Louis Pasteur was a world-renowned French chemist and biologist who lived during the 1800"s. He founded the science of microbiology and proved the germ theory of disease. His work also provided the world with the process of pasteurization and important vaccines for several diseases, including rabies. Pasteur devoted his life to solving practical problems of industry, agriculture, and medicine. The discoveries he made have saved countless lives and created new wealth for the world. By looking at all of Louis Pasteur"s contributions to science and the world we can see that he is one of the most influential people of the millennium.

             Pasteur was born in Dole, France on December 7, 1822 the son of a poor tanner. When he was two months old the family moved to the town of Arbois, where Louis grew up and went to school. He was a hard working student but not an especially brilliant one. His early education was received at the Collage Communal of Arbois, but Louis had the tendency to slack off on his schoolwork. Devoting most of his time to fishing and sketching, it seemed that he would become a painter. When he chose science as one of his courses he grew interested. When he was 17 years old he received a degree of bachelor of letters at the College Royal de Besancon. For the next three years he tutored younger students and prepared for the Ecole Normal Superieure, a noted teacher – training college in Paris. In order to devote himself to science, in 1847 Pasteur earned his doctorate focusing on physics and chemistry under Dumas, Balard, and Biot. His father helped him, but he had to support himself partly by his own labors. Becoming an assistant to one of his teachers, he began research that led to a significant discovery.

             As part of his studies he investigated the crystallographic, chemical, and optical properties of different kinds of tartaric acid. "Mitscherlich announced that two tartaric acids, apparently identical in chemical qualities and in crystalline form, acted differently in solution toward polarized light" (Dubos 86).