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| signature = Louis Pasteur Signature.svg }} Louis Pasteur (, ; December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases, and his discoveries have saved countless lives ever since. He reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. His medical discoveries provided direct support for the germ theory of disease and its application in clinical medicine. He is best known to the general public for his invention of the technique of treating milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination, a process now called pasteurization. He is regarded as one of the three main founders of bacteriology, together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch, and is popularly known as the "father of microbiology". Pasteur was responsible for disproving the doctrine of spontaneous generation. He performed experiments that showed that without contamination, microorganisms could not develop. Under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences, he demonstrated that in sterilized and sealed flasks nothing ever developed, and in sterilized but open flasks microorganisms could grow. This experiment won him the Alhumbert Prize of the academy. Although Pasteur was not the first to propose the germ theory, he developed it and conducted experiments that clearly indicated its correctness and managed to convince most of Europe that it was true. (He was preceded by Girolamo Fracastoro, Agostino Bassi and others, with the significant experimental demonstration by Francesco Redi in the 17th century.) Today, he is often regarded as (one of the) fathers of germ theory. Pasteur also made significant discoveries in chemistry, most notably on the molecular basis for the asymmetry of certain crystals and racemization. Early in his career, his investigation of Tartaric acid resulted in the first resolution of what we now call optical isomers. His work led the way to our current understanding of a fundamental principal in the structure of organic compounds. He was the director of the Pasteur Institute, established in 1887, till his death, and his body lies beneath the institute in a vault covered in depictions of his accomplishments in Byzantine mosaics. Although Pasteur made groundbreaking experiments, his reputation became associated with various controversies. Historical reassessment of his notebook revealed that he practiced deception to overcome his rivals. ==Education and early life== Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822, in Dole, Jura, France, to a Catholic family of a poor tanner. He was the third child of Jean-Joseph Pasteur and Jeanne-Etiennette Roqui. In 1827, the family moved to Arbois, where he entered primary school in 1831. He was an average student in his early years, and not particularly academic, as his interests were fishing and sketching. His pastels and portraits of his parents and friends, made when he was 15, were later kept in the museum of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. In 1838, he left for Paris to join the Institution Barbet, but became homesick and returned in November. In 1839, he entered the Collège Royal de Besançon and earned his ''baccalauréat'' (BA) degree in 1840. He was appointed teaching assistant at the Besançon college while continuing a degree science course with special mathematics. He failed his first examination in 1841. He managed to pass the ''baccalauréat scientifique'' (general science) degree in 1842 from Dijon but with a poor grade in chemistry. After one failed attempt for the entrance test for the ''École Normale Supérieure'' in Paris in 1842, he succeeded in 1844. In 1845 he received the ''licencié ès sciences'' (Bachelor of Science) degree. In 1846, he was appointed professor of physics at the Collège de Tournon (now called ) in Ardèche, but Antoine Jérome Balard (one of the discoverers of the element bromine) wanted him back at the ''École Normale Supérieure'' as a graduate assistant (préparateur) for chemistry courses. He joined Balard and simultaneously started his research in crystallography and in 1847, he submitted his two theses, one in chemistry and the other in physics. After serving briefly as professor of physics at the Dijon Lycée in 1848, he became professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, where he met and courted Marie Laurent, daughter of the university's rector in 1849. They were married on May 29, 1849, and together had five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood; the other three died of typhoid. These personal tragedies were his motivations for curing infectious diseases.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louis Pasteur」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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