FLY IN THE OINTMENT. “Pasteur’s career went from success to success. In his next project, in the 1850s, he studied the production of alcohol, succeeding where Lavoisier had failed, and showing that fermentation was not an inert chemical process, but a “vital act,” which required the presence of a living “ferment” or germ to begin the process.”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00026980.2020.1867786