LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA

LOUIS PASTEUR

BY

ALBERT KEIM AND LOUIS LUMET

Translated from the French by

FREDERIC TABER COOPER

WITH SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

All rights reserved

LOAN STACK

April, 1914

From the lives of men who have marked
their passage with a trail of enduring light, let
us piously gather, for the benefit of posterity,
every detail, down to the slightest words, the
slightest acts calculated to reveal the guiding
principles of their great souls.

PASTEUR.

082

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 1

II A LABORIOUS AND ENTHUSIASTIC YOUTH ' . 16

III ON THE ROAD TO FAME .... 45

IV FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH ... 71
V THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM .... 101

VI THE CURATIVE POISON 114

VII THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS . . . 136

VIII HYDROPHOBIA 161

IX THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE .... 176

X THE SUPREME HOMAGE .... 188

XI THE LAST DAYS OF A GREAT MAN . . 205

BRIEF INDEX OF THE PRINCIPAL NAMES

CITED 215

PRINCIPAL PUBLICATIONS,, ARTICLES,, MONO-.

GRAPHS, ETC.; OF LOUIS PASTEUR . , 223

ILLUSTRATIONS

LOUIS PASTEUR Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

PASTEUR'S BIRTHPLACE

The house on the Rue des Tanneurs, at
Dole, in which Louis Pasteur was born, on
December 27th, 1822, in a modest family of
the laboring class 20

PASTEUR AT THE AGE OF THIRTY

In 1852, the great scientist was appointed
titular professor of chemistry at Strasburg,
where he conducted a number of researches
in crystalography. To the left is one of the
glass globes which were employed in certain
celebrated experiments relating to spon-
taneous generation 52

VACCINATION AGAINST HYDROPHOBIA

One of the rooms in the Institute, in which,
thanks to Pasteur's genius, the virus of one
of the most terrible scourges in the world is
rendered impotent. Through this discovery,
Pasteur is enrolled in the number of the
great benefactors of humanity ... 84

xii ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING

feMILE DUCLAUX (after BORDES)

The favorite disciple of the great scientist
and the first director of the Institute in the
Rue Dutot, who collaborated in Pasteur's
researches and carried on his work . . 116

TWO OP PASTEUR'S GREAT COLLABORA-
TORS

On the left: Doctor Roux, director of the
Pasteur Institute, and inventor of the
method of treating diphtheria by a cerum
obtained from horses. On the right: Doctor
Metchnikoff, celebrated for his theory of
phagocytosis and his works on the intestinal
flora 148

PASTEUR'S TOMB

It is in the Rue Dutot, beneath the princi-
pal entrance to the Pasteur Institute, in a
crypt lined with marble, that one of the
most glorious representatives of universal
science has found his last resting place . 212

LOUIS PASTEUR

(1822-1895)

PASTEUR

CHAPTER I

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD

LOUIS PASTEUR is one of the glories of
France, and, among them all, the one
whose light shines clearest and most fertile in
results. His name has radiated throughout the
world, and for scientists and laymen alike it
symbolises that spirit of humanity which
strove to succour all the ills of his fellow men
and that genius for invention which opened
vast new horizons to the researches of science.
His sovereignty is now undisputed, there is no
nation which has not rendered him due hom-
age, and, as his fame has widened, it has, ac-
cording to his own desire, increased the moral
patrimony and the intellectual force of his na-
tive land.

2 PASTEUR

Louis Pasteur was descended from one of
those ancient peasant families that were at-
tached for centuries to the land they tilled, and
who have given so many illustrious sons to
France. In the seventeenth century his ances-
tors were still serfs of the soil, in Franche-
Comte, and the first who arose from servitude
was Louis Pasteur's great-grandfather, Claude
Etienne, who, having abandoned the labour of
the fields, was in the middle of the eighteenth
century a tanner at Salins, and one of the bour-
geoisie of that town. He came of a race distin-
guished for serious-mindedness and aptitude
for toil, positive qualities which produced ar-
tizans solicitous of the good renown of their
calling, and gifts of imagination which urged
them on to raise themselves above their en-
vironment by a superior education.

Louis Pasteur's father, Jean Joseph, an or-
phan from early childhood, was born to Jean
Henri, the third son of Claude Etienne, on the
16th of March, 1791, in the midst of the Revo-
lution. He was reared by his grandmother, .but

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 3

was taken from her by the conscription in 1811,
and, having been assigned to the 3rd regiment
of the line, he served throughout the war in
Spain in the army of the Emperor. He made
a good soldier, well disciplined and intelligent,
and he won his first promotions slowly, through
good conduct and calm courage: corporal in
1812, quartermaster in 1813, sergeant-major
and Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1814.
Returning from Spain, he was one of those who
took part in that immortal campaign of France,
in which Napoleon expended all the marvellous
resources of his military genius to save the
country from invasion, yet was powerless in the
face of adverse fortune.

After the Emperor's abdication Jean Joseph
Pasteur was placed on the retired list by the
new government. He returned to Salins to re-
sume his trade of tanner, and shortly after-
wards he married Jeanne Etiennette Roqui, of
an ancient family of humble station. The bare
problem of living was a difficult one, for the
brio^e had brought nothing to their union ex-

4 PASTEUR

cept her cheerfulness, her gentle disposition
and her two industrious arms. Accordingly it
was not long before Joseph Pasteur decided to
try his luck by removing to Dole, and there he
established himself in a modest little house in
the Rue des Tanneurs. It was there that Louis
Pasteur was born on the 27th of December,
1822.

The family continued in straitened circum-
stances, in spite of long and weary toil. He re-
moved, a second time, to Marnoz, and at last
made his permanent home at Arbois. The tan-
nery was situated near a stream, the Cuisance,
in the low-lying town, surrounded by pic-
turesque slopes of country-side ; and it was here
in an austere dwelling, in the presence of living
examples of energy and courage, and under the
influence of a nature that was alternately gay
and melancholy, that Louis Pasteur received
his first impressions.

The little town of Arbois bears a coat of arms
that might well have applied to the man who
was not only a great scientist but also a bene-

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 5

factor of humanity: on a field azure, a pelican
or plucking her breast above her young, sup-
ported on a nest or, with drops of blood gules.
Its population, consisting of a few bourgeois
families, and chiefly of vine-growers and ar-
tizans, are rough in manner and at the same
time proud. They convey an impression of
stalwart courage and rugged honesty. Joseph
Pasteur numbered among them several chosen
friends, Dr. Dumont, retired army surgeon ; M.
Bousson de Mairet, the historian of Franche-
Comte ; M. Romanet, the principal of the high
school, and a few others besides who were fre-
quent visitors at the tannery. Young Louis
used to listen to their conversations, in which
duty, industry and patriotism were exalted;
and, through the direct influence of his father,
he became imbued with high and noble senti-
ments.

While still very young he was sent to the pri-
mary school, and later to the Arbois college,
where he began his classical studies. As a pu-
pil, he was rather slow, and gave no indication

6 PASTEUR

of brilliant qualities. He studied diligently,
but without enthusiasm, and at times he would
fall into long reveries, which seemed to isolate
him from the outside world. When he was not
attending his classes and during vacations, he
was fond of playing and of roaming across
country; but he avoided all brutal games, such
as destroying nests and killing birds. For he
suffered at the sight of any kind of suffering,
whether of man or beast.

From his father, who was a reflective, opin-
ionated, yet kind-hearted man, Louis Pasteur
inherited a strong will, not yet sure of itself, but
which was destined later on to become the dom-
inant force of his life; a prudent judgment, a
practical common sense, based upon experi-
ence which protected him from hasty conclu-
sions ; and, on the other hand, he derived from
his mother the secret side, so to speak, of his
nature: a quivering sensitiveness, a vivid im-
agination, an intuitive intelligence, which often
revealed to him the hidden mystery of things,
through swift, vast flashes of illumination : also,

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 7

kindliness, love of the arts, and a taste for
poetry.

It was undoubtedly in obedience to these
tendencies, inherited from his mother, and
which belonged rather to the emotional than
to the intellectual side of his nature, that
among all the subjects taught in the Arbois
college he showed no preference for anything
but drawing up to the age of thirteen years.

Within the family circle he was regarded as
an artist, and he enjoyed quite a little local
fame. He used to draw crayon portraits, and
that of his mother, done with a free hand in
pastel, revealed a character dependent upon \
sincerity and truth. But the alluring, yet
sometimes hazardous, fame of artists was not
what Joseph Pasteur desired for his son; ac-
cording to his grave conception of life, his
highest ambition was to see him in the assured
position of a professor. For the simple man had
a great respect for the ability to teach, and
there was no one whom he placed higher than

8 PASTEUR

those who preside over the unfolding and nur-
[turing of young minds.

When barely sixteen years of age Louis Pas-
teur, who at this time was applying himself
with tireless tenacity to the pursuit of his stud-
ies, was sent to Paris for the purpose of being
prepared to enter the Ecole Normale. This
meant a sacrifice on the part of the family,
which had been augmented to the extent of
two young daughters. But it was lightened by
the concessions, made by the director of the
pension, M. Darbet, a compatriot from
Franche-Comte. Louis Pasteur left his beloved
little town of Arbois accompanied by one of
his fellow pupils, Jules Vercel, in October, 1838.
But no sooner had he reached Paris than a
sombre melancholy seized him. He could not
forget the home circle he had left behind him ;
and in consequence of these memories that kept
him awake throughout long nights he fell into
a state of languor and ill health that rendered
him unfit for any work.

"Oh! if I could only smell the odour of the

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 9

tannery/' he used to murmur to his com-
patriot, Jules Vercel, "I should be well again!"

Pasteur always retained his profound love
for Arbois, and even in the days of his great-
est fame he used to return there every year to
pass his vacation.

The director of the pension, M. Darbet,
fearing that the severe attack of homesick-
ness from which his young pupil was suf-
fering might have a disastrous effect upon his
health, wrote to the father, and the latter, re-
gardless of his business, hurried to his son, and
promptly brought him back to the tannery.

After his return home Louis Pasteur seems
for a while to have been in an unsettled state,
happy to be back again with his family, and
yet perhaps secretly ashamed of having failed
in his duty by not staying in Paris. In this
condition it was his emotional side which pre-
vailed for the time being. And, while he con-
tinued to follow the courses in the college at
Arbois, he returned to his drawing and his pas-
tels with passionate interest. He made nu-

10 PASTEUR

merous portraits of his friends and neighbours;
and there are some that have qualities which
reveal a true artistic talent : the mayor of Ar-
bois, M. Pareau, the recorder of mortgages, M.
Blondeau, some young girls, some old men, and
one nun.

Meanwhile, having regained his courage, as
though he had, once for all, triumphed over the
weakness which had caused him to hesitate in
his path, Louis Pasteur finished his course in
rhetoric triumphantly. But, since the college
Sit Arbois had no classes in philosophy, the
problem was once more raised as to where he
should continue his studies. The Paris experi-
ment had been disastrous. Accordingly, Jo-
seph Pasteur decided to send his son to Be-
sangon, which was quite near and which he
himself visited occasionally for business rea-
sons.

It is from this period that we may date Louis
Pasteur's incredible capacity for work, which
enabled him to endure unlimited fatigue, and
also his grave, deep-seated, invincible strength

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 11

of will which refused ever to recognise obsta-
cles. A manly letter written to his father and
cited by M. Vallery-Radot, his son-in-law, in
the fine work which the latter consecrated to
him, La Vie de Pasteur, reveals to us the frame
of mind in which he pursued his course in
philosophy. He had disowned his talent for
drawing, and scorned the reputation of por-
trait painter which had followed him to Be-
sangon; for he wrote, "None of this leads to
the Ecole Normale. I would rather stand at
the head of my classes than receive ten thou-
sand praises flung out superficially in the course
of current conversation. We shall see each
other on Sunday, my dear papa, for Monday,
if I am not mistaken, will be the day of the
fair. If we go to see M. Daunas (his profes-
sor of philosophy) we can talk to him about the
Ecole Normale. My dear sisters, I recommend
to you once again to be industrious and to love
each other. When once we have acquired the
habit of work we can no longer live without it.
Besides, work is the thing upon which every-

12 PASTEUR

thing else in this world depends. By means
of knowledge we raise ourselves above every-
body else. . . . But I hope that you do not
need this advice, and I am sure that every day
you sacrifice many a moment to studying your
grammar. Love each other as I love you, while
awaiting the happy day when I shall be admit-
ted to the Ecole Normale" (January 26, 1840).
There we have the whole ambition of this
young philosopher. He admired and respected
his teachers, and he dreamed of nothing else
than to become a professor in his turn and ful-
fil towards others that fine and noble duty of
enlightening and training other minds. His ap-
plication to his studies was rewarded. On Au-
gust 29th, 1840, he successfully passed, at
Besangon, his examinations for the degree of
bachelor of letters. This was his first degree,
but he was destined to follow it up by obtain-
ing in later years every degree that the Univer-
sity has within its gift ; for this incarnate spirit
of innovation, this revolutionary genius, so to
speak, had a deep respect for degrees and func-

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 13

tions and titles which give an assured position
in society. His examination was not especially
brilliant, but he received good marks in Greek,
Latin, philosophy and French composition, low
marks in history and geography, and excellent
ones in the sciences. His dominant qualities
were already revealing themselves in this first
examination. Furthermore, having passed his
baccalaureate, Louis Pasteur, whom the direc-
tor of the school had taken on as assistant tu-
tor— for the tannery was far from prospering —
continued to pursue special courses in mathe-
matics.

This precise trend given to his studies, which
delivered him over into the hands of science,
in no way prevented him from appreciating
literature and poetry. This was the reverse
side of his nature, the sentimental and dreamy
side, which had need of nourishment and which
never was wholly effaced by any amount of ab-
stract studies — studies of a kind that we should
have expected to find most distasteful to him.
Louis Pasteur loved, beyond all other books.

14 PASTEUR

the Essay on the Art of Being Happy, by Jo-
seph Droz. He appreciated the honesty of its
sentiments, the gentleness of its philosophy
and the kindliness which emanated from one
and all of its aphorisms. He also read My
Prisons, by Silvio Pellico, some rather dull nov-
els which he recommended to his sisters, and
some poetry. He had a friend who shared his
literary enthusiasms, Charles Chappuis, with
whom he was destined throughout life to enjoy
a more than brotherly intimacy, and they used
to work themselves to the highest pitch of ex-
altation by reading together the Meditations of
Lamartine. Poetry rested Pasteur after the
strain of mathematics, and, far removed from
figures and calculations, it afforded him emo-
tions so delicate that sometimes he was moved
to tears.

Nevertheless, Louis Pasteur was by no means
neglecting his scientific studies and his prepa-
ration for the Ecole Normale. He even thought
for a time of applying for admission to the
Polytechnique, but he renounced this idea, in

A STUDIOUS BOYHOOD 15

order not to scatter his efforts too widely. On
August 13, 1842, he was passed, at Dijon, as
Bachelor of Mathematical Sciences, with low
notes in chemistry, and on the 26th of the
same month, in the competitive examination
for the ficole Normale, he obtained fifteenth
place out of the twenty-two candidates who
were declared eligible to take the second tests.
Far from satisfied with this last result, he de-
cided not to continue in the competition, but
to devote another year to preparation, in order
to make a brilliant entry into this great school
which was the object of his highest ambitions.
To this end he left Besangon, and, strong of
purpose, precociously mature, confident that
this time he would be able to conquer the re-
gret which he was bound to feel at being sepa-
rated from the family that he loved so ten-
derly, he once more set his face towards Paris,
at the end of his vacation in 1842, with the
firm determination to fulfil his duty towards
himself and towards science.

CHAPTER II

A LABORIOUS AND ENTHUSIASTIC YOUTH

HE was at this time a young man with a
grave and meditative face, but under
an apparent coldness he hid an ardent and en-
thusiastic heart and an imagination ever on
the alert. Louis Pasteur feared nothing from
the dangers of Paris. His powerful strength of
will protected him from pleasures which might
otherwise have turned him from his path, and
he was glad to realise how easily his passionate
love of work enabled him to dispense with
them.

On arriving at the Pension Barbet, situated
in the Impasse des Feuillantines, he once more
found Chappuis, the confidential friend and
faithful companion of his leisure hours, and he
mapped out his daily life in such a way as to

16

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 17

extract a maximum of profit from the employ-
ment of his time. He roomed with a few com-
rades not far from the Pension, and his entire
time was devoted to study. Too much of his
time to suit Chappuis, who would have liked a
greater proportion of amusement, and too
much also, to suit his father, who was anxious
about his health.

Louis Pasteur's habit was to rise in the morn-
ing at half past five, for he had to tutor certain
pupils of M. Barbet from six o'clock until
seven, for he had been admitted to the Pension
on payment of only one-third of the usual fee ;
then he attended courses at the Lycee Saint-
Louis, went to the Sorbonne to hear the lec-
tures of the famous chemist Dumas, who af-
forded him many a devout thrill when he spoke
loftily of science and of the vast horizons that
it opens to the human eye. He returned from
these inspiring lessons, trembling with emo-
tion, burning with the desire to mark his own
trail among those of his precursors, to be one
of those who have raised a corner of the veil

18 PASTEUR

which hides nature's secrets from us. He was
in such haste to learn, he felt such need of in-
cessant work, that on the days of freedom,
Thursdays and Sundays, he used to shut him-
self up in the libraries, and, whenever he con-
sented to take a walk with Chappuis, it was
only on the condition that they should discuss,
as they walked, some question of literature or
philosophy.

