Germ theory and pasteurization
Teoría microbiana y pasteurización
- Date
- 1857-1865 · confidence high
- Place
- Paris (École Normale Supérieure), France
- Credited to
- Louis Pasteur
- People
- 👤 Louis Pasteur1822–1895
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
The demonstration that fermentation and putrefaction are caused by living micro-organisms, not spontaneous generation, and a heating method at 55-60°C to kill those that spoil wine, beer and milk. It laid the foundations of microbiology.
Pasteurisation was patented in 1865 for wine; the germ theory of disease was also formulated by Koch (postulates, 1876-1884) and anticipated by Henle and Semmelweis.
What it led to
- Lister's antisepsis and hospital asepsis
- Food hygiene and safe milk: a fall in infant mortality
- The scientific brewing and wine industries
- Attenuated vaccines (1879-1885) and the Pasteur Institute
Built on
- Leeuwenhoek single-lens microscopec. 1670-1674
- Espejo's Reflexiones on smallpox1785
- Lister's achromatic microscope objective1830
- Achromatic microscope
- Fermentation studied by Cagniard-Latour and Schwann
- Appert's work on canning