[Microbiology in Montpellier before Pasteur's era]

Until Pasteur's discoveries, pathology included several verified but unexplained clinical data such as hospital infections, venereal and contagious diseases, and so on.... It is easy to imagine how important what the discovery of the germs life since it gave a logical explanation to a whole of coherent facts. Nevertheless this discovery was preceded by a long period during which the idea of transmissible germs slowly appeared. French and foreign Faculties are enrolled in this "prehistory" and there Montpellier played a significant part since microbiology had been directly admitted, during Pasteur's lifetime. In 1983, a research center named Buisson-Bertrand was created. In 1897 a chair was opened and one Institut Pasteur built in 1918. It was the first Institut Pasteur created in the provinces.