1. Introduction…………………………………………………….2
2. Biography of Louis Pasteur……………………………………3
3. Works in the field of chemistry……………………………......4
4. Fermentation according to Pasteur................................................... ...................5
5. Study of infectious diseases...................................6
Introduction
Back in the 6th century BC. e. Hippocrates believed that infectious diseases were caused by invisible living beings. The first to see microbes was the Dutch naturalist Antonio Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723). Using a microscope he invented, he described them as “living animals” living in rainwater, dental plaque and other materials.
A. Leeuwenhoek's discovery attracted the attention of other naturalists and served as the beginning of a morphological period in the history of medicine, which lasted about two centuries. The study of the biochemical activity of microorganisms marked the beginning of the rapid development of general and then medical microbiology, which is inextricably linked with the works of the outstanding scientist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895). Pasteur's ingenious discoveries constituted an entire era in the development of microbiology and led to fundamental changes in biology and medicine. The significance of Pasteur's works can be judged by their title.
An exceptional role was played by those works of Pasteur, which laid the foundation of immunology and which made it possible to provide a scientifically based method of preventive vaccinations. It is no coincidence that Pasteur, during one of the celebrations held in his honor, was presented with an artistically executed vase on which a syringe was depicted.
The fight for human health and life was the main idea of the second half of the great scientist’s life, and it was the work in this area that ended in such a triumph that no scientist in the world knew.
Biography of Louis Pasteur.
Louis Pasteur (Louis Pasteur. 1822 - 1895) - an outstanding French scientist, chemist and microbiologist, founder of scientific microbiology and immunology.
“Benefactor of humanity” - this is what they said about the French scientist Louis Pasteur.
Louis Pasteur was the son of a retired French soldier who owned a small tannery in the town of Dole. He spent his childhood in the small French village of Arbois. Louis was fond of drawing and was an excellent and ambitious student. He graduated from college and then from teacher training school.
Pasteur was attracted to a career as a teacher. He enjoyed teaching and was appointed as a teacher's assistant very early on, even before receiving his special education. But Louis's fate changed dramatically when he discovered chemistry and physics. Louis willingly became interested in these sciences. At school he listened to lectures by Balard, and went to listen to the famous chemist Dumas at the Sorbonne. Pasteur was captivated by work in the laboratory. In his enthusiasm for experiments, he often forgot about rest.
Pasteur abandoned drawing and devoted his life to chemistry and fascinating experiments.
At the age of 36, he defended his doctoral dissertation, presenting two works: on the chemistry and physics of crystals. Pasteur’s main discoveries were enzymatic lactic acid (1875), alcoholic (1860) and oil (1861) fermentation, the study of “diseases” of wine and beer (since 1875), as well as the refutation of the hypothesis of spontaneous generation of microorganisms (1860). The dates of these great discoveries are inscribed on a plaque in Pasteur's house in Paris, where his first laboratory was located.
Works in the field of chemistry
When Pasteur was about 26 years old, the young scientist answered a question that had remained unresolved before him. Despite the efforts of many prominent scientists. He discovered the reason for the unequal influence of a beam of polarized light on crystals of organic substances. This outstanding discovery subsequently led to the emergence of stereochemistry - the science of the spatial arrangement of atoms in molecules.
Pasteur performed his first scientific work in 1848. He discovered that tartaric acid, obtained during fermentation, has optical activity - the ability to rotate the plane of polarization of light, while chemically synthesized and isomeric grape acid does not have this property. Studying crystals under a microscope, he identified two types of crystals, which were like mirror images of each other. A sample consisting of crystals of one type rotated the plane of polarization clockwise, and the other - counterclockwise. A 1:1 mixture of the two types naturally had no optical activity.
Pasteur came to the conclusion that crystals consist of molecules of different structures. Chemical reactions create both types with equal probability, but living organisms use only one of them.
“I have established that grape, or racemic, acid is formed from the combination of one molecule of right tartaric acid (which is ordinary tartaric acid) and one molecule of left tartaric acid; both acids, being identical in all other respects, differ from one another in that the forms of their crystals cannot be combined by superimposing one another... Each of them is a mirror image of the other.” L. Pasteur
Thus, the chirality of molecules was demonstrated for the first time (the property of a molecule to be incompatible with its mirror image by any combination of rotations and displacements in three-dimensional space). As was discovered later, amino acids are also chiral, and only their L forms are present in living organisms (with rare exceptions). In some ways, Pasteur anticipated this discovery.
