Napoleon III couldn't have come up with the idea of asking Pasteur on his own. Must have been an advisor. N III, the old goat, was busy making love to keep the world sparkling. -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jim McKenney Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 4:19 PM To: 'Pacific Bulb Society' Subject: [pbs] Pasteur born after the Napoleonic Wars;was RE: OT? Global Warming Ken Hixon wrote " In addition to Mark's comments about disease in Napoleon's armies, feeding his armies was a tremendous problem, in a time when preserving and transporting food was a huge problem. Napoleon offered a huge reward for anyone who could help preserve food, and Louis Pastuer won the award for the process now called pasteurization, of heat treating food. Canning food as a means of preservation is the result..." That sounded a bit off to me - Pasteur was not active during the Napoleonic wars. So I checked the wikipedia entry for canning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning/ From this, I learned that canning was developed by a Frenchman named Nicolas Francois Appert in the early nineteenth century. By 1810 a British worker developed a process for using tin lined cans. Thus, canning was not the result of Pasteur's work in developing the process now known as pasteurization. Napoleon I died in 1821, the year before Pasteur was born. In fact, it was Napoleon III who, in the 1860s, asked Pasteur to investigate problems of wine spoilage - these studies led to the development of Pasteurization. Jim McKenney Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, wine growing country if you try. _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php