You would have heard about “the germ theory of disease”, attributed to French microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur. The theory is the cornerstone of modern medicine, and he also developed the process, named after him, of pasteurization. But what you would not have heard, is that just like the theory, Louis Pasteur was a fraud.

He died in 1895, and while the knowledge of his fraud was back then, fairly widespread, and it didn’t really get into the media, and it wasn’t until 1923 when Ethel Douglas Hume wrote her book “Bechamp or Pasteur”. Bechamp was another French scientist and microbiologist, a contemporary of Pasteurs, and he was the one who did all the real work, and Pasteur just stole most of his stuff. In fact, the books title was later changed to “Pasteur Exposed”. Two decades later, R.B. Pearson published another work “Pasteur, Plagiarist, Impostor”, which the name was later changed to “The Dream and Lie of Louis Pasteur”.