The young student's resources were very
slender, in spite of the fact that the sympathy
he had aroused in M. Barbet and the services
he had rendered him had caused the latter to
end by remitting the whole of the usual charge ;
yet he had sufficient to pay for his pleasures.
At the urgent request of his father he con-
sented to go on certain Sundays to dine at the
Palais Royal, where the sum he spent was
scarcely ever more than forty sous! And the
crowning feature of this great treat was when
Louis Pasteur allowed himself the luxury of the
theatre, a thing which, by the way, occurred

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 19

only four times during the whole period of his
studies.

It was in 1843 that he achieved the height of
his ambitions. He entered the Ecole Normale,
the fourth in a good class, and he was so eager
to breathe the air of the famous edifice that he
cut short his vacation and presented himself
several days before the date of opening. His
type of mind, which was in certain respects
monastic, accommodated itself to the system
of the Ecole Normale ; his courage was redoub-
led, and he not only assimilated all the courses
given, but already began to make certain pri-
vate researches. He had a natural thirst for
fame, he glowed with enthusiasm when he read
the lives of illustrious men, he was kindled with
the ambition to imitate them; but his prefer-
ence leaned towards those who were benefac-
tors and whose discoveries were useful to hu-
manity. His father wrote to him to economise
his strength, and he replied, reassuring him, for
the profound affection that he bore his family
never wavered; but none the less he continued

20 PASTEUR

to work as hard as ever. Work, work, work
was destined to be the maxim of his whole ex-
istence.

While a student in the Ecole Normale Louis
Pasteur continued to give lessons at the Pen-
sion Barbet, in recognition of the generous
treatment he had received at the hands of its
worthy master ; he also continued to attend the
lectures of Dumas and followed him with ab-
sorbed attention, and to his great joy he was
allowed to enter the laboratory of his instruc-
tor Barruel, who gave him much practical ad-
vice. From this time forward the general de-
velopment of Louis Pasteur seems to have been
completed, his genius was revealed under a
double character which was destined to assure
the immortality of his works : he had an unlim-
ited audacity of ideas, his intuitive conceptions
soared to the outermost boundaries of human
thought, and, on the other hand, he bound him-
self down, in his experiments, to an extremely
rigorous method that refused to take count of
any fact that had not been strictly verified.

PASTEUR'S BIRTHPLACE

The house on the Rue des Tanneurs, at D61e, in which Louis Pasteur
was born, on December 2;th, 1822, in a modest family of the laboring

class.

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 21

While still a student he already felt the need
of proselytising; he wanted to disseminate the
science which he was acquiring at the cost of so
much energy. So, in addition to tutoring the
pupils at the Pension Barbet, he appointed
himself professor to his own family, his father
and sisters. He gave them problems to solve,
he expounded scientific theories for their bene-
fit, and he infused into all this correspondence
the ardour of a young apostle. If they ill un-
derstood the significance of his problems, and if
the explanations- which he furnished seemed
too difficult to be grasped by minds that did not
have the advantage of a scientific training, he
would encourage them affectionately, and point
out the high and noble necessity of constant
effort. It was a debt of gratitude that he was
gladly paying to his family, whose sacrifices
had permitted him to obtain an education, and
this touching role of the distinguished son and
brother giving instruction from a distance to
his aged father and young sisters reveals the
bigness of his heart.

22 PASTEUR

After three years at the Ecole Normale Louis
Pasteur passed his examinations for his degree
in physical sciences in 1846; out of four candi-
dates four were passed, among whom he stood
third, with no special distinction.

What was the young graduate going to do?
Had he not now realised his most cherished
wish in attaining the goal towards which he
had striven with so much persistence? But
during these years of study his ambition had
shifted and broadened. To be sure, he still
wished to be a professor and teach the sciences ;
but through contact with the masters of sci-
ence, and in the presence of the glory of their
discoveries, he had become determined to dis-
tinguish himself in his turn by personal discov-
eries, almost as though he had a presentiment
of his own high destiny. After he was gradu-
ated it was not without anxiety that he realised
that he might be sent to some provincial col-
lege, far from all the instruments essential to
him. He was spared this misfortune through
the interest which he had been able to inspire

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 23

in his teachers, Dumas, Delafosse and Balard,
the last of whom took him as assistant in his
laboratory.

What at this time was the object of Louis
Pasteur's researches? How was he going to
approach the great problems of science? It
seems as though a sort of predestination
marked out his scientific career. Pasteur, who
was destined to arrive finally at the vaccines of
hydrophobia, began with the study of crystals,
and his whole career was a sort of luminous
ascension, progressing, from the constitution of
matter and its processes, all the way to the
transformation of microbes, the infinitely small
yet most redoubtable enemies of man, into
curative agents.

Crystalography was then a new science, with
hesitant and controverted formulas. Essen-
tial phenomena remained without explanation,
and others were still undiscovered, escaping all
observation and all control. In order to judge
adequately of the inspired novelty of Pasteur's
discoveries it is necessary to understand the

24 PASTEUR

state of this science at the moment when he be-
gan his work.

In 1840 the men of science had only chaotic
knowledge of the molecular structure of crys-
tals. "They knew the chemical molecule/'
writes M. Duclaux, the great authority who was
one of Pasteur's disciples; "they knew that it
is formed of an ordinarily fairly stable group
of atoms, of which the number, the weight and
the nature may usually be clearly defined.
They knew, for example, that there are one
atom of chlorine and one atom of sodium in sea
salt, one atom of calcium, one atom of carbon
and three atoms of oxygen in carbonate of lime.
They had recognised that different composite
molecules are ordinarily differentiated by the
number and nature of their component atoms,
but that nevertheless there are some which con-
tain the same number of the same atoms with-
out for that reason being identical, so that they
were led to suspect that they differed in the ar-
rangement of their atoms. What could be the
relative disposition of these atoms, one to an-

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 25

other, within the molecule? And what would
be the resultant form of the molecule itself?
All these were questions on which no one had
any clear idea." 1

Haiiy, who had made a very special study of
crystals, and had named their constructive
molecule the integrant molecule, considered
that this latter had no relation to the chemical
molecule, and that their different groupings
were produced by molecules identically the
same. Mitscherlich demonstrated that this the-
ory was not absolutely exact by replacing the
atoms of calcium with atoms of magnesium in
a crystallization of carbonate of lime, without
altering its form. This constituted the phe-
nomenon of isomorphism. Delafosse, a pupil
of Haiiy's, and one of Pasteur's professors, was
destined to study the phenomenon of hemi-
hedrism, that by which certain crystals evade
the law of symmetry and possess one facet
which has no corresponding one, but he was
unable to find the explanation. On the other

1 Pasteur, the History of a Mind, by E. Duclaux, p. 40

26 PASTEUR

hand, Biot had for a long time been investigat-
ing the rotary power of hemihedric crystals,
and she had established that certain of them
could deflect polarised light to the right and
others to the left. This necessitates an expla-
nation which we will borrow from M. Duclaux:
"We all know," he writes, "that every lumi-
nous impression is the result of a vibration ac-
complished after the fashion of a rigid rod
which, held in a vise at one of its extremities,
vibrates at the other by oscillating around its
position of equilibrium. Now, if at the mova-
ble extremity it has a polished button reflecting
a point of light, we can make this point of light
describe an ellipse, a circle or a straight line.
Let us examine this last case, which is the sim-
plest, and let us agree to give the name of plane
of polarisation to the plane which contains the
vibrating rod and the line of light described by
its extremity. Let us suppose that this plane
is vertical and that the point of light is moving
before us in line with the hands of a clock
pointing to six o'clock. So long as there is

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 27

nothing but the air intervening between the
point of light and our eye, the vibration will
not change its direction; but there are certain
transparent substances which, when traversed
by it, would turn it to the position of the hands
of a clock pointing to five minutes to five, if
the substance passed through were of a given
thickness, and to ten minutes to four if it were
double that thickness. In other terms they
cause the plane of polarisation to rotate to the
left to an extent proportionate to their thick-
ness. We will call substances having the power
of rotation to the left left substances. There
also exist certain right substances, for which,
mutatis mutandis, the definition is the same."
Young Louis Pasteur entered upon his work
in the full midst of the evolution of the sci-
ence of crystalography, which led from physics
towards chemistry, that was still full of un-
solved problems. In pursuing the work re-
quired for the last of his university degrees he
tried to reconcile those personal studies that
were dictated by his individual taste with those

28 PASTEUR

that were to give him the high title of Doc-
tor of Science. He initiated himself into the
practical manipulation of the laboratory, he
trained himself in those infinitely delicate ex-
periments which, if they are to be profitable
and fruitful, demand calmness and unremit-
ting attention. With a profound sense of reali-
ties he recommenced, as a test of his own ac-
curacy, the experiments of La Provostaye in
tartaric acid and the tartrates, seeking above all
to learn whether, by following the same pro-
cedure, he would obtain the same results.

For Louis Pasteur this was a period of intel-
lectual fermentation, in which ideas flowed to
his brain in extraordinary abundance, some of
them perhaps still confused, but for the most
part new and destined to open up unforeseen
paths to science. On the 23d of August, 1847,
he defended his theses for the doctorate, which
were piously dedicated to his father and
mother, the one in chemistry treating of Re-
searches into the Capacity of Saturation of Ar-
senious Acid and forming a Study of the AT-

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 29

senites of Potash, Soda and Ammonia, and that
in physics containing a Study of the Phe-
nomena relating to the Rotary Polarization oj
Liquids. Following his defense of these theses,
which won him the degree of Doctor, he took
an extremely brief rest at Arbois, and it was
with a sort of feverish impatience that he re-
turned to Paris to continue his study of crys-
tals. It was destined to continue for five years
and to end by shedding light upon what had
hitherto been nothing but darkness and confu-
sion.

It is impossible to mention all the details and
fluctuations of this research, for, while great
flashes of inspired intuition opened up new as-
pects of science, he verified them by so many
experiments, rigorously conducted and fre-
quently repeated, that a detailed account would
mean a bulletin of his daily toil. In proportion
as he obtained results he addressed notes to the
Academy of Sciences, the first dating from 1848,
Note on the Crystallization of Sulphur, Re-
searches into the different Modes of Grouping

30 PASTEUR

in Sulphate of Potash, Researches in Dimorph-
ism, Memorandum on the Relation which may
exist between Crystalline Form and Chemical
Composition and on the cause of Rotary Polari-
zation.

These austere labours, this life of the labora-
tory, which kept his mind constantly occupied
and concentrated on problems difficult of solu-
tion, nevertheless in no wise isolated him from
the vital interests of the French nation. In
common with all other young students, he had
thrilled at the proclamation of the Republic in
1848, and it was with enthusiasm that he
greeted the words, "Liberty, Equality, Fra-
ternity." Light of purse though he was, our
young savant gave to his country his entire
savings, one hundred and fifty francs, and he
was delighted to serve in the national guard.
It was a duty which he joyfully performed on
behalf of his native land, for under all circum-
stances Pasteur was a man who did his duty.

A cruel bereavement was. destined shortly
afterwards to interrupt his activities during

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 31

several months. His mother died suddenly, in
May, 1848, and it is easy to conceive how keen
his grief was, since we know what a profound
affection he cherished for his family, which,
equally with science, held first place in his
thoughts. For long weeks he found himself in-
capable of accomplishing any work, yet never-
theless he continued the course of his studies,
so keen was his passion for scientific research.
Meanwhile his communications to the Acad-
emy of Science had attracted the attention of
the learned world to his work. Its full value
and originality were recognised and the highest
expectations were held regarding his further
researches. Pasteur, who in a vague way was
already conscious of his genius, regarded them
as no more than a schoolboy's clever essays, but
in his study of the tartrates and paratartrates
he was destined to distinguish himself in a mar-
vellous manner. Without entering into a
minute explanation of these questions, it should
be understood that Mitscherlich, who had made
some remarkable experiments with crystals, had

32 PASTEUR

proved that tartrates and paratartrates were
the same identical salts, excepting that the
former acted upon polarised light and pos-
sessed a rotary power, while the latter remained
without action. It is at this precise point that
we are forced to admire the inspired intuition
of Pasteur, who, starting from a preconceived
idea, proved experimentally that it was correct.
Why was there this difference, he asked him-
self, between salts which appeared to be identi-
cal? Undoubtedly it was due to a difference in
their composition which had an influence upon
their external aspect, a difference which had
not yet been observed. And this difference he
discovered by a searching examination of these
crystals. The tartrates had one hemihedric
facet — were manchots, one-armed, to borrow
M. Duclaux's vivid simile — while the paratar-
trates obeyed the law of symmetry in regard to
their facets. The rotary power was directly re-
lated to the dissymmetry of the molecular
structure. This first discovery was followed by
a second, which was in a way a consequence of

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 33

it and which revolutionised all the hitherto ac-
quired knowledge of molecular composition.
Pasteur resolved to find out why the para-
tartrates did not deflect light; he analysed
them anew, at great length, and he perceived
that the double paratartrates of sodium and
ammonia, like those of sodium and potassium,
had hemihedric crystals, but that the ones were
left-handed and the others right-handed. This
seemed to contradict his first discovery, and it
was at this point in his labours that his de-
cisive experiment took place. "In spite of
much that was unexpected in this result," he
said, "I none the less continued to follow up
my idea. I carefully separated out the right-
hand hemihedric crystals and the left-hand
hemihedric crystals, and I observed separately
the effect of their solutions in the polarising
apparatus. I then saw, with no less surprise
than delight, that the right-hand hemihedral
crystals deflected the plane of polarisation to
the right, and the left-hand hemihedral crys-
tals deflected to the left; and, when I took an

34 PASTEUR

equal weight of each kind of these crystals, the
mixed solution was neutral in its effect on polar-
ised light, through the neutralisation of the two
individual deflections 'that were equal and in
opposite directions." (Researches in Molecular
Dissymmetry. Lecture delivered before the
Societe Chimique de Paris, 1869, p. 29.)

In the presence of this confirmation, which
fulfilled his highest hopes, Pasteur was seized
with such emotion that he was forced to leave
his library on a run, and flung his arms around
the first of his colleagues whom he met, in his
keen joy over this essential discovery. He
broke the news to Biot, who for long years had
been studying the rotary power of crystals, by
notifying him that he was ready to communi-
cate the results of his experiments. The aged
scientist and member of the Institute accepted
his young colleague's offer, and the scene which
took place between them was one of real
beauty. It has been admirably recorded by M.
Vallery-Radot :

"The meeting took place at the College de

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 35

France, where Biot lived. Every slightest de-
tail of that interview must have remained fixed
forever in Pasteur's memory. Biot began by
going in search of paratartaric acid.

" 'I have studied it/ he said, 'with particu-
lar care: it is perfectly neutral in relation to
polarised light/ A tinge of mistrust was visi-
ble in his gestures and betrayed itself in the
tone of his voice. 'I will bring you everything
you need/ continued the old man as he went in
quest of the required quantities, of soda and
ammonia. He desired that the double salt
should be prepared in his presence.

"After pouring the liquid obtained into the
crystalliser, Biot took it and set it aside in one
corner of his apartment, in order to be quite
sure that no one would touch it. 'I will notify
you when you are to come back/ he said to Pas-
teur as he ushered him out. Forty-eight hours
later the crystals, very small at first, began to
take form. When there appeared to be a suffi-
cient quantity of them Pasteur was summoned.
Still in the presence of Biot, Pasteur drew out

36 PASTEUR

the finest crystals, one by one, wiped them in
order to remove the mother liquid adhering to
them, then pointed out to Biot the opposition
of their hemihedric character and separated
them into two groups: right crystals and left
crystals.

"'You claim/ said Biot, 'that the crystals
placed on your right will deflect the plane of
polarisation to the right and that the crystals
placed on your left will deflect it to the left?'

" 'Yes/ replied Pasteur.

" 'Very well, I will attend to the rest/

"Biot prepared the solutions, and once again
sent for Pasteur. Biot began by placing in the
apparatus the solution which was supposed to
deflect to the left. When the deflection was
verified he took Pasteur by the arm and uttered
the phrase which has so often been cited and
which deserves to become famous: 'My dear
boy, I have loved science so dearly all my life
that this sets my heart beating!'

" 'As a matter of fact/ Pasteur afterwards
said, in recalling this interview, 'it was evident

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 37

that the most vivid light had been thrown
upon the cause of the phenomenon of rotary
polarisation and on the hemihedrism of crys-
tals; that a new class of isomeric substances
had been discovered; that the unexpected and
hitherto unexampled formation of racemic or
paratartaric acid had been unveiled ; in a word,
that a great path, new and unforeseen, had
been opened to science/ " (La Vie de Pasteur.)
The encouragements of his masters, Balard
and Biot, their praises, and the certainty that
he would not be obliged to interrupt .the se-
quence of his discoveries kept him in a state
of feverish activity. But at the end of 1848 he
was obliged to leave the laboratory, in spite of
the intervention of his protectors, and betake
himself to the Lycee at Dijon, to which he had
been appointed professor of physics. It was
not without regret that he abandoned his ex-
perimental courses and his researches, for he
felt that his personal labours were of more use
to science than any instruction that he might
give. Nevertheless, he submitted to the order

38 PASTEUR

of the Minister of Instruction and, from the
moment that he was installed, applied himself
to a conscientious fulfilment of the duties of his
new function. He proved himself to be a
methodical and painstaking professor, seeking
above all things to be clear in expounding the
science that he taught, and, far from priding
himself on the superiority of his own intelli-
gence, he spent long hours in preparing his lec-
tures, in order to make them easily compre-
hensible to his young students. Nevertheless,
in spite of his faithful performance of his duties
as a public instructor, he was not without re-
gret for the days that he must spend outside of
the laboratory. This inactivity in regard to his
personal researches weighed so heavily upon
him that he asked to be transferred, some
months after his arrival at Dijon, and, upon be-
ing appointed to the Faculty of Strasburg as
substitute professor of chemistry, was able to
take possession of his new office on the 15th of
January, 1849, and to continue his researches,

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 39

in spite of the scanty equipment that he had at
his disposal.

