Louis Pasteur (1822–95). Scientific Papers.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Introduction Note
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In respect of the number and importance, practical as well as scientific, of his discoveries, Pasteur has hardly a rival in the history of science. He may be regarded as the founder of modern stereo-chemistry; and his discovery that living organisms are the cause of fermentation is the basis of the whole modern germ-theory of disease and of the antiseptic method of treatment. His investigations of the diseases of beer and wine; of pébrine, a disease affecting silk-worms; of anthrax, and of fowl cholera, were of immense commercial importance and led to conclusions which have revolutionized physiology, pathology, and therapeutics. By his studies in the culture of bacteria of attenuated virulence he extended widely the practise of inoculation with a milder form of various diseases, with a view to producing immunity.
The following papers present some of the most important of his contributions, and exemplify his extraordinary powers of lucid exposition and argument.