SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



197 



LOUIS PASTEUR. 



T OUIS PASTEUR was born at Dole, in De- 

 partment of Jura, in Eastern France. His 

 father, who had been a soldier and decorated on 

 the field of battle, was a working tanner. The 

 house where Louis was born, in the little Rue des 

 Tanneurs, now bears the inscription, " Ici est ne 

 LouisPasteur, 

 le 27 Decem- 

 bre, 1822." 

 To the excep- 

 tional intelli- 

 gence of his 

 mother much 

 of the success 

 of his early 

 education was 

 due, but his 

 father direct- 

 ed his attend- 

 ance at school. 

 It was from 

 the first their 

 intention to 

 make Louis 

 a chemist, 

 though he 

 pleaded hard 

 to become an 

 artist. Many 

 of his early 

 sketches are 

 in existence, 

 notably one of 

 his mother, 

 which hangs 

 in the dining 

 room of his 

 Paris resi- 

 dence. These 

 show much 

 talent, and 

 had not fate 

 decided in 

 favour of the 

 parents' de- 

 sire, and for 

 the good of 



The last Portrai 

 (From a photograph taken 



of his youth is well told in that charming book, 

 " Ilistoire d'un Savant par un Ignorant," published 

 in Paris a little time ago anonymously, but since 

 Pasteur's death known to be by Mons. Vallery- 

 Radot. 



In 1847, Pasteur took the Doctor of Science degree, 



and became 

 Professor of 

 Chemical 

 Physics at 

 Strasbu rg . 

 In 1854, h e 

 was Dean of 

 the Faculty of 

 Sciences at 

 Lille, remain- 

 i ng there 

 three years, 

 during which 

 he founded 

 his researches 

 into fermen- 

 tations and 

 the bacteria 

 which are 

 associated 

 with them. In 

 1857, he was 

 elected Direc- 

 tor of Studies 

 in the Paris 

 Ecole Nor- 

 ma 1 e, and 

 afterwards he 

 became suc- 

 cessively Pro- 

 fessor of Geol- 

 ogy, Physics, 

 and eventu- 

 ally of Chem- 

 istry, at the 

 Ecole d e 

 Beaux Arts, 

 and through 

 the influence 

 of Napoleon 

 III. he occu- 



t of Louis Pasteur. 



in June, 1895, by M. Mairet.) 



mankind, he might have become a celebrated 

 painter. 



Pasteur's education commenced in the Communal 

 College of Arbois, where his parents had removed ; 

 then a year was spent in the College of Besacon, 

 from which, at fourteen, he entered the Ecole 

 Normale in Paris. Although a most successful 

 student, he was not considered brilliant. The story 



pied the chair of chemistry at the Sorbonne. Our 

 Royal Society first honoured him, in 1S56, with 

 the Rumford medal for his discoveries in the 

 polarisation of light ; again by electing him foreign 

 member in 1869; while he received the Copley 

 medal in 1874. Eight years later Oxford conferred 

 on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. 

 The blue-ribbon of French science, Membership of 



October, 1895. — No. 20, Vol. II. 