An event of great importance in the life of
Pasteur awaited him at Strasburg, and one
which was destined to have a most fortunate in-
fluence upon his whole career as a scientist.
For it was here that he was soon to find do-
mestic happiness. From his very first visit to
the president of the Faculty, M. Laurent, he
conceived a strong partiality for one of the
daughters, Mile Marie Laurent. With that
prevision which was characteristic of him, he
was straightway convinced that this young lady
was the one essential to his hearth and home,
and, having once made up his mind, he acted
with his customary prompt decision and asked
her hand in marriage. Between his arrival in
Strasburg and this request less than fifteen days
had intervened ! M. Laurent, to whom he pre-
sented a short note setting forth, with admira-
ble sincerity, his financial status, his position in
the University and his ambitions, accepted him
as son-in-law. This was a day to be marked

40 PASTEUR

with a white stone, for Mme Pasteur, down to
the last day of her husband's life, never ceased
to surround him with the tenderest and most
devoted care, to watch over his hours of toil
and his hours of rest, and to keep him in such
a state that he could employ his genius to the
full extent of its powers.

Louis Pasteur remained on the Faculty of
Strasburg until 1854, and was appointed titular
professor of chemistry in 1852. This whole
period is marked by numerous researches,
which form the natural sequence of those that
he undertook in crystalography, but which ex-
tend far beyond that science, thanks to the
new perceptions that he brought to them and
the consequences which naturally developed
from them.

From this same aspect of dissymmetry and
hemihedrism, he studied the aspartates and the
malates, shed light upon obscure questions
which no chemist before had successfully han-
dled, established the laws of molecular dis-

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 41

symmetry, and took up and solved the problem
of dissymmetry in cellular life.

Pasteur continued to address memoranda to
the Academy of Sciences, and the learned world
began to be stirred by these communications,
which proved him to be an investigator en-
dowed with genius. The most celebrated mem-
bers of the Institute followed his progress with
sympathetic interest, men such as Dumas,
whom as a young student he could not hear
lecture at the Sorbonne without emotion, Biot,
Balard, Regnault, and Senarmont; and it oc-
curred to them to elect him as corresponding
member of the Academy of Sciences. During
a visit of the illustrious scientist, Metscher-
lich, to Paris, Louis Pasteur had the pleasure
of showing the results he had obtained to the
German crystalographer, who thanked and con-
gratulated him, and informed him that the ex-
tremely rare racemic acid was still manufac-
tured in Germany. At this news Pasteur's zeal
caught fire, and, since it was vacation time, he
set forth, in September, 1852, on the pursuit of

42 PASTEUR

this singular substance which had once been
obtained by accident at Thann, which had since
been lost sight of, and which he was now in-
formed was to be found at a manufactory of
chemical products in Saxony.

There followed a mad chase throughout the
length and breadth of Germany. Louis Pas-
teur kept a journal of his varied adventures,
which he sent to his wife and which reveals his
passionate ardor, his immense desire to possess
at last this acid which had once astonished the
scientific world. The chase was a heroic one.
Pasteur went from Leipzig to Zwichau, from
Zwichau to Dresden, from Dresden to Freiberg,
from Freiberg to Vienna, from Vienna to
Prague, filled alternately with emotions of hope
and despair, according as he thought that he
had found racemic acid, or that the elusive sub-
stance still seemed to evade him. "I will pur-
sue it for ten years, if need be," he wrote to
Mme Pasteur.

His researches, his experiments in the manu-
factories, his inquiries did not hinder him from

A LABORIOUS YOUTH 43

visiting the museums, and here it was that the
artistic side of his nature found satisfaction.
In Dresden he kept a record of the paintings
which pleased him, and he made notes which
show the degree of his admiration for each of
them. Pasteur debated the question of going
all the way to Venice in order to obtain crude
tartar which contained the rare acid, but he re-
turned to France without having made this ex-
tra journey and very much fatigued by his long
ramblings. He had convinced himself that ra-
cemic acid existed in tartar that had not been
washed and that it was to be found in the
mother liquid. Hence his pursuit had not been
unprofitable.

Upon returning to his laboratory in Stras-
burg, Pasteur undertook a task which it seemed
to him would be difficult to realise, but which
was not beyond his powers. He had decided
that this racemic acid which no other chemist
had produced should issue from his own labora-
tory ! With this ambitious design he began ex-
periments of unimagined delicacy, working with

44 PASTEUR

confidence, although the master chemists whom
he had told of his intent believed that he could
not succeed. He was destined to triumph ; the
magician was about to vanquish nature. In
June, 1853, he announced to his father and to
Biot that he had artificially obtained racemic
acid. It was a splendid victory, which amazed
all scientists versed in the study of crystals and
of chemistry. The Academy of Sciences gave
prolonged attention to this discovery, and the
Society of Chemistry bestowed upon its author
a prize of fifteen hundred francs, which it had
offered to anyone who should produce this ex-
traordinary acid. With his usual disinterested-
ness, Pasteur spent half of this sum in the pur-
chase of such instruments as were lacking in
the Strasburg laboratory. The government
took notice of the achievements of the young
scientist that were so magnificently crowned by
a success which his own masters had not ex-
pected, and Louis Pasteur received the cross of
the Legion of Honour when he was barely
thirty years of age.

CHAPTER III

ON THE ROAD TO FAME

IT needs only a brief examination in order to
realise that the works of Pasteur, even
those most widely different in appearance, fol-
low one another like the links of a chain and
present an admirable unity. Towards the end
of his studies of crystals his ideas became gen-
eralised, and extended his theory of molecular
dissymmetry to the constitution of the uni-
verse, while a certain laboratory experiment
was destined to turn his attention to ferments.
Having broken a crystal of tartrate, Pasteur
plunged it again into the mother liquid, and,
discovering that the crystal became restored in
its entirety, he compared this breakage to a
wound which is healed with thejielp of new
molecules of its own kind. On the other hand,

45

46 PASTEUR

he had observed that the tartrates undergo veri-
table fermentations, and he believed that these
fermentations might be due to a microscopic
organism which played the role of a ferment;
so that, setting forth from crystalography, he
finally arrived at researches into the origin of
life.

Having been appointed Professor of Chemis-
try and Dean of the Faculty recently founded
at Lille in 1854, Pasteur, while faithfully ful-
filling his pedagogical duties, prepared to carry
on his studies of fermentations. He spared no
pains to prove himself worthy of the confidence
placed in him by M. Fortoul, the Minister of
Public Instruction, and he succeeded in raising
the new Faculty entrusted to him to the first
rank of scientific establishments. More than
two hundred auditors attended his courses, and
twenty-one students were enrolled for practi-
cal work in the laboratory. He exerted himself
to carry out the programme of the Minister,
whose desire was to train operators and practi-
cal workers in the higher manufacturing indus-

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 47

tries, but he never ceased to repeat that nothing
counted apart from theory, and that theory
alone could be productive of great results. At
the same time Pasteur initiated his students
into industrial methods by taking them to visit
the manufacturers of the neighbourhood, where
they were able to judge at first hand which
were the best of the methods employed. Fur-
thermore, the General Council of the North
recognised the practical value of his knowledge
and his teaching by entrusting him with the
examination of the fertilisers essential to
culture.

The problem of fermentations which Pasteu
was preparing to solve victoriously was even
more obscure than those offered by crystalog-
raphy. How did the heavy dough, formed of
flour mixed with water, become the light and
substantial bread; how was the crushed grape
transformed into wine? Undoubtedly these
questions had occupied the attention of man
ever since the most remote antiquity, and many

48 PASTEUR

answers were made to them, but no answer that
was scientifically satisfactory.

The alchemists of the middle ages thought
that yeast had a certain power of transmuta-
tion and that fermentation, if applied to metals,
would enable them to transmute a base metal,
such as iron, into a precious metal, such as
gold. The first of all to approach the truth was
Paracelsus, who compared fermentations to
diseases, but his idea was still vague, and not
based upon experiments. We must wait until
we come down to Lavoisier in order to see fer-
mentations studied upon a basis of facts, but
neither this great chemist nor those who fol-
lowed him, Gay-Lussac, Cagniard-Latour,
Schwann, Helmholtz, Liebig, succeeded in dem-
onstrating their real origin. The theory most
generally accepted, at the time when Pasteur
began his researches, was that of Liebig, who
attributed fermentations to matter in the course
of decomposition, which played the role of a
ferment in the mediums into which they were
introduced.

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 49

It was in a sugar refinery at Lille, owned by
M. Bigo, that Pasteur entered upon the study
of fermentations. He approached it equipped
with all the knowledge acquired through his
work in the tartrates, which must have singu-
larly aided him to reach a solution of the prob-
lem that had been so long and vainly sought.
We cannot follow him through these delicate
and difficult experiments, but he arrived at this
luminous and unforeseen conclusion that fer-
mentation was not a phenomenon of death, as
Liebig had thought it, but a phenomenon of
life, and this he proved in an irrefutable man-
ner.

His experiments, which were directed more
especially to lactic and alcoholic fermentation,
showed him that all fermentation was due to
the presence of living cells which alone were
the active agents of the transformation. These
cells had a life of their own, and the phenomena
of fermentations were closely connected with it
and influenced by the different phases of its
evolution, according as these cells were ill, dy-

50 PASTEUR

ing or in full vigour. This was indeed a light
thrown upon what had hitherto been nothing
but darkness, a discovery which was destined
to create an entire new science and of which the
consequences were at that time incalculable.

The scientific associations, both in France
and abroad, disturbed at first by Pasteur's far-
sighted genius and by the unforeseen results- of
his researches, awaited his communications
with something bordering upon impatience. He
received recognition beyond any of the other
young investigators, for he had proved himself
to be one of those with whom it was henceforth
necessary to reckon. He began to receive rec-
ompenses. In 1857 the Royal Society of Lon-
don bestowed upon him the great Rumford
medal for his work in crystalography, and the
same year his friends in the Institute, and Biot
among the first, who felt a paternal affection
for him, urged him to present himself as a can-
didate for the Academy of Sciences in the sec-
tion of mineralogy. Pasteur accepted this flat-
tering invitation from the masters of his pro-

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 51

fession, who now looked upon him as at least
their equal, but he made a rather sorry candi-
date, being too fond of truth and justice to be
willing to play upon those little human vani-
ties which assure success in all elections. Ac-
cordingly, in spite of Senarmont's report, which
was highly eulogistic of Pasteur's discoveries,
insisting upon their value and importance, Pas-
teur received only sixteen votes. He took his
way back to Lille, not greatly cast down by a
defeat which he had foreseen, but he remained
there only a short time, because, on the open-
ing of the scholastic year of 1857, he was ap-
pointed Administrator of the Ecole Normale
and director of the scientific studies, while
Nisard assumed the general direction.

Henceforth this was to be the centre of Pas-
teur's life, his whole life of toil, of combats on
behalf of science and humanity, and his family
life as well, a very happy one, notwithstanding
that it was destined to be marked by some in-
evitable bereavements which his profound faith
as a Catholic aided him to bear. It was from

52 PASTEUR

the little laboratory in the Rue d'Ulm that the
great and peaceful revolution was to proceed,
designed to cure all the ills of life by penetrat-
ing the secrets of nature. It ought to be re-
garded as a sacred spot, for one of the finest
of all human minds lived and thought there,
while such high virtues as courage, persever-
ance and moral strength were there put into
magnificent practice.

M. Maurice de Fleury has related how Pas-
teur never ceased working, even when his la-
borious day was ended :

"During fifteen years/' he says, "he could be
seen each evening after dinner pacing up and
down a long corridor where no one dared to
come and interrupt his reverie. Paralysed since
1870 — for on two different occasions apoplexy
attacked his brain — he would seize the bunch
of keys in his pocket with his stiffened hand
and make them rattle in order to soothe his
thoughts with the rhythmic sound; and as he
walked he slightly dragged one foot, while his
mind ripened some newly conceived idea or

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ON THE ROAD TO FAME 53

prepared for the experiment of the morrow. At
times his reverie assumed the intensity of ecs-
tacy ; and within the brain of this man of
genius flashes of light revealed his goal, and
gave him a prevision of all that was destined
to emanate from him.

"How beautiful it is! How beautiful it is!"
he would murmur in low tones. Then, resum-
ing his pacing with a firmer step, he would add,
"I must work." And so he would continue un-
til the hour of eleven.

Is there not something deeply touching in
this picture of the great man toiling on into
the night, after all the experiments he had
made during the day, experiments made under
very hard conditions? His laboratory in the
Ecole Normale was, as a matter of fact, ex-
ceedingly primitive and inconvenient. It con-
sisted of two inadequate rooms which he him-
self had contrived in the garret, and, while it
was freezing cold in winter, during the summer
the temperature would rise to 97° Fahrenheit.
Nevertheless, it was here that he completed his

54 PASTEUR

studies of fermentations, from 1857 to 1859,
and notably those of alcoholic fermentation.
It was here also that he was destined to dis-
cover a phenomenon which overthrew all ac-
cepted ideas regarding the essential conditions
of animal life. No one had questioned that
oxygen was a necessity to all animals without
exception. Pasteur proceeded to prove that for
certain species it was fatal, and that they died
at its contact. While examining under the mi-
croscope a tiny drop of butyric fermentation,
placed between two very thin sheets of glass,
Pasteur observed that the bacteria krjown as
the vibrion, which produce this fermentation,
were very lively at the centre and furthest from
the air, but that those near the border line be-
came inert. What was he to conclude from
this phenomenon, which contradicted all obser-
vations that he had previously made of various
infusions, in which the animalcula left the
centre of the drop in order to draw near to the
margin which supplied them with more oxy-
gen? Was it possible that there were animal

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 55

forms which made an exception to a law that
was supposed to be general, were there some
that led an anaerobic life (i. e., without oxy-
gen), while it had previously been regarded as
settled that all animals led an aerobic life, in
which oxygen was a necessity? Pasteur solved
this question by passing a current of air into a
flask containing a butyric fermentation, and
immediately the life of the vibrions diminished
in intensity and finally ceased. The proof had
been obtained that there were animal forms to
which oxygen was fatal.

But how did it happen that these anaerobic
vibrions had not met with oxygen in the me-
dium in which they were bred? It was because
the aerobic vibrions which preceded their evolu-
tion had exhausted all the oxygen in the liquid,
and thus gave them a chance to live and multi-
ply. Furthermore, these two forms of life were
found coexisting in the same liquid, a part of
the aerobic forms having died and fallen to
the bottom of the vessel after exhausting the
oxygen, while the more vigorous rose to the

56 PASTEUR

surface and continued to live, thanks to the
oxygen in the air, and formed at the same time
a protective layer for the anaerobics, which
were thus enabled to develop in the lower
depths. Pasteur was destined, later on, to
study in detail these phenomena which no one
before him had observed, and to gather new
light from them. M. Duclaux emphasises the
element of genius in these researches:

"I have tried to present all these deductions
as a whole," he writes, "because as a matter of
fact they were the result of a few weeks of
work and meditation, and also because they
afford us an example of Pasteur's power of pen-
etration in perceiving and outlining a problem,
and the patience he exhibited in gathering to-
gether the elements essential to a solution.
Throughout the best years of his life this man
lived in advance of his time, a pioneer lost in
solitude, absorbed in the contemplation of the
horizons he had discovered and which his eye
alone could behold and traverse. What is less
surprising than his indifference to the details

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 57

of actual life? He lived in his own thoughts,
without being a dreamer, for a dream which
reaches its goal and produces results ceases to
be a dream."

But these delicate experiments and lofty
speculations did not make Pasteur forget that
he was Administrator of the Ecole Normale as
well as director of scientific studies. And never
did a man take his duties more seriously than
he, even when they were a burden and a con-
straint. He applied himself to everything that
he undertook with the same degree of attention
and conscientiousness, and nothing seemed to
him too trivial to be worthy of supervision and
painstaking. Accordingly he took every pains
to give a perfect administration to the great
school that he still loved as well as he had done
in boyhood, when it had appeared to him as
the far-off goal of his highest hopes. He con-
cerned himself about the health of the stu-
dents and the hygiene of the locality, and even
the smallest details were objects of his solici-
tude, such as airing a classroom or sanding a

58 PASTEUR

court. Even the scientific side of his mind
found employment in his administrative role:
for instance, when he undertook comparative
calculations as to the number of ounces of meat
furnished for each meal to the students at the
Normale and the Poly technique !

This anxiety to be a good administrator in
no wise interfered with his researches. He ac-
cepted the additional burden without com-
plaint, and his scientific activity was in no wise
retarded. In the same manner that crystals
led him to fermentations it was these latter
which were destined to lead him to studies
which seemed to overstep the boundary of sci-
ence and to enter the metaphysical domain of
the origins of life, the solution of which had
hitherto been the concern of philosophers
rather than of scientists. When Pasteur saw,
under the lens of a microscope, cells of yeast
conducting themselves like living organisms,
when he saw the vibrions moving, growing and
dying, he straightway asked himself where these
yeasts and these vibrions come from. Are they

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 59

born spontaneously from matter in a state of
decomposition, or is it not more likely that, in
accordance with the general laws of life, they
are produced by germs? This was, in short,
the question of spontaneous generation, which
had so long been combatted and which he now
undertook to solve. Pasteur believed that
nothing is self-creative, but this was something
which had to be proved, and he succeeded in
proving it victoriously, in the full heat of bat-
tle, and in spite of the attacks and insults of
those who championed the opposite doctrine.

