Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch: Microbiology

Hey everybody, Dr. O here. In this video I'm going to cover the two most important historical figures in the history of microbiology. So we have here, this is Louis Pasteur, and then we'll talk about Robert Koch as well. So where to begin with Pasteur, like you've heard of his name because of pasteurization, that's certainly part of it, but the main thing to know about him is pasteurization is very important, but he's the father of the germ theory of disease, and we'll talk later about he was the one that actually disproved the theory that life came from nothing and diseases came from the air and foul odors and things like that. He was able to prove that organisms in the air were the causative agent of disease. So very, very important. But I want to talk about him a lot more because he is as close to a rock star as a microbiologist could get. So first let's start about, you know, he's early 1800s is where he's from, so just imagine the world that he was born into. Like if somebody had rabies, it's said that his dad said that, like a rabid wolf, like perhaps a devil got into that wolf, and if God wills that it's going to die or you're going to die, then you'll die, right? And there's no help for it. This is what he believed as a child, and then growing up he completely transformed the world. So I would say the biggest thing that he did that made him extremely influential, not so much with human diseases, is that he solved the mystery of fermentation. We've been using fermentation for thousands of years, but nobody knew how to control it. So he was the one that learned how to control fermentation, and by doing so he, at different times in different countries, he was able to save the wine industry, I believe in France, the beer industry in Germany. He saved the vinegary industry and the silk industry. So imagine the amount of money that he saved people. So he played a very, very big role in those industries, but then he turned his eye towards the germ theory of disease. So he started to, so Robert Koch, who we'll talk about in a moment, he's the first person to actually prove that a certain germ causes a disease. But the Pasteurs were not the same time. They were contemporaries of each other. They probably didn't like each other that much. They were kind of in a race to see who could make more progress. But it did push microbiology forward a ton. But he created a couple of vaccines. So I mentioned in a different video that he was credited for naming vaccination after Edward Jenner had done it. But he created an anthrax vaccine that was super important. Now they probably rushed it out a little bit. He created a rabies vaccine that actually worked a lot better. So the big things about Pasteur again, the father of the germ theory of disease, it said that microbes cause disease, not whatever we believed before then. And then obviously pasteurization is a pretty big deal as well. All right. Then we do have Robert Koch here. So you might hear me call him Koch sometimes, but I do believe it's Koch. So Robert Koch, I just did it again, Robert Koch. So he, he was a small town doctor. He basically, he didn't really enjoy being a doctor though, because imagine at this time before we knew any of this, what could he do for his patients? He felt completely hopeless working with his patients. And I think his wife was kind of getting tired of him. So she, of this, so she gave him a microscope, was like a birthday present and he started piddling around. So he wasn't a scientist, whereas Pasteur was a scientist and probably never actually treated a patient. Koch was a doctor that kind of became a scientist. So he started doing different experiments. And at the time, obviously infectious diseases were killing lots and lots of people at the time when Koch would have first began his microbiological journey. If there was a plague or these kind of things, they would in Russia, they were strapping widows to plows, or they were killing Jewish people, these kinds of things. They literally had no idea. Scientists and doctors had no better information to offer these people than what they were currently doing, which was obviously terrible. So, so what I want you to know about him is that number one, he is the, he did determine the causative agent of the first disease. So he was able to prove that Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of anthrax. So the first person ever to do that. But number two, what's very important is in order to do that, he was the father of our aseptic lab techniques. So he was the, he was the first person that took isolating pure cultures very seriously. He was the first person to grow microbes on solid surfaces. He was using like slices of boiled potatoes. He didn't have petri dishes instead of using like mutton gravy or whatever else they were working with at the time. So, so he is the father of the same aseptic lab techniques that we use to this day. He would actually isolate colonies and transfer them as many as six, seven, eight times before actually putting them into a new animal. So the other big thing that he's credited with and famous for is, is Koch's postulates, which was actually how you prove that organism A causes disease Y. So I did a separate video on Koch's postulates, but just so you know, that's another thing about him is that's what he's famous for. So all right. So we have Louis Pasteur, the father of the germ theory of disease. And then you'll see he played many, many other roles. Then you have Robert Koch, the father of aseptic lab techniques, and also the first person to prove the causative agent of a disease. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.