Paper I — 2022 May (Supplementary) (2010 Scheme) — Q4
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Paper I
2022 May (Supplementary) (2010 Scheme) · 40 marks · 120 min
Question
Louis Pasteur
Q42 marksShort Notes
Answer
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), a French chemist and microbiologist, is regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern microbiology, for several landmark contributions:
Disproved spontaneous generation — his swan-neck flask experiments demonstrated that microbial growth in sterile nutrient broth arises only from microorganisms already present in air/dust, establishing the germ theory of disease on firm experimental ground.
Pasteurization — developed the process of heating liquids (wine, later milk) to a temperature sufficient to kill pathogenic/spoilage organisms without significantly altering the product’s quality.
Principle of attenuation and vaccination — showed that a pathogen’s virulence could be artificially weakened (attenuated) by serial passage or altered growth conditions, and that inoculation with such attenuated organisms could confer protective immunity; developed vaccines against fowl cholera, anthrax, and, most famously, rabies (the first human rabies vaccine, 1885, used on Joseph Meister).
Coined the term “vaccine” in honour of Edward Jenner’s earlier cowpox work.
His work laid the foundation for aseptic technique in surgery and industrial fermentation science.