Louis Pasteur said: “Involved, even, or rather, forced by the logical development of my research, I moved from
crystallography and molecular chemistry to the study of fermentation agents."
Fermentation according to Pasteur
Pasteur began studying fermentation in 1857. By 1861, Pasteur showed that the formation of alcohol, glycerol and succinic acid during fermentation can only occur in the presence of microorganisms, often specific ones.
Louis Pasteur proved that fermentation is a process closely related to the vital activity of yeast fungi, which feed and multiply at the expense of fermenting liquid. In clarifying this issue, Pasteur had to refute Liebig's view of fermentation as a chemical process, which was dominant at that time. Particularly convincing were Pasteur's experiments with a liquid containing pure sugar and various mineral salts, which served as food for the fermenting fungus, and ammonia salt, which supplied the fungus with the necessary nitrogen. The fungus developed, increasing in weight, and ammonium salt was consumed. According to Liebig's theory, it was necessary to wait for a decrease in the weight of the fungus and the release of ammonia, as a product of the destruction of nitrogenous organic matter that makes up the enzyme.
Pasteur then showed that lactic fermentation also requires the presence of a special enzyme, which multiplies in the fermenting liquid, also increasing in weight, and with the help of which fermentation can be caused in new portions of the liquid.
It was not by chance that Louis Pasteur took up the fermentation process. He understood that for France, as a wine-producing country, the problem of aging and “disease” of wine is particularly relevant. At the same time, Louis Pasteur made another important discovery. He found that there are organisms that can live without oxygen. For them, oxygen is not only unnecessary, but also harmful. Such organisms are called anaerobic. Their representatives are microbes that cause butyric acid fermentation. The proliferation of such microbes causes rancidity in wine and beer.
Fermentation was thus an anaerobic process, life without respiration, because it was negatively affected by oxygen. At the same time, organisms capable of both fermentation and respiration grew more actively in the presence of oxygen, but consumed less organic matter from the environment. It has been shown that anaerobic life
less effective. It is now believed that aerobic organisms can extract 20 times more energy from one amount of organic substrate than anaerobic organisms.
In 1864, French winemakers turned to Pasteur with a request to help them develop means and methods of combating wine diseases. The result of his research was a monograph in which Pasteur showed that wine diseases are caused by various microorganisms, and each disease has a specific pathogen. To destroy harmful “organized enzymes,” he suggested heating the wine at a temperature of 50-60 degrees. This method, called pasteurization, which has found wide application in laboratories and in the food industry.
Study of infectious diseases
Medical microbiology as a science was formed in the second half of the 19th century. Its formation was prepared, on the one hand, by bacteriological studies of microorganisms, which suggested the idea of specificity pathogen, and on the other hand, the successes of physiology and pathological anatomy, which studied the structure and function of tissues and cells of a microorganism that are directly related to the immune system.
E. Jenfer, having come to the discovery of vaccination, did not imagine the mechanism of the processes occurring in the body after vaccination. This mystery has been revealed by new science - experimental immunology, the founder of which was Louis Pasteur
Pasteur showed that diseases that are now called contagious can only arise as a result of infection, that is, the penetration of microbes into the body from the external environment. Even in our time, the entire theory and practice of combating infectious diseases of humans, animals and plants is based on this principle. Most scientists adhered to other theories that did not allow them to successfully fight for people's lives.
The sensational discoveries of the German scientist Koch proved that Pasteur was right. Pasteur went further. He decided to fight diseases. A series of his numerous experiments was devoted to the study of anthrax microbes, from the epidemic of which French cattle breeders were suffering at that time. He discovered that an animal, once it had suffered this terrible disease and managed to overcome it, was no longer in danger of the disease: it acquired immunity to the anthrax germs. This was the first serious step in the history of vaccination.
- a remarkable French biologist and chemist, who through his activities made a great contribution to the development of . Pasteur became famous for developing the technique of preventive vaccination. The idea for prevention came to Louis when he was studying the theory of disease development as a result of the activity of pathogenic microbes. Biography of Pasteur, tells us about the originality of this man and his iron willpower. He was born in 1822 in France, in the city of Dole. As a teenager he moved to Paris and graduated from local college. Over the years of study, the young man failed to prove himself, then one of the teachers spoke of the student as “mediocre in chemistry.”