His friends, with Biot at their head, tried
to turn him aside from these researches, which
they judged useless and vain. But Pasteur,
strong in his conviction and with that dogged
will which never turned back from any obstacle,
so long as he was sure that he had grasped the
truth, disregarded the advice of his elders and
plunged into experiments that bristled with dif-
ficulties.

From the most remote antiquity spontaneous
generation had been accepted, and it is well

60 PASTEUR

known that the ancients believed that eels were
born from the slime of river banks, and that it
did not seem to them impossible that bees
should issue from the decomposing entrails of
a bull. Without going quite so far back, we
find that the great naturalist, Buff on, supported
the theory of spontaneous generation; but the
first experiments to prove its truth were made
by an Irishman, Needham, in the eighteenth
century. Enclosing putrefying matter in a ves-
sel which he sealed hermetically, and heating
the whole apparatus in hot ashes, in order to
destroy all living germs, he allowed the vessel
to become cold, and after the lapse of several
days he found that it contained animalcula.
This went to prove that spontaneous genera-
tion had taken place. Spallanzani repeated
these experiments, and, after heating the closed
vessel to a higher degree, observed that no ani-
makula afterwards developed. Needham re-
joined that by using too high a degree of heat
he had killed the vegetative force from which
creation proceeded. None of these experiments

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 61

was conclusive, and, although they were re-
peated by Gay-Lussac, Schulze and Schwann,
their results remained uncertain and often con-
tradictory.

When Pasteur intervened the theory of spon-
taneous generation was supported by Pouchet,
and it may be said that it was accepted by a
considerable number of scientists. It is true,
however, that no decisive evidence had been
offered either for or against the theory. It was
at this moment that Pasteur revealed himself,
not only as a man of daring and profound
thought, but as the most careful and experi-
enced of operators. To those who believed in
spontaneous generation he said, "Everything
comes from a germ, and even these animalcula,
which seem to you to have been born spontane-
ously in the infusions in which they develop,
come quite simply from germs and spores which
are floating in the air. You have conducted
your experiments badly ; I will begin them over
again, and I will prove to you that the sub-
stances which you regard as subject to decay

62 PASTEUR

are not so when they are rigorously sheltered
from the air."

Pasteur began his experiments at the end of
1859, and he pursued them in the midst of the
din of battle, for his adversaries disputed his
conclusions in advance. The contest lasted for
more than four years, with attacks, counter-
attacks and violent battles, but finally the vic-
tory remained with Pasteur, without even his
most bitter enemies venturing to dispute him
further.

Assailing his problem at its foundation, he
proved the actual existence of germs and spores
in the atmosphere ; then he conceived of a dis-
tribution of glass globes which would enable
him to demonstrate by experiment what he had
already maintained against the supporters of
spontaneous generation. Pasteur declared that
germs are unevenly distributed in the at-
mosphere, and that the air of high mountain
tops contains either few or none at all ; Pouchet
and Joly, on the contrary, contended that air,
by its own nature, could cause spontaneous

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 63

generation in any and every locality. Both
parties made experiments in their own behalf,
and each experiment gave different results.
These polemics spread beyond scientific circles
to the daily press, and, since the question of
religion was involved, the public took sides for
the one party or the other, according to their
individual opinions, the results obtained by
Pasteur being regarded as conforming with the
biblical account of the creation, while those of
Pouchet seemed to invalidate and contradict it.
For his first demonstration Pasteur employed
globes with a curving neck, into which he in-
troduced an infusion liable to putrefy, either of
hay or of malt, which had been brought to the
boiling point in order to destroy whatever
germs it might contain ; and, having done this,
he left the globes exposed to the open air. No
disturbances took place in the infusion, but if,
by tipping the globes, he brought the liquid into
contact with the walls of the curved neck,
after a longer or shorter time the infusion
would begin to swarm with life, thus furnish-

64 PASTEUR

ing a double proof, first, that pure air has no
effect upon liquids subject to putrefaction, and,
secondly, that it was the germs and spores
heavier than the air which had been deposited
in the curved neck that gave birth to the in-
fusoria popularly attributed to spontaneous
generation.

On the other side, Pouchet declared that the
air, being everywhere the same, had the power,
no matter where it was gathered, of causing
the creation of vibrions, through its action upon
liquids subject to putrefaction; while Pasteur
continued to maintain that germs and spores
were unequally distributed in the atmosphere,
and that, if the air was taken from the moun-
tain tops, it was impossible that it should dis-
turb the liquids brought into contact with it,
since there would be a complete absence of
germs and spores. The experiments which Pas-
teur made, as simple as they are conclusive, to
demonstrate the truth of his conception, have
remained historic. It was through the aid of
globes with a straight neck finely drawn out

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 65

that he ultimately succeeded; and this is the
way that he achieved his proof, thanks to his
practical qualities as an experimenter of ex-
treme caution who never left anything to
chance.

After having half filled his globes with some
alterable liquid, such as an infusion of brewer's
yeast, Pasteur brought it to the boiling point,
and, when the steam had driven out all the air,
he quickly closed the point of the finely drawn-
out neck by means of a blow-pipe. The globes
thus prepared — the liquid being contained in
an almost absolute vacuum — were transported
to various different localities, and then opened
with infinite precautions: the fine point of the
neck was broken with pincers previously heated
in a flame, the air re-entered the globes, which
were immediately sealed again and placed in
ovens, where they were subjected to a tempera-
ture of 86 degrees Fahrenheit. The liquid be-
haved differently, according to the locality from
which the air had been obtained, the fermenta-
tion being very rapid if it had come from a

66 PASTEUR

neighbourhood where there was much dust,
much slower when it was taken, for instance,
from the cellar of the Observatory, and in some
cases there was no alteration at all.

In spite of these results, Pasteur's experi-
ments continued to be disputed. He resolved
to undertake a scientific campaign, against
which his adversaries should no longer be able
to stand out. Armed with sixty-three globes,
he set forth, in September, 1860, for the moun-
tain heights of the Alps. He halted first at Ar-
bois, where he took some specimens of air ; then
from Mount Poujet he proceeded to Chamou-
nix, and there he opened some of his globes
on the Mer de Glace. There, in that pure air,
far from human crowds, germs and spores
ought either not to exist or else to be very rare.
The results proved that he was right. Out of
twenty globes opened on the mountain heights
nineteen remained sterile, while in the case of
those into which air was admitted at lower
levels the proportion of sterile ones, out of the

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 67

same number, fell off to fifteen and to twelve.
The proof was decisive.

But Pouchet, his bitterest opponent, having
repeated the same experiments, only with a
less degree of care, arrived at different results,
and denied the value of Pasteur's demonstra-
tions. He .also had obtained air from various
localities, even from Sicily, and there, just as
elsewhere, he had found it fertile, and ready to
act upon liquids capable of putrefying. The
conflict assumed epic proportions. The ses-
sions of the Academy of Sciences caught the
echoes of it, each theory having its partizans,
and each experimenter his enemies. Pasteur,
however, ended by convincing the learned as-
semblage, which in 1862 awarded him a prize
for his Memorandum on Organic Corpuscles
existing in the Atmosphere. Alone, or almost
alone, Pouchet, Joly and Musset refused to lay
down arms, and continued to carry on an active
war. In order to force them to surrender Pas-
teur requested the Academy of Sciences to
name a commission to judge between him and

68 PASTEUR

his adversaries, each party being required to re-
peat their experiments in the presence of the
commissioners chosen. Pouchet, Joly and Mus-
set accepted, but on the day appointed for the
tests they announced that they had failed,
while Pasteur, accompanied by Duclaux, ar-
rived bringing his globes and his liquids with
him. The experiment was a success, and
Baland recorded, in the name of the Commis-
sion, the conclusive results, in the Comtes
Rendus de I' Academic des Sciences. After a
hard campaign of several years Pasteur was at
last triumphant.

This question of spontaneous generation
aroused an interest outside of the men of sci-
ence. It had called attention to the mysteri-
ous world of infinitely little things, and people
were eager to gather around the microscope in
order to see these redoubtable organisms, the
full extent of whose power was as yet unknown.
Pasteur had obtained the concession of a suite
of five rooms in the Ecole Normale, to be used
as a laboratory. Having thus been enabled to

ON THE ROAD TO FAME 69

quit his garret, he began to receive illustrious
visitors, statesmen, society women, personages
of high standing at court, all of whom came to
beg him to initiate them into the secrets which
he had discovered, and of which he seemed to
be the sole guardian.

During his researches in spontaneous gen-
eration Pasteur had received from the Academy
of Sciences, in 1860, the prize for experimental
physiology, and in 1861 he had for a second
time presented himself as a candidate in the
section of botany. He was supported by his
faithful friend Biot, but, nevertheless, he ob-
tained only 24 votes. He was not destined to
be elected until the 8th of December, 1862,
with a majority of 36 out of a total of sixty
votes, to the section of mineralogy, where he
succeeded Senarmont.

Pasteur was now celebrated, acclaimed by
some, and combatted by others who were un-
able to comprehend the utterly new order of
his genius. Napoleon III expressed his desire
to meet him, and it was his first master, Dumas,

70 PASTEUR

the one who had formerly caused Pasteur such
keen emotion by his lectures on chemistry at
the Sorbonne, who presented him to the Em-
peror at the Tuileries in March, 1863.

Pasteur delighted Napoleon III by his seri-
ous and simple manner. He explained his ideas
regarding the scientific problems on which he
was engaged, and confessed to the Emperor
that his most secret ambition was to study con-
tagious diseases in order to find a cure for all
humanity.

CHAPTER IV

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH

THE campaign which Pasteur was conduct-
ing against spontaneous generation did
not absorb his entire activity. He pursued his
studies of fermentation, striving to penetrate
the secrets of the infinitely small, the yeasts,
the vibrions, the infusoria, that whole disquiet-
ing world, the universal and formidable activity
of which was not even yet suspected. Perhaps
he already discerned, although only vaguely,
their presence in human diseases, and this was
the object of his researches and profound med-
itations.

Pasteur used to arrive at his laboratory,
walking slowly, sunk in thought, and with his
forehead lined with care. He gave orders to his
assistants, pointing out the experiments which

71

72 PASTEUR

he wished to have made, but never revealing
the idea behind them. Succeeding Raulin, he
had Duclaux, who was still young and who was
destined to become a great scientist. Duclaux
admired the achievements of his master, and
with his keen and lucid mind followed his
luminous trail, while he often added to his du-
ties as assistant the humbler ones of a labora-
tory attendant, wiping the apparatus, the re-
torts and flasks, a devoted servant in the tem-
ple of science. A rather sorry temple, by the
way, for the laboratory was extremely incon-
venient, with its five scanty rooms and a stove
installed behind the staircase, where Pasteur
could not enter except on his knees. Duclaux
compared it to a rabbit cage, "and yet it was
from there/' he said, "that the movement
started which revolutionized science."

Already at that epoch a large faction of the
younger generation of scientists had come un-
der the daily increasing influence of Pasteur.
"The Normal School chemists of 1860," wrote
Mrs. Duclaux, in her Vie d'Emile Duclaux, "be-

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 73

lieved in Pasteur as the romantics of 1830 be-
lieved in Victor Hugo. They saw before them
virgin lands and unimagined sources. Thanks
to the genius, the faith and the religious spirit-
that the master infused into his work, he in-
spired these younger men with his own enthusi-
asm, and they believed themselves born to rev-
olutionise the ideas which had served as dog-
mas for their predecessors ; and such a belief is
strangely intoxicating to young brains ! Among
the assistants and students who gathered
around M. Pasteur in the little laboratory in
the Rue d'Ulm, there was a continual inter-
change of conceptions and of projects — very
different ones from those that are born and die
daily apropos of literature or philosophy, for
these discussions dealt with the only form of
truth that is capable of being verified, namely

science."

But, while Pasteur kept secret the object he
had in view during the course of his experi-
ments that were often long, difficult and count-
less times recommenced, when he had once ob-

74 PASTEUR

tained his results he boldly and vigorously pro-
claimed them. He had a scorn of bad faith,
routine and prejudice, and every one knows the
famous apostrophe which he addressed to his
adversaries who were disputing his discoveries
in relation to the crystals of tartrates at a meet-
ing of the Societe Philomatique on the eighth
of December, 1862: "If you have ever known
anything of the subject, what have you done
with your knowledge? And, if you have not
known, why do you interfere?" He was a rough
antagonist, but he fought only for the triumph
of truth, putting all personal considerations
aside.

In the course of his studies of fermentations
Pasteur was led to study the phenomenon
through which wine was transformed into
vinegar. The celebrated chemist, Liebig, had
established a theory which did not altogether
agree with his own observations, and he pro-
ceeded victoriously to advance his own theory
in opposition.

The manufacturers of vinegar in Orleans

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 75

pursued the following method : Into groups of
stationary barrels they poured a mixture of
two-thirds ripened vinegar and one-third
wine. On the surface of this mixture there
was formed a thin film, of which no one knew
the composition, but which was necessary in
order to obtain a prompt and thorough acetifi-
cation, or transformation into vinegar. The
manufacturers took great care of this film, for,
if it was dislodged or if it sank to the bottom
of the barrels, the whole operation had to be
done over. What was this film which, in order
to work well, required a current of fresh air
that was furnished by drilling an opening in
the barrels a little above the level of the liquid?
Pasteur worked for nearly a year on this prob-
lem, and he proved that acetification was caused
by a microbe which, living on the surface of the
liquid, obtained oxygen from the air and trans-
ferred a part of it to the liquid below, which
in this way was oxidised. He gave this microbe
the name of mycoderma aceti, or mycoderm
of vinegar. This ferment is endowed with

76 PASTEUR

an extraordinary power of prolificness. The in-
dividual cells, twice as long as they are wide, are
so minute that it requires 400 of them, placed
end to end, and 800, placed side by side, to
measure a millimetre in length, that thirty mil-
lion can find space in a square centimetre, and
three hundred billion are formed in twenty-four
hours upon a square metre of the liquid ! What
is the weight of these three hundred billions of
cells? One gram, and this gram is capable of
transforming ten kilograms of alcohol into
vinegar in the space of five days. It follows
that a single cell consumes, in the course of one
day, a quantity of nourishment equal to two
thousand times its own weight. From these
fabulous figures one can form some conception
of the activity of these infinitely small organ-
isms and of their formidable power in the
economy of universal life.

Pasteur discovered that the mycoderm of
wine could become ill and that it produced
either good or bad vinegar as the case might be.
Through proper cultivation he obtained perfect

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 77

cells which, when placed in a mixture of wine
and vinegar, produced an excellent and regular
acetification. Up to this time the industry of
the vinegar makers of Orleans was subject to all
sorts of losses due to ignorance and to chance.
Pasteur furnished them with a method which
never failed. He saved them from the daily
anxiety of obtaining bad products, and he
helped them to gain millions.

At the same time that he was occupied with
vinegars Pasteur had been investigating even
as far back as 1863 the origin of different mala-
dies which affect wines. The municipal coun-
sel of Arbois, priding themselves on this illus-
trious compatriot, offered him a laboratory
where he might pursue these studies that were
of interest to all the wine growers of France.
Pasteur preferred to be installed in independent
quarters; and Duclaux, who on several occa-
sions directed the experiments made at Arbois,
has given a most picturesque description of the
place. The laboratory had been established in
a former cafe:

78 PASTEUR

traditional signboard had been left
above the entrance, in consequence of which
it often happened to us to have customers
enter and ask for food and drinks. Gen-
erally they halted at the door, surprised at
the strangeness of the furnishings, and took
themselves off without a word, assuredly
carrying with them visions of the almanac
of Nostradamus. It must be said in their
defense that, if the room no longer resembled
a cafe, it resembled a laboratory quite as little.
There was no gas; the heating was done with
coal, the flames of which were made more ac-
tive at the required moment with the help of
fans. There was no water ; we ourselves went,
like Rebecca, to draw it at the public fountain,
or, like Nausicaa, to wash our utensils by the
river bank. Our tables were trestles, and as
for our apparatus, since nearly all of it came
from the local carpenter, tinsmith or black-
smith of Arbois, it may be imagined that they
did not have the canonical forms and that,
when we walked through the streets on our

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 79

way to the wine cellars to get the wine for the
purpose of analysis, we did not pass by without
calling forth some sarcastic comments from the
somewhat hostile inhabitants of the little
town."

Whatever this haphazard workshop may
have been, Pasteur's experiments, methodically
and perseveringly continued, were decisive.
What was the cause of the maladies of wines?
Contrary to the widely accepted opinions, Pas-
teur proved that oxygen was not injurious to
wine, but that, on the contrary, it was oxygen
which aged it and gave it flavour and bouquet.
Wine hermetically sealed, without contact with
oxygen, remained forever young. This preju-
dice having been overcome by experiments,
Pasteur showed further that each malady of
wine had its own special microbe and that un-
der the microscope it was possible to distin-
guish those of la tourne, of I'amer, of la graisse,
all of them well-known maladies of wine, but
by no means the only ones.

How was it possible to combat these mi-

80 PASTEUR

crobes, the terrors of wine growers and epicures,
for no barrel and no bottle was surely safe?
Pasteur tried at first to use antiseptics, taste-
less and odourless, but without obtaining good
results. It was through the application of heat
that he finally solved the problem, and it was
well worth the solving, since the vineyards of
France produce as a matter of fact fifty million
hectolitres of an average value of five hundred
million francs, and suffer enormous losses
through the occurrence of diseases.

