2 - The Contribution of Louis Pasteur to Medical Bacteriology

Abstract

This chapter discusses the contribution of Louis Pasteur to medical bacteriology. The science of medical bacteriology, during the latter half of the 19th century, was dominated by the work of two great men and their immediate pupils—Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. Although Pasteur was over twenty years older than Koch and had accomplished great things in the broad field of microbiology before Koch ever commenced his researches, it happens that their most important contributions to medical bacteriology were both made at about the same time, during the decade from 1876 to 1886. Both were profoundly interested in the validity of the germ theory in general and made important contributions to this topic, but, by and large, their work hardly overlapped. Pasteur's work was chiefly in the field of immunity. His first research was in the field of crystallography and, as is well known, a connecting thread is clearly visible from this work, done in the 1840s, to his last great achievement, that is, vaccination against rabies. The nature of racemic acid led to an interest in fermentation and the discovery of the part specific microorganisms played in lactic and butyric fermentation. This, in turn, led to his investigations into the cause of spoilage in wines and beer—the disease of wine. From the diseases of wine, Pasteur turned to his successful studies on the diseases of silkworms so that, by the late 1870s, no man was better prepared for the study of the causes of the infectious diseases of the higher animals and man.