Louis Pasteur Accomplishments

“Louis Pasteur – Germ Theory of Disease” Inventors About. Com. 2014. Retrieved on January 13 2014 from Biography.com: http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventors/a/Louis_Pasteur.htm

The intention of this paper is to examine the significant and enduring impact Louis Pasteur had on public health and wonderful advances in medicines and invention of vaccines. Louis Pasteur was a truly talented person who made many various discoveries in different areas of science. He invented Pasteurization, the process of treating milk free of damage causing microorganisms (Louis Pasteur, 2014). In 1843, Louis enrolled at the Ecole Normale Supe´rieure in Paris, where he focused in the origins of life. During the time he was professor in Strasbourg, France, he started investigating fermentation, which is a chemical process that breaks down organic substance. Pasteur became drawn to the field of transmittable diseases and the discovery of

Louis Pasteur, motivated by Edward Jenner’s discovery of the small pox vaccination, determined that other diseases could be cured by vaccinations as well, and he set out to systematically determine what caused the diseases, and how to develop the vaccines for them. While he was familiar with Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine, he did not really know how it worked, and so he started experimenting, doing various tests that may develop a cure for chicken cholera, rabies, anthrax, etc. There were multiple diseases that would sweep through areas and effect large numbers of the population. Pasteur is famous for several things, one of them being the discovery of micro-organisms. This discovery was a by-product of research that Pasteur had been asked

One of the most groundbreaking discoveries of medical history was the vaccination and eventual eradication of smallpox, thanks to Edward Jenner. When he noticed that milkmaids exposed to cowpox were immune to smallpox, he used the pus from a cowpox lesions and inoculated a young boy. The boy soon was sick from cowpox but recovered quickly. When he was then inoculated with smallpox matter, he never became ill. This proved that there was a way to save people from the deadly disease of smallpox. This led to a better understanding of immunology. Other vaccines such as polio, MMR, and influenza wouldn’t have been created as quickly, if at all without Jenner. It is suspected that his interest and curiosity for curing smallpox was when he was 13 years old as an apprentice to a surgeon; he heard a milkmaid say, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.” Although it was already suspected there was a connection between the two, it wasn’t determined until Edward Jenner created the vaccination. Smallpox has been eradicated from the World since 1980 because of this.

Louis Pasteur tried to explain that surgery could not evolve without understanding of bacteriology and causes of infection, many of his theories were rejected until the century was over. Louis Pasteur’s most famous theory was his germ theory. However his theory was only speculation and not fact. He was able to prove the existence of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. Pasteur proposed that all equipment should be sterilized before and after surgerys.

Pasteur spent a large portion of his life working on the causes of diseases, including septicemia, cholera, diphtheria, fowl cholera, tuberculosis, and smallpox. He was intensely engaged in finding a vaccine for rabies and spent many years of his life studying the disease.

Mandatory vaccination continues to be a contentious subject in the United States, even though extensive evidence proves inoculation prevents certain diseases. According to A. Plotkin & L. Plotkin (2011), the evolution of the first vaccine commenced in the 1700’s when a physician named Edwards Jenner discovered that cowpox protected individuals from one of the deadliest diseases termed smallpox. The precise virus Jenner used is unclear; however, it was espoused in the extermination of smallpox worldwide. The researchers further explained, the unearthing of the subsequent vaccine known as chicken cholera occurred approximately 80 years later by Louise Pasteur. Ever since, copious vaccines such as rabies, yellow fever, varicella, pneumococcal, mumps and recently HPV have been introduced.

