This is the story of the nineteenth-century French chemist and biologist: from his birth as the son of a simple country tanner, through his dedicated scientific labors, to the eminence of his later years when he became a national hero.
Louis Pasteur's first chemical research resulted in his founding a whole new discipline, stereochemistry, which deals with the influence of the spatial arrangement of molecules on chemical reactions. From this early triumph he progressed to his great pioneering work in bacteriology, the science which studies bacteria and their relations to medicine, industry, and agriculture.
During a study of fermentation, Pasteur was appealed to by some of the French wine-growers who were on the brink of economic disaster. It was while trying to help them that he developed pasteurization, a heating of the brews to kill the microorganisms causing the wine to deteriorate. This process, applied to other substances, such as milk, has contributed to the health of all mankind.
The scientist's far-ranging activities encompassed study of silkworms, a proof contradicting the theory of spontaneous generation, and significant work with vaccines. In attempting to find a preventative for chicken cholera and anthrax, Pasteur found that animals inoculated with a weak form of the microbes developed a mild attack of the disease but recovered to a total immunity. An extension of this work led to his dramatic discovery of a rabies antitoxin, saving the lives of people otherwise faced with certain death.
John Mann has not omitted the story of Pasteur the man—his warm family relationships, the long illnesses and personal tragedies that haunted his life, and the bitter scientific controversies that raged over his ideas. Quotations from letters to and from Pasteur and from his scientific addresses, articles, and books illuminate the text. Complete with a synoptic calendar, linking events in Pasteur's life with significant world events, a glossary of scientific terms, a bibliography, and an index, this book exemplifies what Pasteur himself commended: "It is by reading what discoverers have done that we light and maintain the sacred flame of discovery."
John Mann is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, New York University, where he is engaged in teaching and research in the bio-social sciences. Dr. Mann is the author of Frontiers of Psychology.
—from the dust jacket
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