Over the years of his life, Louis proved to the teacher that he was wrong. He soon received his doctorate, and his research on tartaric acid made him a popular and famous chemist. Having achieved some success, Pasteur decided not to stop and continued his research and experiments. By studying the fermentation process, the scientist proved that it is based on the activity of microorganisms of a certain type. The presence of other microorganisms during the fermentation process can negatively affect the process. Based on this, he suggested that microorganisms that secrete undesirable products and negatively affect the entire body can also live in the human or animal body. Soon Louis managed to substantiate the theory of infectious diseases; this was a new word in medicine. If the disease is caused by an infection, then it could have been avoided. To do this, you just need to prevent the microbe from entering the human body. Louis believed that antiseptics should acquire special importance in medical practice.
As a result, surgeon Joseph Lister began to practice antiseptic methods in his work. Microbes could also enter the body through food and drink. Then Louis developed a method of “pasteurization” that destroyed harmful microbes in all liquids, with the exception of spoiled milk. At the end of his life, Pasteur seriously began studying the terrible disease anthrax. As a result, he managed to develop a vaccine that was a weakened bacillus. The vaccine was tested on animals. The administered vaccine caused a mild form of the disease. It made it possible to prepare the body for a severe form of the disease. It soon became clear to the scientific world that vaccines could prevent many life-threatening diseases. Louis died in 1895 near Paris.
The scientist left behind a great legacy for humanity. We owe to him the existence of vaccinations, which help us teach the body to resist various diseases. Pasteur's discovery helped increase life expectancy; his contribution to development can hardly be overestimated.
French microbiologist and chemist
Brief biography
Louis Pasteur(Right Pasteur, fr. Louis Pasteur; December 27, 1822, Dole, Jura department - September 28, 1895, Villeneuve-l'Etang near Paris) - French microbiologist and chemist, member of the French Academy (1881). Pasteur, having shown the microbiological essence of fermentation and many human diseases, became one of the founders of microbiology and immunology. His work in the field of crystal structure and polarization phenomena formed the basis of stereochemistry. Pasteur also put an end to the centuries-old dispute about the spontaneous generation of some forms of life at the present time, experimentally proving the impossibility of this. His name is widely known in non-scientific circles thanks to the technology he created and later named after him pasteurization.
Early life
Louis Pasteur was born in the French Jura in 1822. His father, Jean Pasteur, was a tanner and veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. Louis attended college in Arbois, where he was the youngest student. Here he became interested in reading books and was able to become a teacher's assistant. Pasteur's letters from these years, addressed to the sisters, have been preserved, which describe the dependence of “success” on “desire and work.” He then obtained a position as a junior teacher in Besançon while continuing his studies. There, teachers advised him to enter the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, which he succeeded in 1843. He graduated in 1847.
Pasteur proved himself to be a talented artist; his name was listed in directories of portrait painters of the 19th century. He left portraits of his sisters and mother, but due to his passion for chemistry he gave up painting. Pastels and portraits of his parents and friends, painted by Pasteur at the age of 15, are now exhibited and kept in the museum of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. His work was highly regarded - Louis received a Bachelor of Arts (1840) and a Bachelor of Science (1842) from the École Normale Supérieure. After a short service as professor of physics at the Lycée Dijon in 1848, Pasteur became professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, where in 1849 he met and began courting Marie Laurent, the daughter of the university rector. They married on May 29, 1849, and the marriage produced five children, but only two of them lived to adulthood (the other three died of typhoid fever). The personal tragedies he suffered inspired Pasteur to search for causes and forced him to try to find cures for contagious diseases such as typhoid.
In 1854, Louis Pasteur was appointed dean of the new Faculty of Natural Sciences in Lille. On this occasion, Pasteur made his often-quoted remark: “Fr. Dans les champs de l "observation, le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés" (“In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind”). In 1856, he moved to Paris, where he served as director of academic affairs ( directeur des études) at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Thus, Louis Pasteur takes control of the École Normale Supérieure and begins a series of reforms (1858-1867). The examination system is becoming more stringent, which helps improve results, strengthen knowledge, increase competition and increase the prestige of the educational institution.
Works in the field of chemistry
Pasteur published his first scientific work in 1848. Studying the physical properties of tartaric acid, he discovered that the acid obtained during fermentation has optical activity - the ability to rotate the plane of polarization of light, while chemically synthesized grape acid, which is isomeric to it, does not have this property. Studying crystals under a microscope, he identified two types of crystals, which were like mirror images of each other. When dissolving crystals of one type, the solution rotated the plane of polarization clockwise, and the other - counterclockwise. A solution made from a mixture of two types of crystals in a 1:1 ratio had no optical activity.
