Marie Pasteur

Personal

Vocation

Family

French scientific assistant and also co-worker of her spouse, the famous French chemist and bacteriologist Louis Pasteur. Marie Laurent, aged 23, married Louis Pasteur, aged 26, in Strasbourg on 29 May 1849. Their eldest daughter, Jeanne, died from typhoid fever, aged 9, at Arbois. Then, in 1865, 2-year-old Camille also died of typhus, followed by 12-and-a-half-year-old Cécile on 23 May 1866. Only Jean Baptiste and Marie Louise lived to be adults. Jean Baptiste would be a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War between France and Prussia. Marie worked as a secretary and science writer to her spouse and served as his amanuensis. She was his active assistant in his scientific experiments. She worked with him on expanding his first researches, around 1848, on the remarks previously made by Mitscherlich on the different optical properties concerning polarized light of tartaric acid when it came from natural wines, wine lees and when it was synthesized in a laboratory. The students and colleagues of Louis Pasteur acknowledged the importance she had for him in his work as his assistant. She grew the silkworms he needed for his experiment with their diseases, and she took care of the children he tried his famous experimental treatment on. She moved with him to his quarters at the Pasteur institute, and continued to live there after his death. She died in Arbois on 23 September 1910, aged 84. Link to Wikipedia biography