Neither Liebig nor Pasteur was completely right. However, each of their arguments led to more discoveries that created a lot of today's fields in science and medicine.
Berzelius had defined the word "ferment" as being an example of catalytic activity. Soon after, Schwann discovered pepsin was the substance responsible for albuminous digestion in the stomach. He believed this was what Berzelius defined as catalysts, or the force for chemical reactions of mineral, organic and living matter. Liebig opposed the idea by saying that the terms catalysts and pepsin are not supposed to be used as they are only representatives of an idea.
Charles Cagniard-Latour, Theodor Schwann and Friedrich Traugott Kützing identified independently yeast as a living organism that nourishes itself by the sugar it ferments, a process which referred to the ethanol fermentation (alcoholic fermentation). Liebig, Berzelius, and Wohler rejected the ideas of Schwann, Latour and Kutzing. In 1839, Liebig and Wohler published a paper on the role of yeast in alcoholic fermentation. In 1858, Liebig's student Moritz Traube enunciated the theorem, which was used for alcoholic fermentation, that all fermentations produced by living organisms are based on chemical reactions rather than a vital force itself.
The dispute between Liebig and Pasteur had, in a way, slowed down the advances of science and medicine in the area of fermentation, alcohol fermentation, and the enzymes. On the other hand, the conflicting ideas sped up the research in the area of fermentation and enzymes through other scientists and chemists. Through Büchner and his experiment in fermentation, the world of science and medicine went further as to pave ways in enzyme and fermentation studies and marked one of the critical points of the history of modern chemistry.