Plot

The biography of the pioneering French microbiologist who helped revolutionize agriculture and medicine.

In 1860 Paris, chemist Louis Pasteur is considered a quack within the medical community for advocating that doctors and surgeons wash their hands and boil their instruments to destroy microbes that can kill their patients. He came across this belief when discovering microscopic organisms in sour wine which could be killed if heated sufficiently. The belief among the scientific community at large is that the organisms are the result of disease and not the cause. This belief is despite the fact that 30% of women die in childbirth due to childbed disease, accounting for 20,000 annual deaths in Paris alone. The debate takes Pasteur all the way to a meeting with Emperor Napoleon III and his physician, Dr. Charbonnet, who is one of the leading opponents of Pasteur. Several years later, France is a republic and much of Pasteur's reputation changes as a government sanctioned experiment with anthrax and sheep shows that a vaccine created by Pasteur proves effective. As Pasteur begins work on finding the cause and a cure for rabies, which proves a more difficult challenge, he still has his detractors, including Dr. Charbonnet. This continuing debate brings about his biggest challenge: proving that microbes are the cause of all disease. Through it all, he is supported not only by his family, but Dr. Jean Martel, who was once a junior physician in the emperor's court and a physician within the republic's government, but who now works with Pasteur and is his son-in-law. But an act of bravado by Charbonnet may ultimately prove to be the breakthrough for which Pasteur is looking. Moving the experimental treatments from animals to humans proves a bigger obstacle, as is Charbonnet's need to win at all cost in the court of public opinion.—Huggo

Hollywood version of famous scientist Louis Pasteur and his work with microbes and their role in disease. Few in the medical community believed Pasteur's theories in this area and after an encounter with the Emperor, leaves Paris. Some years later, officials in Paris hear that there is no anthrax in the area of Arbois. They soon learn that Pasteur is living in there and has in fact developed a vaccine. Skeptics abound but a real-life test proves that his vaccine works. He next sets out to find find the microbe responsible for rabies which proves to be quite elusive. Through a fluke he and his assistant discover that a weakened dose of rabies helps the human immune system create its own antibodies. The approach is far from fully developed but he agrees to treat a young boy who was attacked by a mad dog. The treatment was a great success and further experiments lead to a cure.—garykmcd

French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur is on a quest to cure the ailments of the 19th century. But he's thwarted at every turn by skeptical fellow scientists, chief among them Dr. Charbonnet. He draws scorn when he supports the germ theory, advocating that doctors should wash their hands and sterilize their instruments before working on patients. But Pasteur perseveres, and when anthrax becomes a scourge, he holds the key to solving the epidemic.

In 1860, having helped France solve the problem of sour wine, chemist Louis Pasteur turns to the dangers of childbirth: 20,000 Paris women were dying annually. His germ theory and recommendation that doctors wash their hands and sterilize their instruments meet with derision in the academy, and the emperor himself orders Pasteur to be silent. Ten years later, needing cash to pay for war losses, the government finds that anthrax is killing herds everywhere in the country except Arbois: Pasteur is there, vaccinating sheep. Again the academy is dismissive. When Pasteur is vindicated, he turns his attention to hydrophobia. It is the Russians who realize his genius, and France finally honors him.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

In Paris in 1860, a distraught man murders his wife's doctor. Chemist Louis Pasteur has been publicizing a theory that diseases are caused by microbes, which doctors should avoid spreading by washing their hands and sterilizing their instruments in boiling water. The doctor did not do this and the wife died of puerperal fever after giving birth.

Pasteur is dismissed by France's medical academy-particularly his most vocal critic, Dr. Charbonnet-as a crank whose recommendations are tantamount to witchcraft. Pasteur frankly calls attention to the risks of Charbonnet's non-sterile methods and correctly predicts that a member of Napoleon III's royal family who Charbonnet is attending will die of puerperal fever, but Pasteur is the one who is considered dangerous, because his ideas have led to murder. When the Emperor comes down against him, Pasteur leaves Paris and moves to the small town of Arbois.

In the 1870s, when the new French government tries to restore the economy after the Franco-Prussian War, they learn that many sheep are dying of anthrax, except around Arbois. They send representatives who learn that, working with a small group of loyal researchers, Pasteur has developed a vaccine against the disease and put it into use locally.

The medical academy still opposes him and says Arbois must simply be free of anthrax, so the government buys land there and invites sheep farmers to use it. Pasteur objects strongly, saying the soil is full of anthrax spores, and eventually an experiment is proposed. He will vaccinate 25 of the newly arrived sheep; then they and a control group of 25 others will be injected with blood from a sheep with anthrax.

Joseph Lister, the pioneer of antiseptic surgery in England, is interested enough to attend, and witnesses Pasteur's total success as all the vaccinated sheep remain healthy after the other 25 have died. At this point Jean Martel, a young doctor who was formerly Charbonnet's assistant but now is a follower of Pasteur, becomes engaged to Pasteur's daughter Annette.

The celebrations are short-lived, as a rabid dog runs through the town and a man is bitten. As a woman attempts to cure him by witchcraft, Pasteur laments that doctors would have no more chance of success. Moving back to Paris, he makes rabies his next project. He is able to spread the disease from one animal to another by injection, but finds himself unable to detect any microbe being transferred (viruses had not yet been discovered), and the method he used to create the anthrax vaccine does not work.

Charbonnet visits the lab to gloat over Pasteur's failure. He is so certain Pasteur is a quack that he injects himself with rabies-and is triumphant, as he does not get the disease. Pasteur is puzzled, until his wife Marie suggests that the sample may have gotten weak with age. This sets him on the right path at last, giving dogs a series of progressively stronger injections.

But before his experiments reach a conclusion, a frantic mother begs him to try his untested treatment on her son, who has been bitten by a rabid dog. Risking imprisonment or even execution, Pasteur decides he must try to save the child. During the attempt, a Dr. Zaranoff arrives from Russia with a group of peasants who have been exposed to rabies, and who have volunteered to receive Pasteur's treatment.

Annette goes into labor with Martel's child. The doctor who was to attend her is unavailable, and Martel is urgently needed for the boy. Pasteur searches frantically for another doctor, but the only one he can find is none other than Charbonnet. He begs Charbonnet to wash his hands and sterilize his instruments just this once; Charbonnet finally agrees on condition that if Charbonnet lives another month, Pasteur will retract and denounce all his work on rabies. Both men are honorable enough to respect the agreement. The birth goes well, but Pasteur collapses with a mild stroke.

Days later, word comes that Pasteur has permission to treat those of the Russians who are still alive. He attends them in hospital for the first injections using a wheelchair, and later using a cane. The experiment is a success, and now even Charbonnet concedes that he was wrong, tearing up Pasteur's retraction and asking for the shots for himself.

Afterwards, Pasteur hears that he is to be denounced by Lister at the medical academy. He angrily attends, but it was just a way to surprise him. He is praised by Lister, presented with a Russian medal by Zaranoff, and honored by the very doctors who once scoffed at his discoveries.