Louis Pasteur was a very curious man that is recognized as the founder of the term germ and many advances in the medical field. Pasteur wanted to prove a theory he had about immunity in which he asked questions about the potential success or failure and the reason why some people or animals didn't get as sick as others. These questions lead to his theory about early exposure to a weakened bacteria and the strength of the immune system within an organism. He decided to perform an experiment on sheep in which he gave a “vaccine” to a certain number of them and didn't give it to some others. Later he went back and exposed all off them to a stronger bacteria which killed the ones that weren't given the vaccinations. This discovery is the basis

Other notable people include Florence Nightingale and her work on the improvement of hospitals in the 1860s, Jon Snow and Robert Koch’s work on identifying and combating cholera and Lister’s development of anti-septic and aseptic techniques during surgery. The most important of these scientifically, though, was Louis Pasteur's identification of germs in 1861. Unlike Jenner, he was able to scientifically prove his discovery and knowledge of germs led to the development of a anthrax vaccine in 1881, as well as the identification of twenty-one germs in as many years by Robert Koch and his team. However, unlike Jenner, Pasteur’s work had little impact on everyday people, who were still dying from disease at an extraordinary rate. Consequently, Jenner’s work remained significant, but it was not more important than the work of others during the period and not to as great an extent as the Germ Theory

In December of 1822, Louis Pasteur was born in Dole Jura France where he was a third child. He was an average student who enjoyed fishing and sketching. Pasteur left for school in Paris but quickly because homesick. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1845 and the next year was appointed a professor at the Collége de Tournon. In 1848 he because a professor at the University of Strasbourg where he met his wife, Marie Laurent. Together they had five children, but only two survived to adulthood. The personal tragedies drove Pasteur to find a cure for infectious

It all began when Louis Pasteur (who had made his mark in crystallography, and been hired as the dean and professor at University of Lille) was approached in the 1850s by a man who was having trouble with his sugar-beet juice going bad before he was able to distill alcohol from it. Because of his previous work, this question intrigued him! Under his microscope, he was able to identify round globules

In 1854 Louis Pasteur became a professor of chemistry at Lille. Shortly after, he became interested in fermentation. This was very helpful since alcohol making was a huge industry there. His interest in fermentation resulted in Louis developing many other interests. “In 1857 he jumped around from chemistry, biology then to medicine (Miller, 2002).” In 1860 he discovered pasteurization to kill bacteria in many food and beverages. This made a huge impact on the world. With pasteurization there would now be fewer illnesses due to people ingesting bacteria and parasites.

Louis Pasteur was one of the brilliant scientists of his day. He was the one who discovered vaccines for Rabies, Anthrax, Cholera, Tuberculosis, and Smallpox. His most important discovery in medicine was the idea of injecting the disease into someone who already has the disease to build up immunity to it and help the body grow stronger. Besides the Rabies vaccine discovery, he is most known for discovering the idea called “the germ theory of disease,” which is the idea that specific germs cause diseases, and if they can determine the germ they can cure the disease by injecting it into the body. His motivation for these discoveries all started when a beer factory had fermented and the beer had gone sour. This caused the owner of the factory to question why and he brought in Louis Pasteur to help him figure out this anomaly. Louis figured out it was because of the microorganisms found in the beer that was causing it to sour. He began looking at different types of drinks as well like milk and

The first major discoveries that laid the foundation for technological advances in the world of vaccinations were that of Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur. In 1796, Jenner took on smallpox. He had been informed that milkmaids seemed to be immune to the disease, however, upon further inspection he realized that the women all had a lesser form of smallpox, called cowpox, on their hands. He began to theorize that cowpox played a role as to why the women never contracted the deadly disease. To test his theory, he rubbed pus from a cowpox wound into a laceration of a young boy and then exposed him to smallpox. Weeks later, the boy still hadn’t contracted the more lethal disease, smallpox. He called this a vaccine, however, he had no idea as to why this was or what the connection was between the two diseases. As such, people of this age were skeptical to test the new vaccine.

For as long as I can remember I have always had the desire to serve and help others. Whether it was around the corner or across the globe, I knew it was something that I wanted to be a part of. When I was fifteen, a teacher in my high school made a presentation talking about how he volunteered in Africa and was primarily volunteering with one part of the community, but also focused on building wells for drinking water with some community members. At the end of his presentation I thought “I’m doing that”. Time went by and I always had the Peace Corps in the back of my head.