The theory of Spontaneous Generation proposed that life or living organisms could be “spontaneously generated” from non living matter. Similar to Louis Pasteur’s spontaneous generation experiment, the 17th century Italian scientist Franceso Redi conducted an experiment to refute the theory of Spontaneous Generation nearly 200 years earlier. Controlled Experiment by Redi Francesco Redi showed that maggots do not spontaneously arise …
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The most ordinary observation has at all times demonstrated that animal and vegetable substances, exposed after death to contact with atmospheric air, or buried in the earth, disappear, in consequence of various transformations. Fermentation, putrefaction, and slow combustion, are the three phenomena which concur in the accomplishment of this great fact of the destruction of organic substances–a condition necessary for …
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Originally published by Louis Pasteur in 1880 I would like to reiterate the following results, which I have previously had the honor of presenting to the academy: Fowl cholera is a virulent disease of the first order. The virus* consists of a microscopic parasite which multiplies readily in culture away from the animal body. From this it is possible to …
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By 1877 Louis Pasteur was coming to realize that he could no longer stand by and make scientific arguments regarding the research conducted on infectious disease. As a scientist he himself had to demonstrate the pathogenic role of the microbe through physical experimentation. Pasteur had so far proven that the absence of germs prevented disease (asepsis and antisepsis), but not …
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Excerpt from Chapter VII, Fermentation published in 1891 In the preceding chapters we have described the preparation of worts, their hopping, boiling, cooling, and aeration. In this chapter we have to deal with the conversion of the wort into beer by fermentation. To effect this change we employ yeast, the main function of which is to convert the maltose and …
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Originally published in “The Dial, Volume VI” in 1886 At the recent International Medical Congress, held in the city of Copenhagen, among all the men who have distinguished themselves in the cultivation of the sciences pertaining to medicine, the one most signally honored was the subject of this biographical sketch. When he appeared in the public assemblies of the delegates …
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Pasteur Brewing Louis Pasteur – Science, Health, and Brewing