Pasteur came to the conclusion that crystals consist of molecules of different structures. Chemical reactions create both types with equal probability, but living organisms use only one of them. Thus, the chirality of molecules was demonstrated for the first time. As was discovered later, amino acids are also chiral, and only their L-forms are present in living organisms (with rare exceptions). In some ways, Pasteur anticipated this discovery.
After this work, Pasteur was appointed associate professor of physics at the Dijon Lyceum, but three months later, in May 1849, by invitation, he became an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg. Here he decided to get married and wrote a letter to the dean’s daughter with a successful proposal, where, in particular, Pasteur said the following about himself:
There is nothing about me that a young girl would like, but as far as I remember, everyone who got to know me loved me very much.
Some of his experiments in the light of the knowledge of modern science look naive: for example, trying to change the chemical processes occurring in animal organisms, Pasteur placed them between giant magnets. And with the help of a large pendulum mechanism, he tried, by swinging the plants, to turn them into mirror molecular reflections of themselves.
Study of fermentation
Flask "with a swan neck" - fermenter, used by Pasteur
Pasteur began studying fermentation in 1857. At that time, the prevailing theory was that this process is of a chemical nature (J. Liebig), although works on its biological nature had already been published (Cagniard de Latour, 1837), which were not recognized. By 1861, Pasteur showed that the formation of alcohol, glycerol and succinic acid during fermentation can only occur in the presence of microorganisms, often specific ones.
Portrait of Louis Pasteur by A. Edelfelt
Louis Pasteur proved that fermentation is a process closely related to the vital activity of yeast fungi, which feed and multiply at the expense of fermenting liquid. In clarifying this issue, Pasteur had to refute Liebig's view of fermentation as a chemical process, which was dominant at that time. Particularly convincing were Pasteur's experiments with a liquid containing pure sugar, various mineral salts that served as food for the fermenting fungus, and ammonia salt, which supplied the fungus with the necessary nitrogen. The fungus developed, increasing in weight; ammonium salt was wasted. According to Liebig's theory, it was necessary to wait for a decrease in the weight of the fungus and the release of ammonia, as a product of the destruction of nitrogenous organic matter that makes up the enzyme. Following this, Pasteur showed that lactic fermentation also requires the presence of a special “organized enzyme” (as living microbial cells were called at that time), which multiplies in the fermenting liquid, also increasing in weight, and with the help of which fermentation can be caused in new portions of liquid.
At the same time, Louis Pasteur made another important discovery. He found that there are organisms that can live without oxygen. For some of them, oxygen is not only unnecessary, but also poisonous. Such organisms are called strict (or obligate) anaerobes. Their representatives are microbes that cause butyric acid fermentation. The proliferation of such microbes causes rancidity in wine and beer. Fermentation thus turned out to be an anaerobic process, “life without oxygen,” because it is negatively affected by oxygen (Pasteur effect).
At the same time, organisms capable of both fermentation and respiration grew more actively in the presence of oxygen, but consumed less organic matter from the environment. Thus, it has been shown that anaerobic life is less efficient. It has now been shown that from the same amount of organic substrate, aerobic organisms are able to extract almost 20 times more energy than anaerobic organisms.
Study of spontaneous generation of microorganisms
In 1860-1862, Pasteur studied the possibility of spontaneous generation of microorganisms. He conducted an elegant experiment that proved the impossibility of spontaneous generation of microbes (in modern conditions, although the question of the possibility of spontaneous generation in past eras was not raised) by taking a thermally sterilized nutrient medium and placing it in an open vessel with a long curved neck. No matter how long the vessel stood in the air, no signs of life were observed in it, since the bacterial spores contained in the air settled on the bends of the neck. But as soon as it was broken off or the bends were rinsed with a liquid medium, microorganisms emerging from the spores soon began to multiply in the medium. In 1862, the French Academy of Sciences awarded Pasteur a prize for resolving the question of the spontaneous generation of life.
Sculptural group at the foot of the monument to Louis Pasteur, Paris, Place de Breteuil
Study of infectious diseases
In 1864, French winemakers turned to Pasteur with a request to help them develop means and methods of combating wine diseases. The result of his research was a monograph in which Pasteur showed that wine diseases are caused by various microorganisms, and each disease has a specific pathogen. To destroy harmful “organized enzymes,” he suggested heating the wine at a temperature of 50-60 degrees. This method, called pasteurization, is widely used in laboratories and in the food industry.
