Louis Pasteur, Inventpr of Vaccine.
Dr. Dwijesh Kumar Panda, M.D, Ph.D ( Medicine)
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and Microbiologist. He is remembered
for his remarkable breakthroughs
in the causes and prevention of
diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he
created the first vaccines for rabies and anthranx. His experiments supported
the germ theory of disease. He was best known to the general public for inventing
a method to stop milk and wine from causing sickness , a process that came to be called
Pasteurisation.
Early life :-
Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822 in France into the family of
a poor tanner. He had five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood, the
other three died of Typhoid. These personal tragedies inspired Pasteur to try
to find cures for diseases such as typhoid.
Germ theory of disease;- Pasteur demonstrated fermentation which is caused by the growth of micro-organisms , and
the emergent growth of bacteria in nutrient broths is not due to spontaneous
generation, but rather to biogenesis
(“all life is from life”). He is often regarded as the father of germ theory
and bacteriology, together with Robert Koch. His research also showed the
growth of micro-organisms responsible for spoiling beverages, such as beer,
wine and milk. He invented a process in which liquids such as milk were heated
to kill most bacteria present in them. This process was known as “Pasteurization”.
Beverages contamination led Pasteur to the idea that micro-organisms infecting animals and humans
cause disease. Pasteur also discovered anaerobiasis where by some
micro-organisms develop and live without air or oxygen called Pasteur effect.
Immunology and Vaccination :- In the 1870s Pasteur claimed that he had the
Anthrax vaccine by exposing the bacilli to oxygen. Anthrax is a disease which
affects the cattle. Edward Jenner had
discovered vaccination using cowpox to give cross immunity to smallpox in 1796.
Pasteur had replaced the use of actual
smallpox material in inoculation. This discovery revolutionized work
in infectious diseases and Pasteur gave
these artificially weakened diseases the generic name of “Vaccine”.
Pasteur produced the first vaccine for
rabies by growing the virus in rabbits, and then weakening it by drying the
affected nerve tissue. The vaccine was first used on a 9 year old boy in 1985 after the boy was badly mauled
by a rabid dog. This was done at some personal risk for Pasteur, since he was
not a licenced physician and could have faced prosecution for treating the boy.
The body did not contract the disease.
Pasteur saved the boy’s life. He was hailed as a hero and the legal matter was
not pursued. The treatment’s success laid the foundation stone for the
manufacture of many other vaccines. Pasteur was absolutely fearless. Anxious to secure a sample of saliva
straight from the jaws of a rabid dog
with the glass tube held between his lips proves a sign of his bravery.
Vaccination ;-
It is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive
immunity to a disease. The active agent of a vaccine may be intact but
inactivated (non-infective ) or attenuated ( with reduced infectivity ) forms
of the causative pathogens. The word vaccination was first used by Edward Jenner in 1796. Louis Pasteur furthered the
concept through his pioneering work in microbiology. The vaccine triggers an
immune response more rapidly than the
natural infection itself.
All vaccinations
work by presenting a foreign anigen to the immune system in order to evoke an
immune response. The main types used in clinical use are as follows
1.
An inactivated vaccine consists of virus or bacteria
which are grown in culture and then killed by heat or formaldehyde. Thus the
bacterial particles are destroyed and
can not replicate.
2.
An attenuated vaccine, live virus or bacteria
with very low virulence are administered. They will replicate very slowly.
These vaccines are produced by adapting a virus into
different host cell cultures.Those vaccines can not be used in
immunocompromised individuals.
Having worked on bacterial diseases, Louis
Pasteur became so famous that money poured into the institute named after him.
He continued his work at the Pasteur Institute for the rest of his life. Thanks
to Pasteur, we now understand how infectious diseases are spread, and through
vaccination doctors have been able to save countless human lives in the
twentieth century.
REFERENCES:-
1.Top.
Microbiol.Immunol. Current topics.
2.Vaccine Overview-2008-01-02
3.” Doctors and diagnosis “.
4. The Lancet- Feb. 2010.
Dr. Dwijesh Kumar
Panda, M.D.,Ph.D (Medicine)
M5/12, Acharya Vihar, Bhubaneswar, 751 013
Contact No. 094384 70777.
Submitted to the Secretary,
Odisha Bigyan Academy, Bhubaneswar for favour of publication. E.Mail- secretaryoba@yahoo.com