Pasteur: fermentation is the physiological work of living cells, from the Bigo factory to the Études sur la bière
A doctrine in which alcoholic fermentation is an expression of the vital activity of the yeast fungus, inseparable from it, and each fermentation is carried out by its own organism.
The French chemist Louis Pasteur came to it from the factory floor: in 1856 he went regularly to Monsieur Bigo's beetroot alcohol works in Lille, where fermentations were failing. The conclusion was reached by 1860.
From this grew industrial techniques: sowing the microorganism held responsible in order to isolate and purify it, and heating wine in closed vessels for an hour or two at between 60 and 100 degrees, later called pasteurization. The Études sur la bière (1876) is the same programme applied to beer; according to his biographer, Pasteur took up beer during the war and the Commune with the explicit aim of competing with the German breweries.
Why this date
Axis year 1857: in December 1857 the first item in the series on alcoholic fermentation appeared, culminating in the long memoir of 1860 (article on Pasteur in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography). Historians date the thesis itself to 1857-1860. The upper bound of the label is the Études sur la bière, Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1876. What is covered here is a programme rather than a single work, hence the double label.
What it grew from
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Brewer's yeast turns out to be a living organism: Cagniard-Latour, Schwann, Kützing
influenced · Confidence: high
Schriefers derives Pasteur's thesis of 1857-1860 directly from the discoveries of the 1830s: Cagniard-Latour's report to the Paris Academy in 1836 and the work of Schwann and Kützing are named as what Pasteur built on.
Link sources
- Herbert Schriefers, «Buchner, Eduard», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
On the basis of these discoveries and as a result of his own observations and experiments, Pasteur (between 1857 and 1860) formulated the thesis that alcoholic fermentation was an expression of the vital action of the yeast fungi and inseparably bound to this physiological action.
- Herbert Schriefers, «Buchner, Eduard», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
In 1836 Cagniard de la Tour had reported to the Paris Academy that yeast consisted of living organisms
- Jacques Payen, «Cagniard de la Tour, Charles», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
(It was in 1857 that Pasteur shed light on the question.)
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Herbert Schriefers, «Buchner, Eduard», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
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Fermentation as a reproducible practice: beer, bread, wine
influenced · Confidence: high
Pasteur entered the subject through an industrial failure: the owner of a beetroot alcohol works in Lille consulted him about failing fermentations, and Pasteur went to the factory regularly. Later he took up beer with the explicit aim of competing with the German breweries.
Link sources
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
During 1856, he went regularly to the beetroot alcohol factory of M. Bigo, seeking the cause of and remedies for recent disappointments in the quality of that product.
- James A. Barnett, «Beginnings of microbiology and biochemistry: the contribution of yeast research», Microbiology 149 (3), 557-567 (2003) Verified 20 Sep 2026
Monsieur Bigo, a local alcohol producer, had serious failures of fermentation and consulted Pasteur.
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
During the war and, later, the Commune, Pasteur withdrew to the provinces and launched his studies on beer
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
his explicit object being to bring France into competition with the superior German breweries
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
What grew out of it
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Pasteur: swan-neck flasks and the memoir on organized corpuscles in the atmosphere
influenced · Confidence: medium
Pasteur came to spontaneous generation out of fermentation: if each fermentation is carried out by its own organism introduced from outside, the question of where that organism comes from is the next one. His biographer calls the two topics interrelated.
Dispute: The quotation asserts that the topics are interrelated and the order of the move, but does not analyse what exactly from the fermentation work was needed in the flask experiments. No fuller statement of the link by a historian was found, hence medium confidence.
Link sources
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
From crystallography and structural chemistry Pasteur moved to the controversial and interrelated topics of fermentation and spontaneous generation.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
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Hansen: a yeast culture grown from a single cell at the Carlsberg Laboratory
improved · Confidence: high
Hansen took up the existing pure-cultivation methods of Pasteur (as well as Koch and Salomonsen) and carried them as far as growing a culture from a single cell. This is a direct improvement, not an independent invention.
Dispute: Snorrason names three predecessors at once, Pasteur first, but does not apportion their contributions. Robert Koch's share is not shown separately here: his work on the cholera vibrio belongs to the same year 1883 and has no chronological priority over Hansen's method.
Link sources
- E. Snorrason, «Hansen, Emil Christian», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
Hansen then took up the methods for pure cultivation developed by Pasteur, Robert Koch, and the Danish bacteriologist C. J. Salomonsen and succeeded in developing cultures from one cell.