In 1865, Pasteur was invited by his former teacher to the south of France to find the cause of silkworm disease. After the publication of Robert Koch’s work “The Etiology of Anthrax” in 1876, Pasteur devoted himself entirely to immunology, finally establishing the specificity of the causative agents of anthrax, puerperal fever, cholera, rabies, chicken cholera and other diseases, developed ideas about artificial immunity, and proposed a method of preventive vaccinations , in particular against anthrax (1881), rabies (together with Emile Roux, 1885), involving specialists from other medical specialties (for example, surgeon O. Lannelong).
The first vaccination against rabies was given on July 6, 1885 to 9-year-old Joseph Meister at the request of his mother. The treatment was successful, and the boy did not develop symptoms of rabies.
Pasteurization
Pasteurization- process disposable heating most often liquid products or substances to 60 °C for 60 minutes or at a temperature of 70-80 °C for 30 minutes. The technology was proposed in the mid-19th century by French microbiologist Louis Pasteur. It is used to disinfect food products, as well as to extend their shelf life.
In the process of such processing, they die in the product. vegetative forms of microorganisms, however disputes remain in a viable state and, when favorable conditions arise, begin to develop intensively. Therefore, pasteurized products (milk, beer and others) are stored at low temperatures for a limited period of time. It is believed that the nutritional value of products remains virtually unchanged during pasteurization, since the taste and valuable components (vitamins, enzymes) are preserved.
Religious views
Pasteur was a devout Catholic:
...Outside of his science, Pasteur was a man of traditional views, which he accepted without any criticism, as if all his genius, critical mind, skepticism were absorbed by science (and so it was), and there was nothing left for other things. He accepted religion as he was taught as a child, with all the consequences, with kissing His Holiness's shoe and the like. The embodiment of skepticism, disbelief and the critical spirit in scientific matters, he showed the faith of a Breton peasant or even a “Breton woman”, in his own expression, of course exaggerated. So, he did not limit himself to reports of his experiments, but added to them pious remarks to the effect that the triumph of “heterogeny” (the doctrine of spontaneous generation) would be the triumph of materialism, that the idea of spontaneous generation eliminates the idea of God, and the like.
M. A. Engelhardt. Louis Pasteur, his life and scientific activities. - Chapter IV. - P. 36.
- Pasteur studied biology all his life and treated people without receiving either a medical or biological education.
- In addition, as a child he was fond of drawing. Years later, J.-L. Jerome saw his work. The artist expressed satisfaction that Louis Pasteur chose science, since he could become a strong competitor in painting.
- In 1868 (at the age of 45), Pasteur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He remained disabled: his left arm was inactive, his left leg dragged along the ground. He almost died, but eventually recovered. Moreover, after this he made the most significant discoveries: he created a vaccine against anthrax and vaccinations against rabies. When the scientist died, it turned out that a huge part of his brain was destroyed. Pasteur died of uremia.
- According to I. I. Mechnikov, Pasteur was a passionate patriot and a hater of the Germans. When they brought him a German book or pamphlet from the post office, he took it with two fingers and threw it away with a feeling of great disgust.
- Later, a genus of bacteria was named after him - Pasteurella ( Pasteurella), causing septic diseases, the discovery of which he apparently had nothing to do with.
- Pasteur was awarded orders from almost all countries of the world. In total he had about 200 awards.
Memory
Louis Pasteur died in 1895 near Paris. Death was caused by complications caused by a series of strokes that began in 1868. He was buried in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, but his remains were later reburied in a crypt at the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France). Currently, the scientist's body is located under the building of the Pasteur Institute, the vaults of which are covered with Byzantine mosaics illustrating his achievements.
More than 2,000 streets in many cities around the world are named after Pasteur. For example, in the USA: Palo Alto (the historical center of Silicon Valley) and Irvine, in California, Boston and Polk, Florida; streets near the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio; in the cities of Quebec, Jonquière, San Salvador de Jujuy, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Great Yarmouth in Norfolk (United Kingdom), Queensland (Australia), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Batna (Algeria) , Bandung (Indonesia), Tehran (Iran), Milan (Italy), Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara (Romania), Astana (Kazakhstan), Kharkov (Ukraine), as well as the street on which the building of the Odessa State Medical University is located ( Odessa, Ukraine). Avenue Pasteur in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) is one of the few streets in this city that has retained its French name. Pasteur Street is the former name of Makataev Street in Almaty (Kazakhstan).
After the reform of Minister E. Faure in 1968, the University of Strasbourg was divided into three parts. One of them (the largest in the country) was named “Pasteur University - Strasbourg I”. It remained until the merger of the Strasbourg universities in 2009.
