80 PASTEUR 



crobes, the terrors of wine growers and epicures, 

 for no barrel and no bottle was surely safe? 

 Pasteur tried at first to use antiseptics, taste- 

 less and odourless, but without obtaining good 

 results. It was through the application of heat 

 that he finally solved the problem, and it was 

 well worth the solving, since the vineyards of 

 France produce as a matter of fact fifty million 

 hectolitres of an average value of five hundred 

 million francs, and suffer enormous losses 

 through the occurrence of diseases. 



Pasteur heated the wines in a closed vessel 

 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and by thus destroy- 

 ing the microbes put them in a condition to be 

 kept without danger of spoiling. But this proc- 

 ess of heating had to contend with many preju- 

 dices. It was believed that it altered the qual- 

 ity of the wines, and the wine growers were re- 

 luctant to adopt this method of preservation. 

 A commission was appointed to try the effect 

 of the Pasteur method upon wines to be trans- 

 ported by sea. They put on board the Jean- 

 Bart at Brest samples of wine that had been 



