Louis Pasteur was a French biologist, microbiologist and chemist renowned remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of diseases, and his discoveries have saved many lives ever since.
Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822, in France, He was not a special student at all in his early years, he entered the Collège Royal at Besançon to study philosophy and earned his Bachelor of Letters degree in 1840. After failing once, he succeeded to pass the baccalauréat in 1842 with below average grade in chemistry. Ironic !
in 1842, Pasteur did not enter the École Normale Supérieure because his tests were not good enough so his ranking was low, he waited for the next year and had a better ranking. He joined Antoie jerome Balard, as a graduate laboratory assistant and submitted two theses in physics and chemistry . Pasteur became professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg and married Marie Laurent, daughter on May 29, 1849. they had five children, three died of typhoid.
Pasteur began his studies on fermentation after being named dean of the new faculty of sciences at Lille University. In 1857, he moved to Paris as the director of scientific studies at the École Normale Supérieure. Because of pasteur, the standards of examinations became way more rigid, increased the level of the university and of course, its prestige in the world. Pasteur asked for the creation of the École Normale's laboratory of physiological chemistry In 1867 and it was accepted. Around 1880 started to work on a rabies vaccine. He started to feel weak and had a profound desire to leave a mark in the world. After successfully developing vaccines against chicken cholera and anthraxhe wanted to develop a vaccine for humans. man. he chooses rabies ". This disease was killing millions of people, and one of the other reasons why he made that choice was that h could conduct experiments on dogs, without going through the human tests.
Joseph Meister was 9 when he gets bitten by a dog. Medicine consider him as already dead because the dog in question was enraged and no cure was known at that point. However, The vet who autopsied the dog explains that he has heard about a scientist in Paris who is working on a vaccine against rabies: Louis Pasteur. in the words of Elisabeth Liber, historian speaker at the Pasteur Museum in Paris."The mother then decided to try his luck,"
When Pasteur saw the young boy, he knew it was the moment he was waiting for. He had never made experience in humans before (officlally) BUT he was not going to let that younr boy die without trying something. "Joseph Meister, brought by his mother, Steige, (...) strongly bitten on the middle finger of the right hand, thighs and leg by the same rabid dog that tore his trousers down, and would have devoured him without the arrival of a mason with two iron bars that hit the dog, " wrote Pasteur. adding that" death it seemed inevitable to me that I decided, not without lively and cruel anxiety, to try Joseph Meister on the method which had always succeeded me in dogs. "The child receives thirteen injections, spread over ten days. He survives.
October 26, 1885, at the Academy of Sciences. Louis Pasteur presents to the scientific community the promising results of his rabies vaccine. Its results had remained confidential until then, The prophylaxis of rabies after bite is founded. It is necessary to create a rabies vaccination facility "Pasteur concluded his speech with these words. After this day of July 1885, Pasteur and Meister never lost touch. . "When Joseph returned home to Alsace, Pasteur asked him to write to him every day, to find out how he was going," explains Elisabeth Liber. Adult and unemployed, Meister is hired by Pasteur as guardian of the Institute. A post also offered to Jean-Baptiste Jupille, by the scientist who died in 1895.
"Georges Clemenceau who was at the time president of the council but also doctor unofficially gives him the green light to continue his vaccinations". Rabies patients flock from all over France. In a few months, 350 people are vaccinated successfully. The Institut Pasteur is created, in charge of developing other vaccines, particularly against typhoid. Louis Pasteur was quickly dubbed the "benefactor of humanity".
The Institut Pasteur was founded in 1887 by Louis Pasteur, the famous French chemist and microbiologist. He was committed both to basic research and its practical applications. As soon as his institute was created, Pasteur brought together scientists with various specialties. One year after the inauguration of the Institut Pasteur, Emile Roux, one of the scientist, set up the first course of microbiology ever taught in the world, then entitled Cours de Microbie Technique (Course of microbe research techniques).
When a man save one or mutliple lives, we reward him with a medal...but how can you reward someone who saved thousand of millions fo lives?...by not forgetting him.
To know more about the subject:
Artenstein, Andrew W., ed. (2009). Vaccines: A Biography. Springer. p. 75. ISBN 978-1-4419-1108-7.
Vallery-Radot, René (1919). The Life of Pasteur. Translated by Devonshire, R. L. London: Constable & Company
Campbell, D M (January 1915). "The Pasteur Institute of Paris". American Journal of Veterinary Medicine.
b c d Porter, JR (1961). "Louis Pasteur: achievements and disappointments, 1861". Bacteriological Reviews.
Heilbron, J. L., ed. (2003). "Pasteur, Louis". The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science. Oxford University Press
Debré, Patrice (2000). Louis Pasteur. Translated by Forster, Elborg. Baltimore: JHU Press
Wasik, Bill; Murphy, Monica (2012). Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus. Penguin.
Hubert Marneffe, Archives de l'Institut Pasteur, Fond Hubert Marneffe, cote MRF.ARC.13, note d'Hubert Marneffe : "Mort de Joseph Meister"