In Russia, the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, founded in 1923 and located in St. Petersburg, bears the name of Louis Pasteur.
In 1961, the International Astronomical Union named a crater on the far side of the Moon named after Louis Pasteur.
Featured on a 1995 Belgian postage stamp.
Pasteur Institute
Pasteur Institute(French Institut Pasteur) - Institute of Microbiology, a French private non-profit scientific institute in Paris, engaged in research in the field of biology, microorganisms, infectious diseases and vaccines. Named after the famous French microbiologist Louis Pasteur, founder and first director of the institute. The Institute was founded on June 4, 1887 with funds raised by international subscription, and opened on November 14, 1888.
French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822, and died at 72. Famous for his work on vaccination and pasteurization.
Scientific merits of Louis Pasteur: 1. Proved that most infectious diseases are caused by the smallest living organisms, microorganisms. 2. Created vaccines to treat rabies, anthrax and avian cholera. 3. Developed a method of pasteurization - disinfection of liquids by heating.
Cure for a deadly disease
Scientific goals: The search for a vaccine against rabies - a disease with almost one hundred percent mortality rate.
Difficulties: Danger of infection; scandal and possible arrest for experiments on a child
Who: LOUIS PASTER and his assistant Emile Roux. Where: Paris, France. When: from 1882 to 1885
How: Pasteur spent years of painstaking research and was able to isolate the microorganisms that cause the disease. To obtain a sample of the infection, he conducted experiments on animals.
Results: In the 19th century, rabies was not uncommon - people became infected from sick dogs and wild animals. Louis Pasteur found an effective method of treatment.
Louis Pasteur made people's lives safer.
A doctor injects a young Frenchman with a fresh rabies vaccine. Pasteur watches the procedure, wondering if the medicine will help or if the patient will only get worse.
Will Pasteur be able to overcome the ruthless rabies virus?
July 6, 1885 Louis Pasteur found himself embroiled in a battle to the death. Nine-year-old Joseph Meister was brought to his laboratory from Alsace, 400 km from Paris. Two days earlier, Josef was severely bitten by a rabid dog - as many as 14 bites. Pasteur asked two doctors, Alfred Vulpin and Jacques Joseph Tranchet, to examine the boy. The doctors agreed that without treatment the patient was at risk of death.
A student tries to save his life from a mad dog on the street of a French town. In the 19th century, hundreds of people died from rabies in Europe.
Since childhood, Pasteur remembered the torment that people with rabies experienced. The virus, which is found in animal saliva, attacks the nervous system, spinal cord and brain over several weeks. His victims writhe in spasms and convulsions, they are thrown into a fever. They experience hallucinations - they see things that are not really there. They are unable to drink or eat and eventually fall into a coma. Death is coming soon.
How to recognize a dog with rabies?
Without proper treatment, the rabies virus kills a dog within a few weeks. Symptoms:
- strange changes in behavior: for example, incessant growling;
- fever and loss of appetite;
- foam at the mouth;
- muscle weakness, unsteady gait, paralysis.
Pasteur examines a bottle of grape juice. As a young man, he began his exploration of the microcosm by studying the yeasts that convert sugar into alcohol. This process is called fermentation.
Pasteur observes experimental dogs that have been vaccinated against rabies. He sees that his calculations are correct and the vaccine works.
For three years, Pasteur and his assistant, Emile Roux, had been trying to find a cure for rabies, but Pasteur believed that the work was far from complete. He tested the vaccine on several dogs, but has not yet conducted experiments on humans. Pasteur and Roux risked their lives working with rabid dogs and collecting their infected saliva.
Over the course of ten intense days, Pasteur gave Joseph Meister 13 injections of rabies vaccine, gradually increasing the concentration. He waited and hoped that the vaccine would work. Joseph's body's reaction to the drug was decisive for Pasteur's career. The scientist understood that scientific evidence was on his side: rabies was not the first fatal disease he studied. In 1877, anthrax, a devastating plague, killed thousands of sheep across Europe.
Pasteur's powerful microscope allowed him to study bacteria, organisms that can cause disease. He divided them into different types and looked for ways to cope with those harmful to the body.
Anthrax is dangerous to both livestock and people.
During his experiments, Pasteur discovered that he could create weakened forms (strains) of viruses. If such a strain is introduced to a sheep, then its body is able to fight the disease. In 1881, Pasteur inoculated an entire flock of sheep with his new anthrax vaccine.
Pasteur vaccinates sheep, protecting them from anthrax. After 10 years, half a million cows and 3.5 million sheep were vaccinated against the disease.