Pasteur heated the wines in a closed vessel
to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and by thus destroy-
ing the microbes put them in a condition to be
kept without danger of spoiling. But this proc-
ess of heating had to contend with many preju-
dices. It was believed that it altered the qual-
ity of the wines, and the wine growers were re-
luctant to adopt this method of preservation.
A commission was appointed to try the effect
of the Pasteur method upon wines to be trans-
ported by sea. They put on board the Jean-
Bart at Brest samples of wine that had been

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 81

heated and other samples that had not been
heated. After ten months of ocean travel the
former samples were declared by the commis-
sion to be excellent in all respects, while the lat-
ter samples had turned sour. The experiment
was repeated on board the frigate La Sibylle,
and gave the same results. The wine that had
been heated preserved all its characteristic
qualities and escaped all injury. For that mat-
ter the protection of liquids by heating has now
become general and we pasteurise milk, beer,
etc.

Napoleon III became interested in Pasteur's
study of wines, for it involved the question of
safeguarding one of the principal sources of the
wealth of France. Accordingly, during one of
the sojourns of the court at Compiegne both
he and the Empress, Eugenie, were initiated
into the details of the experiments. It was in
1865 that Pasteur, armed with his microscope
and his samples of wine, delivered a lecture on
the subject before the emperor and empress,
and taught them to distinguish, with their eye

82 PASTEUR

at the lense, the microbes of the tourne from
those of the amer. Napoleon III expressed sur-
prise that it had not occurred to Pasteur to
make a pecuniary profit out of his discoveries,
which were worth tens of millions to the wine
industry, and Pasteur made this fine response:
"In France a scientist would think that he had
demeaned himself if he did such a thing." Ac-
cording to his standards, they must content
themselves with glory and with the satisfaction
of a duty fulfilled.

In Pasteur, Napoleon III liked both the man
and the scientist, and many a time he invited
him either to the Tuileries or to Compiegne.
Arrangements were made to conduct some ex-
periments in the apartments of the empress,
and in the presence of the ladies of honour Pas-
teur expounded the mysteries of the world of
infinitely little things. Incidentally he met
with a singular adventure, which might have
banished him from the Court, if the affection
which the Empress bore him had been less
genuine. For the purposes of a certain demon-

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 83

stration Pasteur had needed some live frogs,
which he had obtained from the head gardener
of the parks at Compiegne. When the experi-
ment was ended the absent-minded scientist
left the frogs behind him, imprisoned in an in-
secure bag. They invaded the bed chamber
of the Empress, and the latter, arising during
the night, set her foot upon a cold and slimy
frog. She experienced a terrible fright and
very nearly fainted. Afterwards she laughed at
her own fear, but, although she bore no grudge
against Pasteur, she could never again bear
even the sight of the poor, inoffensive frog!

In 1867 Pasteur received from the jury of the
Exposition Universelle a grand prize for his
services in behalf of wines. But even before
these researches were fully completed he had
prepared to undertake a new series of studies
that were destined to enhance his fame still
further.

For fifteen years a veritable scourge had rav-
aged the departments of southern France. The
industry of rearing silk-worms, formerly so

84 PASTEUR

prosperous that the mulberry tree had come to
be called the tree of gold, had fallen off alarm-
ingly, with an annual loss of more than fifty
million francs. The people were reduced to
dire poverty, and the sorely tried land owners,
helpless to combat the cause of their ruin, ap-
pealed to the government. Strange maladies
were spreading among the silk-worms, which
died in countless numbers, and there was no
remedy that seemed to help them. Dumas,
commissioned to present to the Senate the peti-
tion from the affected district, having confi-
dence in the genius of Pasteur, begged him to
consent to go and study on the spot this disease
of the silk-worms, which was proving so fatal
to a national industry that in the single district
of Alais it had caused within five years a loss
of nearly a hundred and fifty million francs.

Pasteur knew nothing of the subject, but in
the face of such a permanent menace, which
condemned a whole section of France to the
blackest misery, he consented to absent him-
self from his beloved laboratory in the Rue

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 85

d'Ulm and to accept the commission from the
Ministry of Agriculture. It was in the midst
of sorrow and mourning that he was destined
to carry on this new study — a long and diffi-
cult one, lasting from 1865 to 1870 — for within
a few years he lost his father and two of his
daughters. His father! We know the pro-
found affection that he felt for the old soldier
of the Empire, to whom he owed his love for
work and that steadfast conscience that guided
him so straightly through the path of life. His
daughters! The joy and the hope of his home
circle. These intimate tragedies traced a few
additional lines upon his austere face, but it
was with the same valiant heart, the same un-
biased mind, the same tenacious will that he
continued to pursue his great task on behalf of
humanity.

Pasteur left Paris in the early days of June,
1865, and installed himself at Pont-Biquet, in
a small silk-worm farm near Alais, in the very
heart of the stricken district.

The diseases of silk-worms had already been

86 PASTEUR

studied by Guerin-Menneville, Lebert and
Frey, Osimo, Cantoni and de Quatrefages, the
latter of whom gave its name to the most re-
doubtable of these diseases, pebrine. In this
disease the bodies of the infected worms be-
came covered over with spots resembling grains
of pepper. It was known in a vague way that
it was caused by corpuscles, but, when it be-
came a question of determining their nature
and the manner of their invasion, there was
nothing but darkness and contradictions. As
for remedies, they were purely empirical; re-
sort was had to sulphur, sugar, ground mus-
tard, ashes, etc., and all of them were quite in
vain.

Pasteur had to find his way through an in-
extricable labyrinth, without any special knowl-
edge, and armed solely with his intuitive mind
and his unrivalled qualities as an investigator.
In his Histoire d'un Esprit Duclaux, who, to-
gether with Gernez and Maillot, was his col-
laborator at Pont-Biquet, relates all the fluctu-
ations of that six years' struggle, with its mis-

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 87

takes, its hopes, and its discouragements, sur-
rounded by the indifference and the hostility
of those whose interests it disturbed, and the
final triumph, assured, indisputable and univer-
sally acclaimed.

At the very beginning Pasteur made the mis-
take of thinking that the corpuscles were the
result of pebrine and that they did not make
their appearance until the disease had reached
a certain stage. But, notwithstanding that he
was wrong in this, he established the fact that
corpusculous moths produced corpusculous
eggs, and that the whole problem was to find a
way of obtaining healthy eggs. In this way he
opened up the path to the truth. After ex-
periments of unimagined delicacy which -de-
manded ceaseless watchfulness, Pasteur con-
vinced himself that the corpuscles were not an
effect of the disease, but its cause, a form of
parasite that invaded the bodies of the silk-
worms. He proved that pebrine was hereditary
and contagious, and that the variations that
were shown to occur in the disease were due

88

PASTEUR

solely to the state of receptivity of the indi-
vidual insects, according as they were more or
less sensitive to the action of the parasite. Here
we have in embryo the theory of microbic dis-
eases, which was destined a few years later to
revolutionise the science of medicine.

Pasteur converted himself into a cultivator of
silk-worms, and, after many alternations be-
tween success and defeat, he obtained eggs that
were perfectly healthy. His method was sim-
ple. After the moths had finished laying he
reduced their bodies to a pulp, and examined
them under a microscope, and every batch of
eggs that was thus shown to have come from a
corpusculous moth was destroyed. This opera-
tion, although so simple, encountered desperate
opposition on the part of vendors of silk-worm
eggs, with whose trade it interfered. It re-
quired all of Pasteur's energy to overcome this
opposition, and all his activity as well, for he
had to respond to all the appeals of the silk
producers who sought his eggs or his advice as
to the best methods to follow. A campaign of

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 89

insults and calumnies was organised against
the great man, and it is even stated that he
once had to seek safety in Alais, followed by
an angry mob that stoned him as he went. Pas-
teur was keenly sensitive to such malevolent
attacks, but none the less he continued his task.
Rising early in the morning, he would stand
for long hours before the cases of silk-worms,
making observations and recording the daily
results of his experiments, never discouraged,
or at least overcoming by force of will those
moments when the desired goal seemed as re-
mote as ever, and proceeding to begin his work
over again, to correct his opinions in accord-
ance with the newly observed facts, with no in-
tention of halting until he should hold within
his powerful grasp the indisputable truth !

What a heroic battle! And it must not be
forgotten that Pasteur hardly knew what silk-
worms were when he undertook to cure them.
The celebrated entomologist, Henri Fabre, re-
lates in his Souvenirs the details of a visit that
Pasteur paid him upon arriving in the South.

90 PASTEUR

Pasteur requested to see some cocoons. Fabre
brought him a handful. The illustrious scien-
tist took them in his hand, turned and returned
them, shook them near his ear, and exclaimed:

"Why, there is something inside ! "

"The chrysalis," replied Fabre.

"The chrysalis! What's that?"

"A sort of mummy into which the caterpillar
changes before becoming a moth."

"And inside of every cocoon there is one of
those things?"

"Certainly, it is to protect the chrysalis that
the caterpillar spins its cocoon."

"Ah!" responded Pasteur simply.

Is not this an admirable scene, as described
by the old entomologist Fabre? Pasteur knew
nothing, Pasteur worked, observed, drew deduc-
tions, came to a conclusion — and, where every
one else had failed, he alone succeeded! Such
is the power of genius.

The work upon silk-worms had its interrup-
tions, for Pasteur tried to reconcile his personal
researches with His functions as director of sci-

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 91

entific studies at the Ecole Normale. But in
any case he was forced to abandon them in
1867, as the result of a small rebellion among
the students, due to a discourse delivered by
Sainte-Beuve before the Senate on the subject
of freedom of opinion. The school had been
dismissed, and the directors, Nisard, Pasteur
and Jacquinet, replaced in the course of reor-
ganisation.

The Minister of Public Instruction, Duruy,
appointed Pasteur professor of chemistry at the
Sorbonne, but where was he to find a new
laboratory? The only adequate one at the
Ecole Normale was occupied by Sainte-Claire
Deville, and it was impossible even to think of
returning to the wretched quarters where the
experiments on spontaneous generation had
been made. Then it was that Pasteur, who, in
spite of his personal modesty, was conscious of
all that he was still able to do for science, re-
quested that a laboratory should be constructed
for him. This request was made in a note of
such an exalted tone that it deserves to be re-

92 PASTEUR

produced in its entirety. It was addressed to
Napoleon III.

"Sire," wrote Pasteur, "my researches in re-
gard to fermentations and the role played by
microscopic organisms have opened up to
physiological chemistry new avenues of which
the agricultural industries and the study of
medicine have already begun to reap the fruit.
But the field which remains to be traversed is
immense. My greatest desire would be to ex-
plore this field with renewed ardour, without be-
ing hampered by the insufficiency of material
means.

"Since it involves seeking, by a patient and
scientific study of putrefaction, for certain prin-
ciples capable of guiding us to a discovery of
the causes of putrid or contagious diseases, I
should like to be installed in some building
where the laboratory and its various dependen-
cies would afford enough space to carry on the
experiments comfortably and without danger
to health.

"But how can researches be conducted in re-

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 93

lation to gangrene, the viruses, and experi-
ments in inoculation, unless we have quarters
suitable for receiving animals, whether alive or
dead? Butcher's meat brings an exorbitant
price in Europe, but it is a superfluity in
Buenos Ayres. How is it possible, in a cramped
laboratory lacking in the necessary resources,
to apply all the various tests to processes which,
perhaps, render the preservation and transpor-
tation of meat a simple matter? The disease
popularly known as sang de rate (splenic apo-
plexy) causes in the district of Beauce an an-
nual loss of four million francs; it would be
indispensable to go there, no doubt for several
successive seasons, at the period of the great-
est heat, and spend several weeks in the en-
virons of Charente, in order to carry on a series
of minute observations.

"These researches and a thousand others,
which, according to my belief, are related to the
great phenomenon of the transformation of or-
ganic matter after death and the enforced re-
turn of every living thing to the soil and the

94 PASTEUR

atmosphere, are compatible only with the in-
stallation of a vast laboratory. The time has
come to emancipate the experimental sciences
from the obstacles which trammel them." 1

Napoleon III responded to this eloquent ap-
peal in which Pasteur outlined, to a certain ex-
tent, the programme of his future work. He
gave an order to Duruy to gratify this legiti-
mate desire of the scientist and the Minister of
Public Instruction that a laboratory should be
built for him by the State in the gardens of the
Bcole Normale. But they needs must reckon
with administrative delays! The plans were
handed in by the architect of the Ecole, M.
Bouchot, in accordance with Pasteur's specifi-
cations, in September, 1867, but the actual
work was delayed until a year later, after Pas-
teur had denounced, in a pamphlet, the Budget
de la Science, the lamentable conditions under
which French scientists were obliged to conduct
their experiments, as compared with scientists
in other countries, and notably in Germany.

5 Cited by M. Vallery-Radot.

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 95

Meanwhile a catastrophe was about to befall
Pasteur and even menace his life. On the 19th
of October, 1868, he was prostrated by an at-
tack of paralysis on the left side, and so gravely
affected that for the first twenty-four hours a
fatal termination was feared. Pasteur rallied
from the crisis, thanks to the robustness of his
constitution; and it was during those days of
physical and mental suffering, while he lay mo-
tionless, as though stricken by a thunderbolt,
that he revealed most vividly the loftiness of
his thoughts, the beauty of his character and
the stoic grandeur of his principles. On the
second afternoon of his illness Dr. Godelier,
who was attending him, was enabled to make
the following announcement in his health bul-
letin: "He wishes to talk about science." In
reply to Sainte-Claire Deville, who had spoken
some affectionate words of encouragement, he
uttered the following admirable phrase : "I re-
gret to die : I should like to have been of more
service to my country." His preoccupation as
a scientist never for an instant left him, as Dr.

96 PASTEUR

Godelier himself attested, and eight days after
his attack he dictated a note to M. Gernez, his
assistant, in relation to the diseases of silk-
worms.

Pasteur was surrounded with the most de-
voted care by his family, and also by his pupils,
who loved him as they might have loved a
father who was somewhat cold, somewhat dis-
tant, but who hid beneath an external reserve
a warm heart ever ready to defend his friends.
Messrs. Gernex, Duclaux, Raulin, Didon and
Bertin took turns in watching beside him, anx-
iously following the successive phases of his ill-
ness. The whole scientific world was troubled,
as though facing the possibility of a great dis-
aster, and Napoleon III himself demanded
news every morning.

Six weeks after his attack Pasteur was able
to rise, and entered upon his convalescence. He
had been affected badly by the stoppage of the
work upon his laboratory which had coincided
with the beginning of his illness, but by the
order of the Emperor it had been resumed, and

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 97

from his window Pasteur could see the foun-
dations beginning to rise. The hope of soon
being able to recommence his experiments with
the help of material means such as he had long
desired hastened his cure. While he rested his
body he went into a sort of spiritual retire-
ment. He read, or had read to him, the
Thoughts of Pascal, The Knowledge of God
and of Oneself, and the Works of Nicole. This
man of science, unique in his qualities as an ex-
perimenter, who would abandon any and every
theory in the face of facts, always separated
science from Faith, and it is known that he was
a practical Catholic to the day of his death.

As soon as he could be removed Pasteur
wished to return to the south of France, in or-
der to continue his study of silk-worms, and
clear up certain points which seemed to him to
be still obscure. He disregarded all suggestions
of prudence, and, in spite of his weakened con-
dition, he installed himself, in January,
1869, at Saint-Hippolyte-du-Pont, near Alais.
Shortly after his arrival Pasteur, who still

98 PASTEUR

moved his left arm and leg clumsily, fell to the
ground, and once more had to take to his bed.
But he none the less continued to work, dictat-
ing the experiments to be made to his col-
laborators, Gernez, Raulin and Maillet, and in-
forming himself each day of the observations
they had gathered. His method was still corn-
batted, and, while certain silk producers de-
clared that it was excellent, certain organised
bodies such as the Silk Commission of Lyons
questioned its value. Pasteur forwarded to the
members of this commission several samples of
eggs, indicating in advance what result each
of the samples should give. The boldness of
his predictions was a proof of his certainty,
and as a matter of fact they were realised.
Nevertheless, his adversaries refused to lay
down their arms, even though his processes be-
gan to be employed abroad, and the Austrian
government awarded him a prize of ten thou-
sand francs in recognition of the services he
had rendered to the culture of silk-worms. Not
only did Pasteur find a cure for pebrine, but

FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 99

also for another disease of silk-worms, known
as flacherie, which was almost as much dreaded
as the former.

Marechal Vaillant, Minister of the House to
Napoleon III, decided to try the Pasteur
method experimentally in one of the domains of
the Crown. A vast property, planted with
mulberry trees, was chosen. It belonged to the
Prince Imperial, and was situated at Villa Vi-
centina, in Austrian Friuli. Pasteur set forth
in November, 1869, with healthy eggs obtained
by his process of cellular breeding from three
cultivators, Messrs. Raybaud, Milhau and
Gourdin; and immediately upon arriving he
set to work. For the previous ten years the
imperial domain, infected with pebrine and
flacherie, had produced nothing, while the har-
vest resulting from Pasteur's eggs gave a net
profit of. twenty- two thousand francs. It
formed a neat little surplus for the purse of the
Prince Imperial.

Pasteur remained for eight months at Villa
Vicentina, and there put the finishing touches to

100 PASTEUR

his work, in which he systematised all his pre-
vious studies on silk-worms. His former mas-
ter, Dumas, had the pleasure of introducing to
the Academy of Sciences at a meeting held the
llth of April, 1870, and of pronouncing the
eulogy on his Studies on the Disease of Silk-
worms, a practical and assured Method of com-
batting it and preventing its Return. The
Academy had spoken, the victory was com-
plete.

