Titans of History

In 1862 Pasteur first tested the process, now known as pasteurization, by which milk and other liquids are heated to remove bacteria. In time this process would revolutionize the way food was prepared, stored and sold, and so save many people from infection. Pasteur also applied his theoretical work to the French vinegar and wine industries and the British beer industry, allowing the businesses concerned to produce goods that did not perish so quickly. It was as a result of a suggestion from Pasteur that the British surgeon Joseph Lister began in the 1860s to adopt antiseptic methods during operations.

In 1865 Pasteur saved the French silk industry by helping to identify and eradicate a parasite that was killing silkworms. By 1881 he had developed techniques to protect sheep from anthrax and chickens from cholera. He observed that creating a weakened form of a germ and vaccinating animals with it gave them effective immunity. It was an important development of Jenner’s earlier use of cowpox germs to vaccinate against smallpox.

The most important vaccination Pasteur produced was against rabies. By manipulating the dried nervous systems of rabid rabbits, he created a weakened form of the terrible disease and managed to inoculate dogs against it. He had treated only eleven dogs in 1885 when he took dramatic action to save the life of a nine-year-old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. It was extremely risky but totally successful. Pasteur remained a hero of the medical establishment until his death, after a series of strokes, in 1895. He was buried in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, then reinterred in a crypt at the Pasteur Institute.

Pasteur was one of many scientists who have performed medical miracles that have done so much to alleviate human suffering. Edward Jenner was one of the first, immunizing a child against smallpox in 1796. From the 1860s Joseph Lister (1827–1912) began his pioneering work on asepsis in surgery, using carbolic acid as an antiseptic to reduce the risk of infection. Operations had already been rendered far safer in the preceding decades by the physician John Snow (1813–58), who had introduced the use of anesthesia to enable pain-free operations. Snow was also responsible for reducing the incidence of cholera by tracing its cause to contaminated water supplies.

In 1895 the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923) discovered X-rays, thereby paving the way for vast improvements in the treatment of internal injuries. In 1928 Alexander Fleming (1881–1955) discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic, when he noticed that the mold in a dirty lab dish prevented bacteria from growing. In the 1950s the work of the French immunologist Jean Dausset (b. 1916) led to great advances in our understanding of how the body fights disease. In 1953, Francis Crick (1916–2004) and James Watson (b. 1928) discovered the double-helix shape of DNA. All those who worked on these projects deserve to be remembered as heroes of medicine.

FRANCISCO LÓPEZ & ELIZA LYNCH

1827–70 & 1835–1886

A monster without parallel.

George Thompson, an English engineer who was commissioned as an officer in the army of Francisco Solano López

Francisco Solano López was the vainglorious dictator of Paraguay who, in the name of honor and national prestige, led his country to almost total destruction at the hands of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. López was a deluded popinjay, an inept psychopath and a mass-murdering megalomaniac who was obsessed with dreams of grandeur and believed that he could become the Napoleon of South America.

He was the eldest son of President Carlos Antonio López, a merciless tyrant who ruled Paraguay from 1844 until his death in 1862. The younger López had been groomed to succeed his father, and was promoted to brigadier general at just eighteen. He became an increasingly proud and preposterous young man, and liked to have himself pictured on horseback or in military uniform, with a profusion of ribbons and insignia, his thick black beard covering a somewhat portly face. From his teenage years he was an avid womanizer, capable of oleaginous charm and eloquence, but likely to become forceful if his advances were rejected.

In 1853 young López traveled to France on a diplomatic mission on behalf of his father. In Paris he became intoxicated with the political pomp, imperial ceremony and military showmanship of Emperor Napoleon III. He studied the campaigns of the first Napoleon and believed that he himself had a talent for strategy. While in Paris he also met Eliza Lynch, a beautiful Irish girl whom he took back to Paraguay and who was to become his mistress for the rest of his life.