What Invention helped Louis Pasteur 's Work?

A great invention that help Louis Pasteur

There was one great invention, one magnificent instrument that made the achievements of Louis Pasteur possible - the microscope.

Louis Pasteur and the microscope

The microscope had been discovered almost 200 years before Louis Pasteur but scientists had still only begun to explore the vast tiny world revealed by its lens.

What they had seen only confused them. Some scientists believed the tiny organisms visible under a microscope generated themselves spontaneously - that is, they just developed life independently in a vacuum.

The myth around the microscope

In the 1500's, one scientist went as far to suggest that if you filled a jar with dirty rags, a quantity of wheat, and cheese, and put a lid on it, mice would grow. There were others who conducted experiments that proved spontaneous generation didn't exist, but somehow this didn't stop the controversy. Besides the debate over the origin of microorganisms, was the controversy over what they did. Some believed they caused disease and others believed they had no connection with disease. Both these questions - as to how germs developed and whether they caused illness, would be answered once and for all by the work of Louis Pasteur.