In historiography, accuracy in dates is essential, yet inaccurate dates are common in the literature, for several reasons. A particularly troubling case of an apparently deliberate falsification of an important date in chemistry concerns the historic announcement by Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) of his discovery of molecular chirality to the Académie des sciences in Paris on Monday, May 22nd, 1848. The literature nearly completely ignores this date, favouring instead Monday, May 15th, 1848 (i.e., a week earlier), which first surfaced in 1922 in Pasteur’s collected works edited by his grandson Louis Pasteur Vallery-Radot. On Sunday, May 21st, 1848, i.e., one day before Pasteur's presentation in Paris, his mother died suddenly of a stroke in Arbois, eastern France. Pasteur probably did not learn of her demise in time, but in any case he left for Arbois only after his presentation. Biographies of Pasteur by his son-in-law René Vallery-Radot or the grandson and Pasteur’s collected correspondence edited by the grandson are puzzlingly silent about Pasteur's historic presentation. An examination of a variety of relevant information strongly suggests that the biographer relatives deliberately suppressed the correct date, presumably for fear of adverse public judgment of Pasteur for a real or perceived insensitivity to a grave family medical emergency, inasmuch as Pasteur remained in Paris and lectured there on the day after his mother's death. Such fear would have been expected from the two relatives, who throughout their works on Pasteur built a hagiographic image of Pasteur as a "lay saint". Since the correct date is clear from the publication of Pasteur's lecture in the proceedings of the Académie, its near-complete replacement in the literature with an incorrect date requires an explanation, which is most likely that Pasteur's collected works edited by the grandson are much more widely available than the proceedings of the Académie.

Inaccuracy of dates in accounts of the history of chemistry: A case of deliberate falsification?

249th National Meeting (2015)

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