Louis Pasteur - The father of vaccine has never studied medicine

Never officially attending medical school, with great contributions, Louis Pasteur is still regarded as a great physician and honored as "benefactor of humanity".

Rare people save more lives than Louis Pasteur. The vaccines he developed have protected millions of people. His research on microbes has revolutionized health. He also found new ways to make food safe to eat. The BBC said that Pasteur had completely changed the understanding of biological humanity, becoming "the father of microbiology".

Born on December 27, 1822 at Dole, Jura (France), Pasteur was a normal student with passion for painting. While the teacher tried to support Pasteur to follow the art, his father only considered it a pleasure and wanted him to concentrate on studying at school. Pasteur once said that his father wanted him to "imbue the greatness of France" from the beginning of literacy.

Coming to Strasbourg University, Pasteur began his chemistry career and quickly resonated. At the age of 25, he gives his most important dedication to proving that identical molecules can exist as mirror images.

Portrait of Louis Pasteur.(Photo: Nadar).

Chemical research helped Pasteur solve one of the biggest mysteries of biology in the 19th century. For 2,000 years, people believed that life appeared naturally, fleas growing from dust and maggots came from the corpse. death. By a standard experiment, Pasteur proves that food is damaged by airborne infections. He came to the conclusion that these bacteria can cause disease. The controversial theory by Pasteur is a chemist and not a doctor, but it leads to the development of disinfectant which in turn changes the medical background forever.

Paying attention to Pasteur after the germ theory, Napoleon III entrusted him to deal with a problem faced by the French wine industry. French wines are famous throughout Europe but are often broken during transport. Pasteur noticed that this phenomenon was caused by bacteria and, if heated to 55 degrees C, the bacteria would be destroyed without destroying the taste of the wine. Today, the process is called sterilization , applied to protect food from infection.

After wine, Pasteur went to rescue the silk industry by discovering silkworms infected by parasites. The quarantine advice, eliminating his sick individuals has created a boost for the French economy. Pasteur's reputation is increasingly strengthened.

At the age of 45, Pasteur suffered a stroke that resulted in partial paralysis of the left side. From this moment on, he buried his head in his work to forget the great loss. In those days, children often died from infectious diseases. The scientist himself lost three daughters in 1859, 1865, and 1866 due to typhoid and cancer. Pasteur is so painful that he says "the only thing that can bring joy is work". Family tragedy became the driving force for him to start the fight against infectious diseases.

First, Pasteur and the development team studied chicken cholera. He injected the cholera bacteria into chickens, the animals were sick but did not die as expected and then formed strong virulence resistance. Pasteur realized that a weak pathogen could help animals increase their immunity, creating a continuation of Edward Jenner's achievement a century earlier.

Pasteur developed the intention to prepare vaccines for other diseases. He turned his attention to anthrax and declared finding effective vaccines on 31 kinds of animals.

Pasteur continued with rabies, a disease with terrible symptoms that led to a long, painful death. He met Joseph Meister, a boy bitten by a rabid dog. No one was sure when Joseph would get rabies, but Pasteur was still desperate to try the vaccine on him even though he had never been injected before. As a result, Joseph survived. The successful test of the first vaccination on July 6, 1885, was met with many reactions that Pasteur violated professional ethics for not having a medical license.

Louis Pasteur in the office.(Picture: A. Edelfeldt).

The results of rabies research were presented by Pasteur to the French Academy of Sciences on March 1, 1886. On this occasion, he proposed the establishment of a vaccine manufacturing facility for rabies vaccine. In 1887, Pasteur received 2 million French francs for donations. In 1888, President Sadi Carnot built the first Pasteur Institute in France and expanded into colonial regions like Senegal and Ivory Coast. The Pasteur Institute's guideline has not changed since then: research and manufacture vaccines and vaccination against infectious diseases.

The first outstanding achievement of Pasteur Institute is to determine the pathogenesis of diphtheria. The work by Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin led to the treatment and finally the vaccine. Today, 85% of children worldwide receive diphtheria vaccine.

Pasteur ran the Pasteur Institute in Paris until his death on September 28, 1895, at the age of 72. The "national hero" corpse was buried in Notre Dame Cathedral and transferred to the headquarters of the Pasteur Institute. In 1940 when the Nazis invaded Paris, the gatekeeper of the Pasteur Institute was the young Joseph who had previously refused to open the tomb. Joseph committed suicide to never offend his benefactor.

Now Louis Pasteur is remembered as one of the first to lay the foundations for preventive medicine. His work continues to save millions of lives around the world.