Pasteur had been made Senator of the Em-
pire by a decree issued the previous July, and
he was returning to France, impatient to be-
gin new researches, when he learned at Stras-
burg, with an inexpressible sinking of the heart,
that war had been declared. This meant the
postponement of all his projects, of all those re-
searches which he wished to undertake for the
benefit of humanity. The scientists no longer
had the floor!

CHAPTER V

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM

•

PASTEUR was an ardent patriot, and the
disasters of France affected him pro-
foundly. Determined though he was to work,
in spite of the war — since he had nothing else
than his work to give to his country — it was,
nevertheless, hard for him to reconcile himself,
so keenly did he share the high tension of pub-
lic feeling. Retiring to his boyhood home at
Arbois, he sought to content himself with
studying the fermentation of tan bark; yet all
the while he was on the alert for news and
quivering in unison with the soul of the nation
at the announcement of each new defeat. When
Paris was bombarded, and shells reached the
Museum of Natural History, ChevreuFs elo-
quent and indignant protest in the name of the
101

102 PASTEUR

Academy of Sciences caused Pasteur to regret
that he had not been in Paris, in order to sign
it, together with his colleagues who were pres-
ent. But he remembered that in 1868 he had
received a diploma from the University of
Bonn, conferring upon him the honorary de-
gree of Doctor of Medicine, in recognition of his
brilliant work, and he decided to return it to
the Dean. He accompanied it with a letter pul-
sating throughout with the highest kind of
patriotism.

To Monsieur the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
at Bonn (Rhenish Prussia)

"ARBOIS, JURA, January 18th, 1871.
"MONSIEUR THE DEAN: In 1868 the Faculty of
Medicine of the University of Bonn did me the
honour to confer upon me voluntarily the degree of
Doctor of Medicine, in recognition of my work in
regard to fermentations and the role played by
microscopic organisms. Among all the distinctions
bestowed upon me by reason of the discoveries
which I have been privileged to make since enter-
ing upon my scientific career, twenty-two years
ago, there is none, I acknowledge, which caused me
greater satisfaction. It was, in my eyes, the con-

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM 103

firmation of a secret hope, of the truth of which I
felt more and more convinced, namely, that my re-
searches were opening up new horizons to the study
of medicine.

"I even hastened to frame under glass that hon-
orary degree which bore witness to the decision of
your faculty, and I adorned the wall of my private
office with it. Today the sight of this same parch-
ment has become odious to me, and I feel that it is
an insult to have my name, with the qualification of
virum clarissimum which you bestowed upon it,
placed under the auspices of a name condemned
henceforth to the execration of my country, that of
rex Guilelmus.

"While protesting loudly my profound respect
towards you and all the other celebrated professors
who signed their names at the foot of the document
representing the decision of the members of your
order, I must still obey the voice of my conscience
and beg you to erase my name from the archives of
your Faculty and to take back this diploma as a
sign of the indignation aroused in a French savant
by the barbarity and hypocrisy of the man who,
for the sake of satisfying a criminal pride, obsti-
nately insists upon the massacre of two great na-
tions.

"Since the conference of Ferrieres France has
sought for the respect of human dignity, and Prus-

104 PASTEUR

sia for the triumph of the most abominable of lies,
namely, that the future peace of Germany depends
upon the dismemberment of France, although every
sane man knows that the conquest of Alsace and
Lorraine is simply a prize of war carried to the bit-
ter end. Woe to the people of Germany if, being
nearer than we to feudal servitude, they do not
understand that France, while possessing the lands
of Alsace and Lorraine, is not mistress of the con-
sciences of their inhabitants. Savoy would still be
a part of Piedmont if its inhabitants had not con-
sented, by a free vote, to become French. Such
is the modern right of civilised nations, which your
king is trampling under foot, and in defence of
which France has risen.

"Therefore, there is perhaps no epoch of her his-
tory in which France has better deserved to be
called the great nation, the initiator of progress,
the guiding light of other races. Here is a whole
people which has arisen against you, ready to push
onward to the ends of the earth and to dare every-
thing, because of her conviction of the justice and
sanctity of her cause.

"Kindly accept, Monsieur the Dean, on behalf of
yourself and your distinguished colleagues, the ex-
pression of my sentiments of high consideration.
"Louis PASTEUR,

"Member of the Institute"

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM 105

In the white heat of conflict between two
powerful nations this reasonable and humane
letter, couched in terms of such noble pride,
could not be understood. Doctor Neumann,
Dean of the Faculty of Bonn, replied harshly,
with an affectation of disdain, under which he
betrayed the irritation caused by this great and
well-merited lesson. Pasteur, strong in the
conviction that he and his nation were in the
right, wrote a second letter, no longer indig-
nant, but saddened and deploring the murder-
ousness of war, which puts a barrier between
men who were born to understand each other
and to join forces in the search of happiness.
He wrote:

"MONSIEUR THE DEAN: In re-reading your let-
ter and my own, I feel sick at heart to think that
men like you and myself, who have consecrated
their lives to a search after the truth and to the
progress of the human mind, could address each
other in such terms, and based, for my own part,
upon such acts. Nevertheless, we have there one
other result of the character imprinted upon this
war by your Emperor.

"You speak to me of degradation, Monsieur the

106 PASTEUR

Dean. There is degradation, be assured of that,
and there will continue to be, down to the remotest
epochs of time, attached to the memory of those
who began the bombardment of Paris at a date
when capitulation through famine was inevitable,
and who continued this savage act when it had be-
come evident to everyone that it would not hasten
by a single hour the surrender of the heroic city.

"Louis PASTEUR."

To the anguish of patriotism there were
added private anxieties, for Pasteur's son, who
was only eighteen years old, was serving as
quartermaster in the Army of the East, under
command of Bourbaki. Having been for a long
time without news, Pasteur set out to seek for
him among the demoralised troops in full re-
treat and destined finally to take refuge in
Switzerland. He had the good fortune to find
him in that disorganised crowd, emaciated, ex-
hausted, but still living. After a few days of
repose at Geneva, this son, well worthy of his
father, returned with him to France and re-
entered the service in the Army of National
Defense.

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM 107

International war was soon followed by civil
war, and Pasteur, being unable either to enter
Paris or to return to Arbois, which was occupied
by the enemy, proceeded to install himself, early
in 1871, in the house of his friend and col-
laborator, Emile Duclaux, who at that time was
professor of chemistry in the Faculty of Cler-
mont-Ferrand. He wrote to him on the 29th
of March, 1871 : "I have my head filled with
the finest projects for work, but the war has
forced my brain to lie fallow. I feel ready now
to become productive again, although, alas, I
may be deceiving myself! In any case I shall
try. Ah, why am I not rich, a millionaire? I
should then say to you, and to Raulin and Ger-
nez and Van Tiegham, and the rest, 'Come ! we
are going to transform the world by our dis-
coveries!7 How fortunate you are to be young
and in good health ! Oh, if I could only recom-
mence a new life of study and toil! Poor
France! Dear mother land! If I could only
contribute to relieve you from your disasters!"

At Clermont-Ferrand Pasteur hesitated be-

108 PASTEUR

tween several paths. Should he continue to de-
vote himself to silk-worms, or commence some
new researches? Chance and the desire to do
away with French consumption of an almost
exclusive product of German industry turned
his attention to the study of beer. Why should
we not make good beer in France? Pasteur
asked himself, and he straightway set to work
to find an answer to his own question. There
was a small brewery at Chamelieres, near Cler-
mont, and it was there, at the home of the pro-
prietor, M. Kulm, that he conducted his first
experiments, afterwards verified in Duclaux's
laboratory, in the Faculty of Sciences. The mi-
croscopic examination of malts, yeasts and
beers soon convinced him that the latter ac-
quired a bad taste through diseases analogous
to those of wines, and due to certain microbes.
In brewing, just as in all industries where fer-
mentation plays the principal role, the manu-
facture was purely empirical, without method
or science, and the results, whether good or
bad, were often due to pure chance, Pasteur

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM 109

resolved to place brewing on a firm basis, es-
tablished through experiments, to the end that
it should yield nothing but perfect products.

Since beer was spoiled by the introduction of
harmful germs, and its quality corresponded to
the quality of the yeast which caused the fer-
mentation, it was necessary, on the one hand,
to eliminate germs, and, on the other, to obtain
a thoroughly lively and perfectly pure yeast.
These were the problems to which Pasteur ap-
plied himself, and during his sojourn at Cler-
mont he manufactured beer according to his
own rules, and was able to send a dozen bottles
of it to Dumas !

But the brewery at Chamelieres was too re-
stricted a field. In September, 1871, he set out
for England, and he reduced the great London
brewers to a point of stupefaction by pro-
nouncing upon the quality of their different
beers, those that were good and those that were
bad, simply by examining them under a micro-
scope. With their practical temperament the
English grasped the great benefit which their

110 PASTEUR

manufacture could derive from the method of
the French scientist, and the microscope be-
came a frequently consulted instrument in their
breweries.

Upon returning to Paris, and once more in-
stalled in his laboratory at the Ecole Normale,
Pasteur still continued his studies of beer. The
problem to be solved was a very delicate one.
As a matter of fact, a beer may be good, even
perfect, and yet be unpalatable, for the ques-
tion of taste intervenes, quite aside from the
quality of the manufacture.

"Now, for the purpose of carrying on this
work of adaptation and of detail," writes M.
Duclaux, "Pasteur had none of the essential
requisites. He did not like beer, and, although
by force of will, he succeeded in acquiring a
sufficiently trained palate and sense of taste, he
remained unable to detect differences pointed
out by the brewers themselves, and which he
was sometimes amazed to find keenly appre-
ciated by his friend Bertin, who lived next to
him in the Ecole Normale (as assistant direc-

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM 111

tor), and who was frequently invited into the
laboratory for conferences over the relative
flavour of samples. In the face of the enthusi-
astic appreciations sometimes expressed by his
friend, Pasteur remained bewildered, feeling
that they were leading him into regions where
he did not like to venture, and he would forth-
with have renounced this labour of Sisyphus,
if he had not had the imprudence to solicit the
pecuniary aid of a certain society for investi-
gations, a very large and generous society,
towards 'which he had thus contracted a moral
obligation to succeed in his enterprise.

In order to arrive at the conclusion which he
wished the laboratory did not suffice his needs.
Accordingly, Pasteur went to continue his re-
searches at the great breweries belonging to the
Tourtel brothers at Tantonville. Above all else,
he recommended the most scrupulous cleanli-
ness in all the manipulations and all the imple-
ments of manufacture.

Let us here introduce a parenthesis for the
purpose of pointing out the extent to which

112 PASTEUR

Pasteur insisted upon cleanliness in all the de-
tails of daily life. He never seated himself at
table without carefully wiping his plates, his
glass, his knife and fork, examining them all
with the most severe attention. He never ate
fruit that was not peeled, and he even scraped
off the crust from his bread, for fear that it
might be infected with microbes. These habits
were well known to his family, but they could
not have failed to astonish his hostesses when
he dined away from home.

After a short sojourn at the Tourtel Brothers'
brewery, in company with his assistant, M.
Grenet, Pasteur announced that all the diseases
of beer arose from microbes which could be
avoided through precautions in the course of
manufacture, that it was necessary to make
careful selection of yeasts, and that, if bottled
beer was heated to the point of 122 degrees
Fahrenheit, it was rendered unalterable.

His method and his processes have enabled
France to cope successfully with foreign com-
petition, and the congress of French brewers,

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM 113

held in 1889, attributed all the merit of their
products to his labours.

After the close of the war the world of sci-
ence so highly appreciated the genius of Pas-
teur that the celebrated Englishman, Huxley,
did not hesitate to declare that his discoveries
were worth the five billion ransom of France.
And yet this was only the first part of his work,
the part which, according to Duclaux, had won
him fame, while now he was about to enter
upon the second part — devoted to human mala-
dies— which was destined to assure him im-
mortality.

CHAPTER VI

THE CURATIVE POISON

INNOVATORS, whether in the arts or the
sciences, are combatted at the outset. Pas-
teur was not destined to escape the general
rule, which demands that all truth shall be
forced upon us. In spite of the evidence which
he had obtained in support of his theories from
long and difficult experiments with fermenta-
tions, a group of scientists, and they by no
means the lesser lights, . refused to accept his
conclusions. He had to face a controversy with
Trecul, who maintained that microscopic or-
ganisms could transform themselves, one into
another, and he must needs demonstrate that,
contrary to this opinion, they remained fixed
and with a specific character. In the course of
the study necessitated by this discussion he
114

THE CURATIVE POISON 115

made experiments on anaerobic (without air)
and aerobic (with air) forms of life, and he dis-
covered that a certain number of these organ-
isms could pass from one mode of life to the
other with an accompanying change in form
and function.

But these studies of fermentations, through
which he was destined to refute Claude Ber-
nard, Berthelot, etc., studies which he pursued
with unflagging energy, and which were shed-
ding light upon phenomena that had remained
obscure until he had given the key to their in-
terpretation, did not prevent him from ponder-
ing over the role played by microbes in infec-
tious diseases or from beginning experiments
concerning them.

Pasteur had been elected to full membership
of the Academy of Medicine in 1873, and it was
thenceforward there that he waged his battles
against prejudice, hostility and unfairness, in
order to achieve the triumph of ideas which
brought with them the most complete revolu-
tion that had ever taken place in medicine.

116 PASTEUR

Along the curve of an inspired path, and with
no break in the continuity, he had passed from
crystals to fermentations, and from fermenta-
tions to diseases of microbic origin. But these
divisions are still in a measure inexact, for,
within his vast brain that was forever working
all his projects for experimentation, all his ideas
centred upon germs. Accordingly he was able
to say before the Academy of Medicine in 1873 :
"Is it not evident that all the researches to
which I have devoted myself for seventeen
years, regardless of the efforts they have cost
me, are the products of the same ideas, the
same principles, forced by incessant toil to yield
constantly new results? The best proof that
an investigator is on the road to truth is the
uninterrupted fertility of his labours."

For years Pasteur was forced to fight his bat-
tles in the very midst of the Academy of Medi-
cine, and he did so with a vigorous and dogged
energy so long as he was defending the truth
contained in his discoveries. His work, for that
matter, controverted though it was, had long

EMILE DUCLAUX (AFTER BORDES)

The favorite disciple of the great scientist and the first director of the

Institute in the Rue Dutot, who collaborated in Pasteur's researches

and carried on his work.

THE CURATIVE POISON 117

since passed beyond the limits of scientific cir-
cles, and in 1874 the National Assembly, wish-
ing to pay honour to his rare merit, awarded
him a national recompense, one which had been
granted only twice before within the century,
in 1839 to Daguerre and Niepce, and in 1845
to the engineer Vicat. Paul Bert was appointed
to make the report. In the course of it he said :
"The discoveries of M. Pasteur, after having
shed new light upon the obscure question of
fermentations and of the mode in which micro-
scopic organisms make their appearance, have
revolutionised certain branches of business in-
dustry, agriculture and pathology. One is
struck with admiration when one realises that
so many results and such widely different ones
have all been derived, through an unbroken
chain of facts, followed up step by step, leav-
ing nothing to conjecture, from an original the-
oretical study as to the manner in which tar-
taric acid deflects polarised light. Never before
has that famous epigram, 'Genius is patience/
received so splendid a confirmation.

118 PASTEUR

"It is this admirable combination of theoreti-
cal and practical work which the Government
proposes that you should honour with a na-
tional recompense. Your Committee unani-
mously approves this proposition.

"The recompense specified consists of a life
pension of twelve thousand francs; this sum
represents very nearly the salary attached to
the professorship in the Sorbonne, from which
illness has obliged M. Pasteur to resign."

In this same report Paul Bert paid tribute to
the disinterestedness of Pasteur, whose discov-
eries had enriched France to the extent of un-
numbered millions, without its having occurred
to him to acquire any personal benefit from
them. The motion was carried by 532 affirma-
tive votes against 24 negative ones. It was an
overwhelming majority.

Having once turned his attention to infec-
tious diseases, Pasteur assiduously frequented
the Academy of Medicine. Becoming con-
vinced that the majority of deaths were caused
by wounds coming in contact with external

THE CURATIVE POISON 119

germs, he recommended to the operating sur-
geons a method of antiseptic dressing, based
upon his discovery of microbes in the air. The
great English surgeon, Lister, employed a sim-
ilar method, and obtained excellent results.
The French physicians who accepted Pasteur's
method saw the percentage of deaths resulting
from operations fall off with great rapidity. It
was not adopted without opposition, but its
efficacy was soon recognised ; and to-day there is
no surgeon who does not follow out all of Pas-
teur's careful injunctions, the heating of instru-
ments, the sterilisation of dressings, antiseptic
washing of the wound, etc.

It was in 1876 that science escaped a real
danger. Pasteur, yielding to the solicitations
of a number of electors, presented himself as
candidate at the election of senators from the
Jura. He made his electoral campaign with the
same seriousness that he displayed in his labor-
atory, proclaiming in his sign bills and circu-
lars that his only reason for wishing to be
elected was that he might have further oppor-

120 PASTEUR

tunity to serve France. M. Grevy presented
himself in opposition at Lons-le-Saulnier, and
Pasteur received only 62 votes. He cherished
no grudge because of this defeat, but he de-
clared that his incursion into the domain of
politics had been a mistake, and he promptly
returned to his studies.

