PASTEUR, LOUIS. - FOUNDING MICROBIOLOGY AND BACTERIOLOGY.

Mémoire sur la Fermentation appelée Lactique. (Extrait par l'auteur).

Paris, Mallet-Bachelier, 1857. 4to. No wrappers. In: "Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Academie des Sciences", Tome 45, No 22. Pp. (909-) 940. (Entire issue offered with titlepage and halftitle to volume 45). Pasteur's paper: pp. 913-916.

First printing of this landmark paper (published in full the year after in "Mémoires de la Societe des Sciences, de l'Agriculture et des arts de Lille" and in "Annales de Chimie et de Physique" (1858)), marking Pasteur's commencement of the study of fermentation. The offered paper was read in extract on the Séance du Lundi 30 Novembre). Here Pasteur found that lactic acid fermentation is due to small corpuscles of yeast cells, and thus carried out by living bacteria. He hereby ended the long controversy with Liebig, who insisted that fermentation was a purrely chemical phenomenon that did not involve living organisms. THE MEMOIR IS CONSIDERED THE FOUNDING PAPER OF MICROBIOLOGY.

"Pateur's researches on fermentationm led him to the discovery of the bacteria and yeasts and hence to the germ theory of disease: FROM THIS ALL MODERN BACTERIOLOGY AND IMMUNIOLOGY DEVELOPED."(Garrison & Morton, note to 2472).

"There (at the University of Lille) he became interested in the problem of France's importent wine industry. Wine and beer often went sour as they aged and millions of francs were lost as a result. Wasn't there some chemical to prevent this ? In 1856 a Lille industrialist turned to the famous young chemist and put the problem to him. Pasteur agreed to tackle the matter and turned to the microscope. He found almost at once that when the wine and beer aged properly, the liquid contains little speherical globules of yeast cells. When wine and beer turn sour, the yeast cells are elongated. Clearly there are two types of yeast, one of which produces alcohol (good) and the other lactic acid (bad). Pasteur was the first to show definitely that fermentation involves living organisms and that it is necessary to supply the correct organism to provide the correct type of fermentation."(Isaac Asimov).

Dibner No. 198. (= the offered paper in Comptes Rendus). - Garrison & Morton 2472.

Order-nr.: 49460