Louis Pasteur Dec. 27, 1822- Sept. 28, 1895

He was born in Dole France, married to Marie Laurent and had five children, four girls and a boy. Three of his daughters died of typhoid fever. Graduated in 1842 from Besancon college royal de la franche eith honors in physics, mathematics, Latin, and a first prize for drawing. He also attended Ecole Normale to study physics and chemistry. His first field of study was in crystals. He then goes on to help out the distilleries of wine in their fermentation process, adn to develop a way to pasteurize to kill germs. He then goes on to help the textile industry whose silk worms were dying of a disease which he finds a cure for. He goes on to find cures for chicken cholera, anthrax and rabies. Through his work the Pasteur Institute is opened in 1888, and Louis Pasteur is named director. Pasteur wins many honors during his life time, as well as controversy. Some areas of controversy were his thoughts on spontaneous generation, and to convince surgeons that germs, which carried diseases, were carried by dirty instruments and surgeons not washing their hands between patients. This later area almost led his to a duel with an 80 year old surgeon. He also had supporters, Joseph Lister was able to show a decrease in infected wounds when Pastures ideas were applied to making surgeries more sterile. He led the way for isolating germs and finding cures.

Submitted by Deborah Wilson