He had, for that matter, quite enough to do
in defending his own scientific work, which had
been newly attacked just as he began to believe
that it had been definitely established. Bas-
tian, for instance, despite the convincing na-
ture of his experiments on spontaneous genera-
tion, disputed his results, and Pasteur, though
he might well have rested on his earlier la-
bours, repeated them, if possible with even
greater care, in order to be able to answer him.
This experimental method, this close scrutiny
of facts which formed the basis of all Pasteur's
discoveries, this constant anxiety to leave noth-
ing doubtful or unfinished, has lately been tes-
tified to by M. Denys Cochin, a member of the
Academic Franchise and a deputy, on the occa-

THE CURATIVE POISON 121

sion of the discussion before the Chamber in
regard to powder for the navy. "I have studied
chemistry to some extent/' he said, "and I recall
a remark once made to me by one of our most
illustrious scientists. I had finished some small
research, the report on which I submitted to
M. Pasteur. It began with a phrase that is
common enough in manuals of chemistry : 'We
know that . . .' 'What do we know?'
Pasteur said to me, 'We know nothing at all.'

"I replied, 'Excuse me, Monsieur, but the
fact I cited was taken from one of your own
writings.' I thought I had the best of it, but
Pasteur merely rejoined, 'That has nothing to
do with it ; you ought to have verified me.' "

Therein lies Pasteur's whole secret: he al-
ways repeated his experiments over and over
until he was certain of the truths that they con-
tained; and it was by this means that he tri-
umphed over his adversaries. His controversy
with Bastian, together with a posthumous pa-
per by Claude Bernard on fermentations, led
him to investigate the fermentation of grapes.

122 PASTEUR

Having constructed a hot-house on a small
property that he owned near Arbois, Pasteur
succeeded in demonstrating that the fermenta-
tion was due exclusively to germs which made
their appearance on the surface of the grapes
and on the bark of the vines at the moment of
maturity, and that neither verjuice nor the
must of the grape isolated from the skins and
stems can undergo fermentation.

But, although he was still disputed, he had
the keen pleasure of seeing certain of his
methods eagerly adopted by the big industries.
During a visit to a vast Italian silk-worm es-
tablishment, on the occasion of a congress of
silk producers held at Milan, he beheld his own
name inscribed across the pediment of the
building, in conspicuous homage to the services
he had rendered to that industry. On this same
occasion they showed him the marvellous re-
sults obtained by his process of cellular culture,
practically carried out by young girls who had
acquired great expertness in the use of the mi-
croscope for detecting corpusculous moths.

THE CURATIVE POISON 123

As in the case of the fermentation of grapes,
this was a side issue of his theory of germs, but
at this epoch he was studying them mainly
from the pathological point of view, and we
know that he was interested above all in dis-
eases of a microbic origin. There again he was
destined to wage stout battles against routine
and prejudice, even within the walls of the
Academy of Medicine.

It was the disease of anthrax, which annually
decimated the herds and flocks of France, that
Pasteur chose as the first point of attack. Da-
vaine had previously discovered that the blood
of animals infected with this disease contained
little rectilinear, stick-like organisms, a species
of vibrion which he named from their form
bacterides, and which were the cause of the dis-
ease : but he had been unable to defend his con-
clusions against Messrs. Gaillard and Leplat,
professors at Val-de-Grace, and Paul Bert, who
all maintained, after making experiments, that
anthrax came from a virus, and not from the
bacterides themselves. It was precisely at this

124 PASTEUR

point in the discussion, with the two sides
steadfastly maintaining contradictory opinions,
each supported equally by facts, that Pasteur,
in collaboration with Messrs. Joubert, Cham-
berland and Roux, intervened in his accustomed
manner, quite simple, quite clear and rigor-
ously scientific.

Having obtained a fresh drop of blood from
an animal infected with anthrax, Pasteur culti-
vated the bacterides in artificial mediums by
impregnating each new medium with a drop
taken from the preceding culture, so that by
the time of the tenth culture he obtained pure
bacterides. When these were used for inocu-
lation they produced anthrax, without the aid
of the original drop of blood, which had dis-
appeared through being diluted to such a de-
gree as to be imperceptible in the later cultures.
This amounted to a complete confirmation of
Davaine's opinion, that these bacterides were
the cause of the disease of anthrax. In order
to render his experiment more decisive Pasteur
established a counter-proof by inoculating his

THE CURATIVE POISON 125

medium with a culture from which he had elim-
inated the bacterides by means of filtering it
through plaster, and the resulting liquid failed
to produce anthrax.

Pursuing his studies further, he demon-
strated that Messrs. Gaillard and Leplat, who
asserted that they had produced anthrax in ani-
mals by means of blood which contained no
bacterides, had been mistaken, and that what
they had really done was to produce a different
disease by inoculating with a new species of
microbe, which he named the septic vibrion.
In like manner he refuted Paul Bert, who, after
having destroyed the bacteria of anthrax by
means of compressed oxygen, claimed that the
blood thus deprived of them could nevertheless
cause anthrax; Pasteur showed that this blood
still contained the germs or spores of bacter-
ides, which had greater resistant powers than
the bacterides themselves, and that it was from
them that these cases of anthrax came, so that
in any case it was caused either by the bac-
terides or by their spores. This amounted to a

126 PASTEUR

definite proof of the parasitic character of this
infectious disease.

But how was anthrax communicated to ani-
mals, and was there any hope of protecting
them from it? Again, as in the case of the silk-
worms, the Minister of Agriculture commis-
sioned Pasteur to make a study of this evil,
which ravaged the cattle-raising districts, caus-
ing losses which amounted annually to tens of
millions. Nothing was known beyond the fact
that the animals who were pastured in certain
fields that were known as bad fields became in-
fected with anthrax. Pasteur installed himself
in the environs of Chartres and began his re-
searches. He was accompanied by M. Roux,
who bears witness to the perspicacity of his ob-
servations conducted on the spot:

"The harvest had been gathered," he wrote,
"and nothing remained but the stubble. Pas-
teur's attention was drawn to a certain portion
of the field, because of the different colouring
of the earth. The owner explained that this
was the spot where they had buried the sheep

THE CURATIVE POISON 127

which had died of anthrax the preceding year.
Pasteur, who always examined things closely,
noticed on the surface of the soil a multitude of
little lumps of earth thrown up by earth-
worms. The idea then occurred to him that in
their continuous journeyings from the lower
depths to the surface the worms carried above
ground some of the soil rich in the humus that
surrounded the dead bodies, and along with it
some of the spores of anthrax which it con-
tained. But Pasteur never stopped short at
conjectures. He immediately passed on to ex-
periments. These justified his expectations:
the earth contained in one of the worms, when
used to inoculate guinea-pigs, produced anthrax
in them." (Roux, L'ceuvre medicate de Pas-
teur, Agenda du Chimiste, 1896.)

Pasteur had studied first the active cause of
the disease, and next its mode of propagation,
and found that the spores penetrated into the or-
ganism of the animals, sheep or cattle, through
the mucous membranes of their mouths, where
they were torn by the dry and prickly grass.

128 PASTEUR

How were the flocks and herds to be preserved?
It was through his study of chicken cholera,
carried on simultaneously with that of anthrax,
that he was set upon the right path. He had
noticed that the cholera microbes (at this time
the word microbe, as a generic term for vibri-
ons, bacterides, etc., had just been coined by
Sedillot, a surgeon at Strasburg, approved by
Littre, and generally adopted by scientists), if
left exposed to the air, and then used for a new
culture, lost their virulence to the point of be-
coming actually harmless. This attenuation
was due to the oxygen in the air. This discov-
ery was destined to revolutionise the science of
medicine, and to lead Pasteur to the employ-
ment of vaccines, which he obtained after sev-
eral years of extremely delicate experiments.

It was on the 28th of February, 1881, that
Pasteur made his communication to the Acad-
emy of Sciences regarding the vaccine of an-
thrax. It was received by some with enthusi-
asm, and by others with mistrust. Pasteur
himself was certain of the effects of his discov-

THE CURATIVE POISON 129

ery, healthy animals inoculated with the atten-
uated virus would surely be rendered immune
to anthrax. He consented to make a test on a
large scale, and this test justly remained cele-
brated. It began on the 5th of May, 1881, on
a farm at Pouilly-le-Fort, near Melun, under
the auspices of the Society of Agriculture of
that town. The conditions imposed were most
rigorous, but Pasteur was confident of victory.
Fifty sheep and ten cows were turned over to
him: of the former lot twenty-five were to be
vaccinated with an attenuated virus and then
to receive, together with the other twenty-five
which had not been vaccinated, an inoculation
of extremely virulent anthrax microbes; while
for the second lot the experiment was to be tried
upon six vaccinated animals and four not vac-
cinated. Pasteur asserted that all those which
had been vaccinated would resist the disease of
anthrax, while those which had not been vacci-
nated would all die. This claim had the au-
dacity of genius, and throughout the duration
of the experiments the illustrious scientist un-

130 PASTEUR

derwent alternations of joyous hope and fever-
ish anxiety. But on the 2d of June, the day
fixed by Pasteur for judging the results, after
the inoculation with virulent bacterides, which
took place on May 31, it proved to be a tri-
umphant occasion for him on the farm at
Pouilly-le-Fort. The prefect of Seine-et-
Marne, several deputies and senators, veteri-
naries and journalists were present, all quiver-
ing with impatience — and Pasteur's predictions
were realised in every particular amid the con-
gratulations of an enthusiastic throng. Every
one of the animals which had been inoculated
but not vaccinated had contracted anthrax and
died, while all the animals that had been both
inoculated and vaccinated escaped all symp-
toms of illness.

On the 13th of June Pasteur communicated
to the Academy of Sciences the result of his ex-
periments at Pouilly-le-Fort, which was hence-
forth to be known as 'The Pasteur Farm." In
view of their success, which had made an enor-
mous sensation, he was able to say :

THE CURATIVE POISON 131

"We now possess virus-vaccines against an-
thrax, capable of warding off the deadly dis-
ease, without ever proving fatal themselves —
living vaccines, that may be cultivated at will
and transported anywhere without suffering
harm; vaccines, in short, that are prepared by
a method which we have reason to believe is
susceptible of being generalised, because it has
once already been put into practice for the pur-
pose of obtaining vaccine against chicken chol-
era. Because of the character of the conditions
which I have here enumerated, and looking at
the question only from the scientific point of
view, I may say that the discovery of vaccine
for anthrax constitutes a perceptible progress
in advance of Jenner's vaccine, because the lat-
ter was not obtained as a result of experi-
ments."

Pasteur no longer met with the same obsta-
cles that had confronted his method for the cul-
ture of silk-worms; his vaccines for anthrax
were in demand in every cattle-raising district
of France. Within one year after the above-

132 PASTEUR

mentioned experiments the number of animals
vaccinated had risen to 613,740 sheep and
83,946 cattle!

But before this triumph — which had even
been questioned in certain circles — he had to
answer numerous criticisms at the Academy of
Medicine, where too many of the "dear mas-
ters" refused to recognise him as anything more
than a chemist. He was forced to fight on be-
half of his germ theory against the adherents
of the old school who refused to accept not only
the novelty of the theory, but even the very
existence of germs. He was forced to defend
his experiments when they were called in ques-
tion, and one day he actually brought some
chickens into a meeting at the Academy of
Medicine, in order to convince Colin that he
could infect them with anthrax! Pasteur was
an energetic adversary, and sometimes a violent
one, if anyone affected not to understand him ;
and he defended what he believed to be the
truth with crude and caustic eloquence. It
very nearly led him into a duel with Jules

THE CURATIVE POISON 133

Guerin in October, 1881, because of his rather
rough treatment of him on the subject of small-
pox.

This whole epoch of Pasteur's life, extend-
ing from 1877 to 1882, was extremely prolific.
He was possessed by what amounted to a fever
for work, and his ideas radiated in all direc-
tions. His laboratory was a veritable hive.
Together with his anthrax vaccine, he found
that of chicken cholera; and his pupil, Thuil-
lier, discovered the microbe of rouget in swine.
But in the midst of all his polemics and his
divers other duties Pasteur's chief preoccupation
was that of human diseases. He turned his at-
tention to puerperal fever, and, having dem-
onstrated that it was due to a microbe, he out-
lined for doctors a whole series of measures of
precaution and cleanliness that were destined
to save many a mother. He collected notes on
the plague, he made a study of boils, he
haunted the hospitals in company of his stu-
dents, notwithstanding his sensitiveness and
physical repugnance.

134 PASTEUR

"The sight of corpses, the sad necessity of
autopsies caused him actual repulsion," writes
M. Roux. "How many times we have seen him
hastily leave the amphitheatre of the hospitals
because he was actually ill! But his love of
science, his curiosity to know the truth were
even stronger; he always came back on the

morrow."

After having conquered himself in order to
bring to humanity effective remedies against in-
fectious diseases, Pasteur was destined to con-
quer the doctors themselves, bound though
they were to the old formulas, the antiquated
conceptions, and who could not, without some
vexation and alarm, behold the overthrow of
their tranquillity and peaceful routine.

But the excitement aroused by the discovery
of anthrax vaccine, which opened such great
hopes for the future, was confirmed by the
learned societies and the ruling powers. The
Society of the Agriculturists of France awarded
Pasteur, on the 21st of February, 1881, a medal
of honour, and the Government bestowed upon

THE CURATIVE POISON 135

him the grand cordon of the Legion of Honour.
In this connection we meet with a typical mani-
festation of Pasteur's character. He sent word
that he would not accept this elevation to a
higher rank unless his two collaborators, Cham-
berland and Roux, were each to receive the red
ribbon.

CHAPTER VII

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS

IN spite of a small refractory group, Pasteur's
rise into fame was continuous, and his
genius radiated throughout the scientific world
of Europe. The government had appointed
him as delegate to the International Medical
Congress held at London in April, 1881; and
there he was the recipient of exceptional hon-
ours. M. Vallery-Radot cites a very beautiful
letter, which Pasteur wrote to his wife concern-
ing the attentions that he received. When the
President of the Congress. Sir James Paget,
happened to mention his name, the entire as-
semblage burst into applause, and Pasteur was
obliged to rise and salute'his colleagues.

"I was very proud," he wrote, "very proud
internally, not for myself — you know how I feel
136

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 137

in regard to triumphs — but for my country,
when I realised that I was being exceptionally
distinguished in the midst of this immense con-
course of foreigners, of Germans especially, who
are here in considerable numbers, far greater
numbers than there are Frenchmen, of whom
nevertheless, taken altogether, there are not
less than two hundred and fifty. Jean Baptiste
and Rene were present at the session. You can
judge of their emotion.

"After the session, luncheon at the home of
Sir James Paget, with the Prussian Prince
seated on his right and the Prince of Wales on
his left. Then a gathering of twenty-five to
thirty guests in the drawing-room. Sir James
presented me to the Prince of Wales, before
whom I made my bow, telling him that I was
happy to salute the friend of France.

" 'Yes/ he answered me, 'a great friend/
"Sir James Paget had the good taste not to
ask me to be presented to the Prussian Prince.
Although under such circumstances it was im-
possible to be otherwise than courteous, I could

138 PASTEUR

not have made up my mind to give the appear-
ance of having asked to be presented to him.
But all of a sudden the Prince himself came up
to me and said:

" 'Monsieur Pasteur, allow me to introduce
myself to you, and to tell you that I was one of
those who applauded you this morning.' And
he continued talking to me in the friendliest

manner."

Receptions and ceremonies did not make Pas-
teur forget his serious work; and in a lecture
intended as an answer to Bastian, who main-
tained that germs were born from the organism
containing them, he described his labours, his
methods, his discovery of vaccines, and the way
in which he had proved experimentally tha+
germs were parasites. This exposition by Pas-
teur, in which he summed up his entire life as
a scientist, and all the opportunities which it
had opened up to the future of science, was
printed in English and sent to all the members
of the House of Commons. The greatest Eng-
lish scientists, it should be added, Tyndall,

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 139

Paget and Lister, had rallied to the support of
the Pasteur methods.

Upon returning to France, he set forth imme-
diately for Bordeaux, where he hoped to have a
chance to study yellow fever, which had broken
out among the crew of the Conde, just arrived
from Senegal. Yet, at the same time that he
was anxiously concerned regarding these sick
sailors, among whom he hoped to find subjects
for experiments, he was profiting by his leisure
moments to visit the Bordeaux library, where
he read the works of Littre assiduously, and
with pen in hand. The fact was that certain
members of the Academic Frangaise had asked
Pasteur to present himself as candidate for the
place of the learned linguist, then recently de-
ceased.

We have seen that Pasteur, the great revolu-
tionist of science, had a deep respect for de-
grees, hierarchies, social orders and honorary
distinctions, and it seemed to him that this was
an honour out of all proportion to his own liter-
ary claims. He hesitated, and it needed all the

140 PASTEUR

insistence of his friends, as well as the thought
that it was a tribute paid to science rather than
to him personally, to decide him to offer him-
self as a candidate. He was elected on Decem-
ber 8th, 1881, to the thirty-first chair, whose
previous occupants had been De La Chambre
(1635), Desmarais (1670), LaMonnoye (1713),
La Riviere (1727), Hardion (1730), Thomas
(1766), Guilbert (1786), Fontanes (1803), Ville-
main (1821), and Littre (1881). It may well
be said that, even though he was not a man
of letters, Pasteur's name will remain as the
one which has shed the greatest lustre upon
that particular chair.

His reception took place on the 27th of April,
1882, and it was the philosopher, Ernest Re-
nan, who as master of ceremonies, welcomed
the scientist. Their two addresses, each in its
respective form and spirit, are admirable monu-
ments of the French language and of French
thought. That of Pasteur, grave, austere, pro-
found, paying homage to the merit of Littre,
opening up marvellous glimpses into the

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 141

abysses of infinity; that of Renan, respectful
towards science, complimentary, witty and per-
meated with a serene and subtle philosophy.

