THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 3, 1995 TAG: 9503030533
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Pause before the cereal milk passes your lips. Wait a moment to savor that vintage wine or favorite beer.
First, a toast to Louis Pasteur. For without that 19th century French scientist who almost singlehandedly invented the science of microbiology, we would not have pasteurization, practical vaccination or first-rate fermentation.
One hundred years after his death, Pasteur has returned, in a manner of speaking. A traveling exhibition unveiled Thursday at Virginia Wesleyan College focuses on Pasteur's extraordinary life and times.
``It hasn't been all that long ago that he lived, when you consider that the science of biology started 2,300 years ago,'' said Betty Jefferson Harris, chair of Virginia Wesleyan's Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. ``It's amazing - the things he observed and interpreted, given the small amount of scientific knowledge available then.''
The life of the stone-faced, bearded researcher plays itself out on a series of displays that chronicles Pasteur's three great accomplishments, any of which would have vaulted him into the ranks of the world's greatest scientists.
``Pasteur - my gosh, we owe so much to him,'' said Patricia Sullivan, an exhibit organizer and Wesleyan's director of international programs. ``An exposition like this is not boring. It's a celebration.''
Pasteur's first great achievement was disproving the prevailing theory at the time called spontaneous generation, which held that life arose from inanimate material such as soil, or from the dead bodies of people or animals. In a series of ingenious and painstaking experiments, Pasteur proved that microorganisms too small to be seen by the naked eye float in air and live in soil.
Once settled on a food source, those organisms grow and change, or become food sources for other life forms. Pasteur proved that maggots, or fly larvae, don't spring up magically on decaying matter, but are deposited there as eggs and then mature.
``Pasteur showed conclusively the air was filled with microbes,'' Harris said. ``Life comes from life.''
Secondly, Pasteur proposed the germ theory of disease, which held that microorganisms caused living things to fall ill and sometimes die. In 1865, he verified that a microbe was attacking silkworm eggs and killing them. Pasteur's discoveries led to a cure, saving a vital French industry.
Eventually, based on his germ theory investigations, Pasteur would also devise a series of vaccines, including one for rabies, saving untold lives.
Pasteur's third great accomplishment was identifying and then correcting microbial action that can cause spoilage of food or liquids. Wine was first on his list, followed by beer and milk. ``Pasteurization'' thereby entered the lexicon, coming to mean liquid that was safe to drink and protected against quick spoilage.
Born in 1822, Pasteur would live 73 years and, remarkably, achieve some of his greatest discoveries despite a stroke in 1868 that left him partially paralyzed.
The Pasteur Institute, founded seven years before his death in 1895, has been a world leader in the study of AIDS. ``We know now what causes most diseases,'' Harris said. ``Pasteur opened the door.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Virginia Wesleyan Professor Rick Hite peruses the Louis Pasteur
exhibition Thursday at the college. The traveling exhibition
showcases the scientist's numerous achievements.
Photo
Pasteur, who developed a vaccine for rabies, sits with some children
who received the life-saving treatment.
by CNB