take garbage cans for granted, but this was huge step in disease prevention. Over the next few years, the spread of disease began to fall dramatically in France, and other countries around the world began to copy the idea. However, just like every other scientific discovery in human history, there were people who still refused to believe in the germ theory, despite all of the proof that was out there. Pasteur had plenty of critics who still tried to claim that he was incorrect. Louis Pasteur had bitter rivalry with another scientist named Antoine Béchamp, who completely dismissed his germ theory. Instead of believing in the existence of germs, Béchamp published his own theory of “pleomorphism”. But, of course, the truth always has way of coming out, and Pasteur continued to be the one who came out on top. The Rabies Vaccine Louis Pasteur continued to prove to the world that his germ theory was correct, and that infections were the cause of disease. At the time, rabies and anthrax were both very serious problems in animals. If dog was infected and bit someone, it was guaranteed that they would die an excruciatingly painful death. After years of overcoming so much doubt in the scientific community, Louis Pasteur was now well regarded for his achievements in science and medicine. In 1873, The Académie de Médecine elected to bring him on as an associate member of their society. And in 1882, he was accepted into the Académie Française. While he was doing his research there, he decided to devote his research to curing rabies. In 1883, Pasteur was creating the rabies vaccine by acquiring rabbits that had been infected by the virus, and attempting to inject the vaccine into dogs. After trial and error, he was able to cure dogs who had been infected, and bring them back to health. But using the vaccine on human being had not been done until 1885. On July 6th, 9-year old boy named Joseph Meister was brought to Louis Pasteur in Paris. His parents had traveled for two days from Alsace after he was bitten by rabid dog. At first, Pasteur hesitated, because he had only ever experimented with the vaccine on dogs. But the boy was going to die anyway, so Pasteur agreed to try. He took an emulsion from the spinal cord of rabbit who had rabies, and formed vaccine. The process did not happen overnight. Over the next 10 days, Joseph was given 13 more injections of the vaccine, and he was hospitalized for three months. After the boy made full recovery, Louis Pasteur became famous around the world for finding the cure. On the 20th of October that same year, an adult male who had been infected with rabies six days earlier was brought to Louis Pasteur. He repeated the same vaccination process as before, and the man made full recovery. Now, there was no doubt that the vaccine truly worked. In 1886, Louis Pasteur began to treat over 350 patients who had been infected with rabies in Europe and the United States. Louis Pasteur’s wife, Marie, traveled the world with him, and nursed the sick children with rabies for months at time while her husband was preparing the vaccines and giving the injections. Of course, today, this same vaccine is what helps keep our dogs and cats safe from rabies. No matter where he went, whether he could speak the language or not, the story was always the same. He was very proud that he was able to accomplish this on behalf of France. He said, “Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation, because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.” During this process of meeting and healing over 350 people, Pasteur got to know many of his patients. Many of them were young children who were bitten when playing with their dogs. He said, “When approach child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.” Louis Pasteur wanted to save the lives of these sick children so that they could have chance to grow up, and he wanted his vaccines to do the same for future generations all over the world. Finally, he was recognized as scientist worthy of his own research facility, and fundraising campaign began to create the Pasteur Institute in Paris. This was finally inaugurated on November 14, 1888. When he turned 70 years old, he was given spectacular birthday party at The University of Paris, and some of the most prestigious doctors and scientists were there to celebrate his life and works. Louis Pasteur he died in 1895, at the age of 73. His body is now in crypt in the Pasteur Institute. But his work has lived on far after his passing. Today, we still use pasteurization in the food industry, and his breakthroughs in medicine were just the beginning. Other scientists began to use the same methods to create vaccines for diseases that had once killed thousands of people. There is no telling just how many millions of people would have died without the work he was able to accomplish.