Louis Pasteur Private Life

Tragic events in Louis Pasteur 's life

Louis Pasteur 's success in saving the silk industry came at the most difficult and tragic time of Louis Pasteur 's life.

Why did Louis Pasteur 's daughter die?

Louis Pasteur had already lost his oldest daughter, Jeanne, to typhoid fever.

Other Deaths in the Louis Pasteur 's life

While Louis Pasteur peered at silkworm eggs under his microscope in Alais, came news that his father had died. A few months later his two-year-old daughter, Camille also died. And next his 12 year old daughter, Cecile, also succumbed to typhoid.

Deaths of Louis Pasteur 's children

Of his five children only two remained. When a friend, unaware of the tragedies, wrote to Louis Pasteur to see how he was doing on his experiments, Pasteur wrote back:

"My studies have been associated with sorrow; perhaps your charming little daughter will remember Cecile Pasteur among the other little girls of her age that she used to meet at the Observatory. My dear child was coming with her mother to spend Easter holidays with me at Alais, when during a few days stay at Chambery, she was seized with an attack of typhoid fever, to which she succumbed after two months of painful suffering. I was only able to be with her for a few days, being kept here by my work, and full of deceiving hopes for a happy issue from that terrible disease. I am now wholly wrapped up in my studies, which alone take my thoughts from my deep sorrow."

While he had been studying microbes under his microscope in Alais, microbes of a different kind had taken his children.

How Louis Pasteur became paralyzed

When Louis Pasteur was 45, the Emperor Napoleon III was persuaded to build him a modern, well-equipped laboratory so he could pursue the studies that had proven so beneficial to France and its people. Work was begun in 1867 but the following year, the stress of his work and the grief over his losses finally began to exact their price. At only 46, Pasteur had a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side. After several months he recovered, but he never regained full use of his left arm. He once commented that the useless arm felt like lead to him and he wished someone would just cut it off. While he was convalescing, Pasteur noticed that the workmen had stopped construction on his new lab, in anticipation of his death. For once his will failed him for a while, and he sank into a deep depression. Finally the Emperor ordered the men to resume work, thus lifting Louis Pasteur's spirits and hastening his recovery.