Twenty days later, he infected these sheep and another unvaccinated herd with anthrax virus. All unvaccinated sheep died. All vaccinated people survived. Pasteur used this experience to develop a vaccine against rabies. It turned out that the dried spinal cord of infected rabbits contained a weakened form of the virus.
Louis Pasteur in his laboratory
Pasteur understood that dirt, that is, microbes, could ruin all his experiments, so he insisted on impeccable cleanliness.
Electron microscope photograph of the microscopic but deadly rabies virus
The rabies virus infects a nerve cell and multiplies, infecting more and more cells. Without treatment, the infection reaches the brain and the patient dies.
Once in the animal's body, the weakened virus did not cause symptoms of rabies. On the contrary, the body began to produce special cells - antibodies that fought the disease
Pasteur's assistants are preparing vaccines. Once a successful vaccine was created, large quantities of it were needed to treat people and animals that might be infected.
It was thanks to this that the treatment of young Joseph Meister was successful. He recovered and returned home. Pasteur became famous, and crowds of sick people flocked to Paris. From October 1885 to December 1886, Pasteur and his colleagues vaccinated 2,682 people suspected of having rabies. 98% of them survived. Josef has grown up.
During World War I, he served in the army, and after that he worked as a gatekeeper at the Pasteur Institute, the main research center for microbiology and infectious diseases at the time.
The photo shows an adult Joseph Meister next to the monument to Louis Pasteur in 1935. The Pasteur Institute, where Meister worked, is today a powerful scientific organization with 24 branches around the world.
Timeline of Louis Pasteur's amazing discoveries
At the age of twenty, Pasteur was able to pass the exams only the second time, but later he made several breakthroughs in science and medicine.
1848
Makes a revolution in ideas about the microscopic structure of molecules in crystals.
1859
Refutes the popular belief about the spontaneous generation of life from thin air.
1863
Offers pasteurization technology - long-term one-time heating of products (as a result, microbes die in them).
1865
Discovers two types of bacteria that cause silkworm diseases. Saves the French silk industry.
1877
Begins research into anthrax, a disease dangerous to animals and humans.
1879
Develops the first vaccine against avian cholera.
1884
He was the first to successfully vaccinate dogs against rabies.
1885
Joseph Meister becomes the first person cured of rabies in Pasteur's laboratory.
1886
Nineteen people from Russia, bitten by a rabid wolf, visit Pasteur and are successfully cured.
1888
The Pasteur Institute opens, where important research on the fight against infections is carried out.
At 18 Pasteur received a Bachelor of Arts degree, and two years later a Bachelor of Science degree. Even then, his name was listed in the directories of portrait painters of the 19th century. Pastels and portraits of his parents and friends, painted by him at the age of 15, are now kept in the Pasteur Institute museum in Paris.
Pasteur performed his first scientific work in 1848, studying the physical properties of tartaric acid. After this, he was appointed associate professor of physics at the Dijon Lyceum, but three months later (in May 1849) he became associate professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg. At the same time he married Marie Laurent. Their marriage produced five children, but only two of them lived to adulthood (the other three died of typhoid fever).
The personal tragedies he suffered inspired Pasteur to search for causes and forced him to try to find cures for infectious diseases such as typhus. In 1854 he was appointed dean of the new Faculty of Natural Sciences in Lille, and in 1856 he moved to Paris, where he took up the post of director of studies at the École Normale Supérieure.
In his scientific activities, Pasteur always sought to solve pressing problems. The issue of “disease” of wine was of great importance, especially for wine-producing France. The scientist began to study the fermentation process and came to the conclusion that this is a biological phenomenon influenced by bacteria. To protect the wine from spoilage, he suggested immediately after fermentation to heat it to 60-70 degrees, without bringing it to a boil. The taste of the wine is preserved, and bacteria are killed. This technique is now known everywhere as pasteurization. This is how milk, wine, and beer are processed.
Following this discovery, Pasteur became interested in the question of microorganisms in general, since perhaps they are capable of causing not only “diseases” in wine, but also infectious diseases in humans? His little daughter Zhanna dies of typhus. Perhaps this also prompted the scientist to further study microbes.
At this time, the Paris Academy of Sciences announced a competition for the best solution to the question of whether spontaneous generation of life occurs under normal conditions. Experimentally, the scientist was able to prove that even microbes can only arise from other microbes, i.e. spontaneous generation does not occur. In 1861, he was awarded a prize for resolving this issue. Two years later, he solved another practical agricultural problem by discovering the cause of silkworm diseases.
