Prior to watching The Story of Louis Pasteur, I had very limited knowledge on his life and achievements. However, my appreciation for his work and accomplishments has grown tremendously in the few days after the movie and Dr. Alber’s presentation on Pasteur. I was very interested in learning about Pasteur’s work with germ theory and that his findings were often met with opposition because they contradicted societal norms. I also really enjoyed Dr. Alber’s explanation of the spontaneous generation experiment. Pasteur’s model and findings for debunking spontaneous generation was ingenious and provided a large influence in the study of microbiology.
Yes, the swan-necked flask is an iconic experiment in biology. The acceptance of germ theory is taken for granted so much today, it is hard to think of it as having so much controversy associated with it.