Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur was a chemist who showed that fermentation is the work of living organisms, that spoilage and disease are caused by germs, and that they can be prevented by heating, by cleanliness, and by vaccination with weakened strains, which he developed for anthrax and rabies. He saved the French silk and wine industries, disproved spontaneous generation with a swan-necked flask, and founded the institute in Paris that bears his name. The Scientific Papers the Harvard Classics print include the paper on the germ theory and its application to medicine and surgery, which Lister read and acted on.