April has a Calf

Introduction

Making Milk Safe to Drink Napoleon III, The Emperor of France, asked a French scientist named Louis Pasteur to find out what was making the French wines and beers go sour. He discovered that they contained a kind of yeast that makes wine and beer turn to vinegar! He knew that the yeasts could be killed by heat because yeasts (like bacteria) are living organisms. His process of using heat to kill organisms became known as "Pasteurization". Soon the process was being used not just for wine and beer, but for milk as well! Pasteurizing milk kills the bacteria and yeasts that make milk go sour and what's even more important, it destroys dangerous bacteria like typhoid and tuberculosis that cause serious illness and even death in humans! Today all the milk that comes from a dairy has been pasteurized. Look for the sign right on the packaging. Louis Pasteur made many other scientific discoveries that make this world a safer place for humans and animals. See if you can find one of his discoveries in the story about "Sneakers".