Pasteur Institute Is Founded

The international subscription launched by the French Académie des Sciences in 1887 to allow Louis Pasteur to found his institute and thus provide rabies vaccinations, pursue the study of infectious diseases, and disseminate knowledge, was successful not only in France but in a vast number of countries. The Institut Pasteur, established by government decree on 4 June 1887, officially opened on 14 November 1888.

The Institut Pasteur's new laboratories in Paris allowed Louis Pasteur to build an extensive team of scientists that already hailed from varied international backgrounds.

The Institut Pasteur was founded in 1887 by Louis Pasteur, the French scientist whose early experiments with fermentation led to pioneering research in bacteriology. A giant in science, Pasteur discovered the principle of sterilization which came to be known as "pasteurization." His discoveries led to the universal practice of surgical antisepsis. He also developed techniques of vaccination to control bacterial infection, as well as a successful vaccine to treat rabies.
Louis Pasteur was committed both to basic research and its practical applications. As soon as his institute was created, Pasteur brought together scientists with various specialties. The first five departments were directed by two normaliens (graduates of the Ecole Normale Supérieure): Emile Duclaux (general microbiology research) and Charles Chamberland (microbe research applied to hygiene), as well as a biologist, Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (morphological microbe research) and two physicians, Jacques-Joseph Grancher (rabies) and Emile Roux (technical microbe research). One year after the inauguration of the Institut Pasteur, Roux set up the first course of microbiology ever taught in the world, then entitled Cours de Microbie Technique (Course of microbe research techniques).