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
The technique of directly and actively sowing the microorganism presumed responsible for a given fermentation in order to isolate and purify it.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- E. Snorrason, «Hansen, Emil Christian», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
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Buchner: alcoholic fermentation by cell-free yeast juice, and zymase
influenced · Confidence: high
Buchner removed precisely that part of Pasteur's thesis in which fermentation was declared inseparable from the life of the cell: cell-free juice fermented. The rest of Pasteur's position stood, so the link is drawn as influence and not as the refutation of a dead end.
Dispute: In the text read, Bohley and Fröhlich do not write that the discovery "closed" the Liebig-Pasteur dispute, and they call it "one of the great landmarks in the development of biochemistry" rather than the birth of the discipline. Schriefers is more cautious: for him it is "the turning point for the study of enzymes". The phrase "the beginning of biochemistry" is deliberately kept out of this link.
Link sources
- Peter Bohley, Kai-Uwe Fröhlich, «A Prize-Winning Discovery of 1896: Buchner Provides Evidence of Cell-Free Fermentation», A. Cornish-Bowden, New Beer in an Old Bottle: Eduard Buchner and the Growth of Biochemical Knowledge, Universitat de València, 43-50 (1997)
Pasteur viewed the process as a physiological act closely and inseparably tied to the life processes of yeast cells.
- Herbert Schriefers, «Buchner, Eduard», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
life and fermentation are not unalterably bound to each other. Instead, fermentation is a chemical, enzymatically catalyzed process.
- Herbert Schriefers, «Buchner, Eduard», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
Pasteur's view of the unalterable connection between vitality and fermentation nevertheless found acceptance among the majority of scientists.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Peter Bohley, Kai-Uwe Fröhlich, «A Prize-Winning Discovery of 1896: Buchner Provides Evidence of Cell-Free Fermentation», A. Cornish-Bowden, New Beer in an Old Bottle: Eduard Buchner and the Growth of Biochemical Knowledge, Universitat de València, 43-50 (1997)
Other links
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Liebig: fermentation is transmitted decomposition, not the work of a living thing
refuted by · Confidence: high
Pasteur grew yeast in a purely mineral medium with sugar, containing none of the decomposing organic matter that Liebig's theory required; the mechanism of transmitted decomposition was left without a subject. The mechanical explanation clashed head-on with Pasteur's physiological interpretation.
Dispute: The dispute was not closed in the lifetime of either man. What was refuted is Liebig's particular mechanism (transmitted decomposition), not his commitment to a chemical explanation: Schriefers writes that Pasteur's view of the inseparability of life and fermentation "nevertheless found acceptance among the majority of scientists", that is, a side won rather than a proof, and that between 1830 and 1860 science was divided into vitalists and mechanists. Thirty-seven years later Buchner showed that "life and fermentation are not unalterably bound to each other", and the chemical side of the argument turned out to be right in substance, though not in mechanism. Liebig's theory is therefore marked a dead end with a caveat: what is a dead end is the particular hypothesis of transmitted decomposition, not the commitment to explaining fermentation chemically.
Link sources
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
Above all, there is in this medium none of the ‘unstable [organic matter]’ required by Liebig's theory.
- Herbert Schriefers, «Buchner, Eduard», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
The mechanical theory of fermentation, regardless of whether it interpreted yeast as an expression of a ‘catalytic force’ or of a body in the process of decomposing, clashed with Pasteur's vitalistic interpretation of the fermentation process.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
Node sources
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
During 1856, he went regularly to the beetroot alcohol factory of M. Bigo, seeking the cause of and remedies for recent disappointments in the quality of that product.
- Herbert Schriefers, «Buchner, Eduard», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
On the basis of these discoveries and as a result of his own observations and experiments, Pasteur (between 1857 and 1860) formulated the thesis that alcoholic fermentation was an expression of the vital action of the yeast fungi and inseparably bound to this physiological action.
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
the notion of specificity, according to which each fermentation can be traced to a specific microorganism
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
by heating it in closed vessels for an hour or two at a temperature between 60° and 100° C
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
During the war and, later, the Commune, Pasteur withdrew to the provinces and launched his studies on beer
- Geison G. L. «Pasteur, Louis», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (via Encyclopedia.com) (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
his explicit object being to bring France into competition with the superior German breweries
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
Further reading
Not evidence: these carry no quotation and support nothing we wrote. They are books and scans to read next.