- Pasteur
- The French chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) invented pasteurization, developed the germ theory, founded the field of bacteriology and created the first vaccines against anthrax and rabies. Pasteur's impact upon medicine was so profound that his name remains attached to pasteurization; the Pasteur effect; pasteurella; pasteurellaceae; pasteurellaceae infections; pasteurella haemolytica; pasteurella infections; pasteurella multocida; pasteurellosis, pneumonic; pasteurism; etc. Pasteurization is so much a part of our lives that we tend not to think about it. It is a method of treating food by heating it just enough to kill pathogenic (disease-causing) organisms but not harm the flavor or quality of the food. Pasteurization is used with beer, milk, cheese and egg products. Fresh-squeezed unpasteurized fruit juices are a potential hazard, as some E. coli outbreaks have sadly shown.
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Pas·teur (pahs-toorґ) Louis, 1822–1895. French chemist, author of the germ theory of disease, and founder of microbiology, virology, and immunology. Pasteur is famous for disproving spontaneous generation and for his work in stereochemistry, lactic and alcoholic fermentation, microbiology and diseases of wine and beer, diseases of silkworms, anaerobiosis, virulent diseases (anthrax, chicken cholera), and preventive inoculation with attenuated microbes (especially against rabies). Pasteur's work enabled Joseph Lister to develop antiseptic surgery.
Medical dictionary. 2011.