Bicentenary of Louis Pasteur’s birth: France’s tribute to a “Benefactor of Mankind”

Born on 27 December 1822 in Dole (Jura region), Louis Pasteur lives “at the starting point of one of the most formidable scientific revolutions of the 19th century” in the fields of biology, agriculture, medicine and hygiene. Today, as the website dedicated to the bicentenary points out, the figure of Louis Pasteur is one of the most known by the general public in France: more than 360 higher education institutions bear his name, and about 3,400 streets, avenues and boulevards, which makes it the second most used street name after General De Gaulle.

Tributes in universities

All scholars, researchers, scientists and professors in universities pay today a tribute to Louis Pasteur. The bicentenary scientific steering committee supervised by the Pasteur Institute and the Academy of Science gathers no less than eight domestic institutions, including the Académie française, the Ecole normale supérieure and the University of Strasbourg, two iconic places in the Pasteur’s life.

At Ecole normale supérieure in Paris, “a place dear to Pasteur” where he spent many years of his life as administrator, a series of conferences will be held on 19 and 20 January to highlight “the major influence of Pasteur’s work and reflection process on modern developments of research in chemistry and biology”. The University of Strasbourg, where Pasteur has been a chemistry teacher, will organise in March as part of its training actions in relation with the bicentenary of Pasteur’s birth a conference called “Pasteur, artist, man of science and entrepreneur”.

Pasteur at the Bibliothèque nationale de France

More broadly, the Gallica digital library website of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), one of the most significant digital libraries in the world in free access on the Internet, also celebrates Pasteur’s birth through a series of tickets illustrating his career as man and as researcher. Each week, the blog of Gallica tells a key episode of the researcher’s life and his discoveries.

Gallica offers a dive “at the heart of Pasteur’s reflection process” by browsing his experiences notebooks, which are all kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, including the notebooks describing the design of the rabies vaccine, experimented in 1885, which decisively marks the entry of Pasteur in the history of science.

Pasteur in his Institute

Let’s pay honour to whom honour is due: it’s at the Pasteur Institute in Paris that Pasteur’s figure is most present. A member of the University of Paris Cité, the Pasteur Institute, which was named after Louis Pasteur, holds in its premises the Pasteur Museum, a remembrance place open to the public in 1936. The museum “holds the remembrance of the life and work of Louis Pasteur in the wide appartement he lived in during the last seven years of his life”. It is possible to make a digital visit of the museum and freely explore the different floors of the exhibition or all the collections to explore the highlights of the Pasteur’s scientific work in customised visits.

To be noted that the Pasteur Institute develops today many major international projects in collaboration with “major international scientific authorities such as the World Health Organisation and many additional organisations, foundations, research institutes, universities or other private players throughout the world”. In addition, the Pasteur Institute is a member of the Pasteur Network, a “network of international cooperation in public health, education and research, gathering 33 members worldwide”.