In 1868, Pasteur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and the left half of his body was permanently paralyzed. During his illness, the scientist learned that the construction of his new laboratory had been interrupted in anticipation of his death. He developed a passionate desire to live and returned to scientific work. As it turned out, the most wonderful discoveries lay ahead of him.
On May 31, 1881, his triumphant public experiment began, proving the power of vaccination. 50 sheep were injected with strong poison. Two days later, in front of a huge crowd of people interested in this experiment, the death of 25 sheep that had not undergone preliminary vaccinations was confirmed, while 25 vaccinated sheep remained unharmed. This was the amazing result of many years of work by Louis Pasteur. On July 6, 1885, vaccination against rabies was given for the first time in history. This day is considered the day of victory over this terrible disease.
Pasteur studied biology all his life and treated people without receiving either a medical or biological education. Despite this, his contribution to science is enormous - scientists laid the foundations of several areas in medicine, chemistry and biology: stereochemistry, microbiology, virology, immunology, bacteriology. Vaccination, pasteurization, antiseptics - is it possible to imagine modern life without these inventions made by scientists in the 19th century.
Pasteur was awarded orders from almost all countries of the world. In total he had about 200 awards. The scientist died in 1895 from complications caused by a series of strokes and was buried in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, but his remains were reburied in the crypt of the Pasteur Institute. In Russia, the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in St. Petersburg, founded in 1923, bears the name of Pasteur.
"Evening Moscow" invites you to remember the most striking scientific victories of an outstanding scientist.
1. At the end of the 19th century, childbed fever became a real scourge in Europe. All maternity hospitals in Paris were plague centers; out of every nineteen women, one necessarily died from childbed fever. One of these institutions, in which ten mothers died in a row, even received a nickname: “House of Sin.” Women began to boycott maternity hospitals and many decided to abandon the risks associated with childbearing. Doctors were powerless in the face of this terrible phenomenon. Once, during a presentation on this topic at the Paris Academy of Medicine, the speaker was interrupted by a loud voice coming from the depths of the hall: “What kills women in childbed fever has nothing to do with what you are talking about. It is you, the doctors yourself, transfer deadly germs from sick women to healthy ones!” These words were spoken by Pasteur. He also found Vibrio septicemia (malignant edema bacilli) and studied its living conditions, and also pointed out the possibility of transmission of infection in many cases by the doctor himself at the patient’s bedside. Based on Pasteur's findings, surgery entered a new phase - aseptic surgery. All existing achievements in the fight against infectious diseases of humans, animals and plants would have been impossible if Pasteur had not proven that these diseases are caused by microorganisms.
2. After the publication of Robert Koch’s work “The Etiology of Anthrax” in 1876, Pasteur devoted himself entirely to immunology, finally establishing the specificity of the causative agents of anthrax, puerperal fever, cholera, rabies, chicken cholera and other diseases, developed ideas about artificial immunity, and proposed a method of preventive vaccinations. In 1881, he discovered a way to weaken the potency of the anthrax bacillus, turning it into a vaccine. He injected first a weaker and then a stronger culture into a sheep, which became slightly ill, but soon recovered. A vaccinated sheep was able to tolerate such a dose of the most evil bacilli that could easily kill a cow. On January 28, 1881, Pasteur made his famous message to the Academy of Sciences about the anthrax vaccine. And two weeks earlier, the Society of Landowners of France awarded him an honorary medal.
3. Pasteur's last and most famous discovery was the development of a vaccine against rabies. On July 6, 1885, the first vaccination was given to 9-year-old Joseph Meister at the request of his mother. The treatment was successful and the boy recovered. On October 27, 1885, Pasteur made a report to the Academy of Sciences on the results of five years of work on the study of rabies. The whole world followed the research and results of vaccinations. Patients began to flock to Pasteur, hopeful of victory over the terrible disease. A group of Russian peasants from Smolensk arrived in Paris and were bitten by a rabid wolf. Of the 19 people, 16 were cured, despite the fact that 12 days passed from the moment of infection to the first vaccination. The popularity of the scientist who defeated such a terrible disease as rabies was enormous - the whole world was talking about him. Through international subscription, money was collected, with which the magnificent Pasteur Institute of Microbiology was built in Paris, opened in 1888, but the scientist’s health deteriorated so much that by the time the institute opened, he could no longer work in the laboratory. Later, Ilya Mechnikov called the victory over rabies “Pasteur’s swan song.”