Louis Pasteur was listened to with a re-
ligious attention, and something like a shiver
passed over his hearers when he read, in a voice
which, while not strong, was animated by an
ardent conviction, this celebrated passage :

"Above and beyond the starry vault, what is
there? Other new star-lit skies. So be it!
And above and beyond them? The human
mind, urged on by an invincible force, will
never cease to ask itself, What is there beyond?
What if the mind should try to stop at some
point, either in time or space? Since, that point
where it stops marks only a finite greatness,
merely greater than those which preceded it,
the mind has scarcely begun to contemplate it
when the implacable question returns, and
never can its curiosity be silenced. It does no
good to answer, Above and beyond, are space,
time, greatness without limit. No one compre-
hends these words. Whoever proclaims the ex-

142 PASTEUR

istence of the infinite, and no one can evade
doing so, sums up in that affirmation more of
the supernatural than is contained in all the
miracles of all religions; for the notion of the
infinite has this double character, of being un-
deniable and incomprehensible. When this no-
tion once takes possession of our understand-
ing there is nothing left but to prostrate our-
selves before it. More than that, at this mo-
ment of poignant anguish, we must needs crave
mercy from our own brains; all the sources of
intellectual life threaten to give way; we feel
ourselves on the point of yielding to the
sublime folly of Pascal. This positive and
primordial notion is gladly set aside, with all
its consequences, by modern positivism, in the
social life of today.

"On all sides I find the inevitable expression
of this idea of the infinite in our world. It is
through this that the supernatural lies at the
bottom of every heart. The idea of God is one
form of the idea of the infinite. So long as
the mystery of the infinite weighs upon human

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 143

thought, temples will be raised to the cult of
the infinite, whether God be called Brahma,
Allah, Jehovah or Jesus. And on the pavement
of these temples we will see men kneeling,
prostrated, lost in the thought of the infinite.
Metaphysics does nothing more than transfer
to within ourselves this dominant notion of the
infinite. And is not the conception of the ideal
merely a faculty reflected from the infinite,
which leads us, when in the presence of beauty,
to conceive of a still higher form of beauty?
Are science and the passionate desire to under-
stand anything else than the effect of that spur
towards knowledge which the mystery of the
universe has placed in our souls? Where are
the true sources of human dignity, of liberty,
of modern democracy, unless they are con-
tained in the idea of the infinite, before which
all men are equal ?"

His hearers had applauded the words of the
scientist who had thus dizzily scrutinised the
mysteries of the world ; they were about to hear
the phrases of the philosopher, who was pon-

144 PASTEUR

dering them with a smile. Ernest Renan wel-
comed Pasteur with words of graceful compli-
ment and noble distinction :

"We are quite incompetent to bestow fitting
praise upon that which constitutes your true
glory/' he said, "those admirable experiments
through which you attain the very confines of
life, your ingenious fashion of interrogating
nature, which so many times has won from her
the clearest kind of replies, those precious dis-
coveries which, day by day, are being trans-
formed into conquests of the highest impor-
tance to humanity. You would repudiate our
praises, habituated as you are to value only the
judgments of your peers; and in the scientific
debates, aroused by this host of new ideas, you
would not care to see the appreciations of men
of letters intruding among the acclaims of sci-
entists related to you by the brotherhood of
glory and toil. Between you and your rival
scientists we have no right to intervene. But,
apart from the basis of science, which is not our
province, there is one criterion, Monsieur, in

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 145

regard to which our knowledge of the human
mind gives us the right to express an opinion.
There is .something which we are able to recog-
nise in its most diverse manifestations, some-
thing which belongs in equal degree to Galileo,
to Pascal, to Michelangelo and to Moliere;
something which constitutes the sublimity of
the poet, the profundity of the philosopher, the
fascination of the orator, the divination of the
savant. This common basis of all beautiful
and true works, this divine flame, this indefina-
ble breath which is the inspiration of science,
literature and art, we find in you, Monsieur: it
is genius. No one else has traversed with so
assured a step the circles of elemental nature;
your scientific life is like a luminous trail across
the great night of the infinitely small, in those
furthest depths of being, where life is born."

After analysing the work of Pasteur, and
pointing out the strong continuity of his re-
searches, Renan spoke of his virtues.

"Your austere life," he said, "wholly conse-
crated to disinterested research, is the best re-

146 PASTEUR

sponse to those who regard our century as hav-
ing lost the heritage of the great gifts of the
soul. Your laborious assiduity has been a
stranger to all recreation and repose."

Then, having recognised the merits of Littre,
Renan concluded, with rare and exquisite
subtlety :

"Your absolute devotion to science gave you
the right, Monsieur, to succeed to such a man
and to recall to us his great and revered
memory. You will find in our meetings a
source of relaxation for your mind continually
occupied with new discoveries. This associa-
tion with a company composed of all sorts of
opinions and every type of mind will be con-
genial to you ; here we have the pleasant laugh
of comedy, the pure and tender romance, the
soaring flight of poetry, with its harmonious
rhythm ; there we have all the subtlety of moral
observation, the most exquisite analysis of the
works of the mind, the profound significance of
history. None of this will shake your faith in
your experiments; the right acid will remain

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 147

the right acid, the left acid will remain the left
acid. But you will find that the prudent la-
bours of M. Littre also had their value. You
will follow with some interest the care taken
by our critical philosophy to eliminate error, by
mistrusting its own procedure and limiting the
extent of its observations. When you see how
many good things are taught by those branches
of letters that are frivolous in appearance, you
will come to believe that the discreet doubt, the
smile, the fine play of wit of which Pascal
speaks, also have their value. Among us you
will find no experiments to make; but that
modest power of observation, from which you
demand so much, will suffice to procure you
many a pleasant hour. We will communicate
our hesitations to you : and you will communi-
cate your assurance to us. You will bring us,
above all, your glory, your genius, and the re-
nown of your discoveries. Monsieur, I bid you
welcome."

Pasteur was succeeded in the Academic
Franchise by Gaston Paris, the restorer of the

148 PASTEUR

old national literature of France; and on the
occasion of his reception the illustrious scientist,
J. Bertrand, who responded to his address, told
some delicious anecdotes of Pasteur, his works
and his character.

"Already illustrious," he said, "but not yet
celebrated, Pasteur was appointed to express,
before the statue of Thenard, the homage of
the Ecole Normale. He was scheduled to speak
among the very last of the orators. When he
arose to make his address the crowd, weary of
eloquence, continued to applaud, but had
ceased to listen. Without wasting time by re-
lating for the fifteenth occasion trivial anec-
dotes and doubtful legends, without even men-
tioning hydrogen peroxide, Pasteur paid The-
nard the admirable tribute of dwelling only on
his kindliness, recalling only his sense of justice.
From the opening words his earnest and effec-
tive phrases penetrated to the very heart, and,
while even the remotest hearers followed him
with close attention, tears of emotion filled the
eyes of all. Occasions such as that were rare.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 149

It was only when he was forced to it that Pas-
teur showed the brilliance of his mind. One
day at the Academy of Sciences two contra-
dictory spirits were raising objections unworthy
of attention regarding certain discoveries. After
a crushing reply, Pasteur, apostrophising them
both together, said to the one, 'Do you know
what you lack? You lack the power of obser-
vation ! ' and to the other, 'And you, the power
of reasoning!' A murmur arose. The Acad-
emy was protesting against the lack of cour-
tesy in his form of speech. Pasteur at once
interrupted himself.

" 'The heat of the discussion carried me
away/ he said; 'I regret my impetuosity. I
beg that my colleagues will accept my sincere
apology/

"His extreme simplicity and frankness pleased
the members, when suddenly he added :

" 'I have acknowledged myself at fault; I
have willingly made my excuses ; may I not be
permitted to plead an extenuating circum-
stance? It is this, that what I said was true!7

150 PASTEUR

"And, after a moment's reflection, he added :

"'Absolutely true!'

"A unanimous and appreciative laugh en-
livened the Academy, and, like sensible persons,
his two adversaries joined in."

In accordance with Kenan's expressed desire,
Pasteur frequently attended the meetings of
the Academic Frangaise. He sometimes went
there in the company of M. Duruy, the Minis-
ter of Public Instruction, who had encouraged
his early efforts, for it happened that one of
them lived at the Ecole Normale, in the Rue
d'Ulm^ and the other in the Rue de Medicis.
One Thursday, when they had taken a modest
fiacre to drive to the Institute, it happened to
be Duruy who, upon arriving at their destina-
tion, tendered a five-franc piece to the coach-
man.

"No change," said the latter.

"Then keep the whole piece in memory of
the occasion; you have driven the leading sci-
entist of the century."

Pasteur immediately put his hand in his

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 151

pocket, drew out a brand-new crown, and said :

"Here, my friend, take this also, because you
have driven the greatest minister of the Sec-
ond Empire!"

The coachman looked somewhat bewildered,
but eminently happy, while the two academi-
cians entered the court of the Palais Mazarin,
still laughing.

For Pasteur, one homage succeeded another.
The town of Aubenas, saved from ruin by his
discoveries in regard to the disease of silk-
worms, presented him, in May, 1882, with a
work of art in which the microscope was por-
trayed as rendering possible the cultivation of
healthy silk-worms. Next it was Nimes which
awarded him a medal for his vaccine against
anthrax ; and next Montpellier, where the Agri-
cultural Society organised a solemn meeting for
the purpose of thanking him for having van-
quished anthrax, and to beg him to cure the rot
and the phylloxera. He had become the great
magician.

But he had against him certain "beloved

152 PASTEUR

brethren" who, either in good faith or other-
wise, combatted the doctrine of microbes, and
he had to sustain some hard contests against
the doubting Peters of the Academy of Medi-
cine. On the other hand, the German school,
with Dr. Koch at its head, disputed his discov-
eries, going so far as to deny wholly the value
of his observations. But he was so certain of
the positive results he had obtained that he
sent his pupil Thuillier as a delegate to Ger-
many, with virulent cultures of anthrax, as well
as attenuated viruses, thus carrying his experi-
ments into the territory of the enemy.

He suffered from such ill will, and from all
these quarrels, ceaselessly renewed ; his resent-
ment, however, was softened by the admiration
he received from the great majority of scien-
tists. The Academy of Sciences having taken
the initiative, the learned societies subscribed
towards a medal to be presented to him, con-
taining his profile modeled by Alphee Dubois,
with this inscription : "To Louis Pasteur, from
his colleagues, his friends and his admirers."

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 153

This token was presented to him on the 25th
of January, 1882, and Pasteur had the pleasure
of seeing his old teacher, Dumas, heading the
delegation, which consisted of Boussingault,
Bouley, Jamin, Daubree, Bertin, Tisserand,
and Davaine, and of hearing him deliver the
presentation speech — Dumas, whom as an ob-
scure youth he had listened to at the Sorbonne,
leaving the lecture room moved to the point of
tears.

The Government did not remain insensible
to the enthusiastic movement in recognition of
the discoveries of Pasteur. Upon the second re-
port by Paul Bert, the French Chambers raised
Pasteur's pension to 25,000 francs, in imitation
of Germany, which had accorded Jenner 250,000
francs in 1802 and 500,000 in 1807 for his vac-
cine against small-pox. Paul Bert's report
summed up Pasteur's works as follows:

"They can be classed," he wrote, "in three
series; they constitute three great discoveries:

"The first may be formulated as follows:

154 PASTEUR

Each fermentation is the product of the devel-
opment of a special microbe.

"The second may be formulated: Each in-
fectious disease (or at least those which have
been studied by M. Pasteur or his immediate
disciples) is produced by the development of
some special microbe within the organism.

"The third may be expressed as follows : The
microbe of an infectious disease, if cultivated
under certain specified conditions, becomes at-
tenuated in respect to its harmful qualities; it
has been converted from a virus into a vaccine.

"As practical consequences of the first dis-
covery, M. Pasteur has given rules for the man-
ufacture of vinegar and beer, and he has shown
how beer and wine may be preserved from those
secondary fermentations which turn them sour,
cause I'amer, la graisse, la pousse, and prevent
their transportation and often even their pres-
ervation on the spot where they are produced.

"As practical consequences of the second dis-
covery, M. Pasteur has prescribed the rules to
be followed in order to protect our flocks and

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 155

herds from the contamination of anthrax and
our silk-worms from the maladies which de-
stroy them. On the other hand, our surgeons
have succeeded under its guidance in almost
completely doing away with erysipelas and
other purulent infections which formerly caused
the death of so many patients after operations.

"As practical consequences of the third dis-
covery, M. Pasteur has prescribed the rules to
be followed in order to save the horses, cattle
and sheep, and, in point of fact, has saved them
from the disease of anthrax, which annually
caused their death in France, to the value of
twenty million francs. Swine also are now pro-
tected from rouget, which decimated them, and
the barn-door fowl, from the chicken cholera,
which caused terrible ravages among them.
And now there is every reason to hope that
hydrophobia also will soon be conquered."

The motion calling for an increase of the na-
tional recompense was passed unanimously, but
a ceremony even dearer to Pasteur's heart than
this grateful homage of an entire people was

156 PASTEUR

in preparation in the little town of his birth.
On the 14th of July, 1883, a commemorative
tablet was placed upon the house in which
Pasteur was born, and M. Kaempfen, director
of the Beaux- Arts, who had been delegated by
the Government, said at its inauguration:

"In the name of the Government of the Re-
public, I salute this inscription, which recalls
the fact that on the 27th of December, 1822,
there was born in this little street one who was
destined to become one of the greatest scientists
of a century, whose greatness lies in science, and
one who by his admirable labours has aug-
mented the glory of his native land and won
the gratitude of all humanity."

Pasteur spoke in reply, and his address re-
veals the great qualities of his generous heart,
his extreme personal modesty, and the pride
which he cherished on behalf of science alone.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am deeply moved
by th* honour done me by the town of Dole;
but permit me, while expressing my apprecia-
tion, to utter a protest against this excess of

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 157

glory. In according me a homage which is ren-
dered only to the illustrious dead, you are
usurping in advance the judgment of posterity.

"Will posterity ratify your decision, and
ought you not, Monsieur the Mayor, have pru-
dently advised the municipal council not to
pass such a hasty resolution?

"But having made my protest, gentlemen,
against this public proof of an admiration
which I do not deserve, allow me to say that I
am touched and moved to the bottom of my
soul. Your sympathetic tribute has united in
this commemorative tablet the two great things
which have formed at once the passion and the
charm of my life: my love of science and my
attachment to the paternal hearth.

"Oh! my father and my mother! oh! my
dear lost ones, who lived so modestly in this
little house, it is you to whom I owe every-
thing! Your enthusiasm, my valiant mother,
you passed on to me. If I have always asso-
ciated the greatness of science with the great-
ness of my native land, it is because I was im-

158 PASTEUR

pregnated with the sentiments which you in-
spired in me. And you, my dear father, whose
life was as hard as your own hard craft, it is you
who taught me what can be done by patience
and long effort. It is you to whom I owe tena-
cious persistence in the daily task. Not only
did you have those qualities of perseverance
which result in useful lives, but you also had
admiration for great men and great deeds. To
aim higher and higher, to learn more and more,
to seek constantly to rise, such were the things
you taught me. I can still see you, at the close
of your laborious day, reading in the evening
the account of some battle from one of the vol-
umes of contemporaneous history which re-
called to your mind the glorious epoch of which
you had been witness. While teaching me to
read, you also took pains to teach me the great-
ness of France.

"My blessings on you both, my dear parents,
for all that you have been, and let me pass on
to you the homage that has today been paid to
this house.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GENIUS 159

"Gentlemen, I thank you for having permit-
ted me to say publicly what has been in my
thoughts for sixty years. I thank you for this
festival and for your welcome, and I thank the
town of Dole, which never loses sight of any of
her children, and which has held me in such
affectionate memory."

But the honours paid to his genius, whether
of a private or public character, failed to turn
him aside from his laborious task. At the be-
ginning of the month of 'August, 1883, at which
time a formidable epidemic of cholera had
broken out in Egypt, he sent out a small band
of his pupils, Messrs. Roux, Nocard, Strauss
and Thuillier, for the purpose of studying the
frightful malady and seeking some means of
checking its ravages. Thuillier was destined
to die during this scientific expedition, stricken
down by the scourge in the fullness of youth
and hope; he was only twenty-six years of age.
Through the pious cares of the Pasteur Insti-
tute his medallion has been placed upon one of

160 PASTEUR

the walls of the garden, in testimony of his
valour and devotion.

The studies pursued by Pasteur and his pu-
pils were at this epoch extended to every
malady of microbic origin, but more particu-
larly to hydrophobia, that terror of the country
districts, and which the illustrious scientist was
determined to vanquish by the combined power
of genius and persistence. He was interrupted
for a few weeks by the obligation of represent-
ing France at the celebration of the tri-cen-
tenary of the University of Edinburgh, in com-
pany with Messrs. Caro, Greard, de Lesseps,
Guizot and Eugene Guillaume. In London the
French delegates found a private parlor car
awaiting them, thanks to Mr. Younger, a
Scotch brewer, who wished in this manner to
thank Pasteur for his studies in relation to beer.
It was a recognition of the fine generosity of
the French savant, who had enriched com-
merce and manufactures to the extent of mil-
lions, while refusing to retain anything for
himself. And that is one of the brightest sides
of the glory of France.

CHAPTER VIII

HYDROPHOBIA

MAD dogs were formerly the terror of the
country-side. The mysterious charac-
ter of the malady, its frightful consequences to
those whom it attacked, classed it among those
scourges of the fields against which no certain
remedy was known. In ancient times Pliny the
Elder advised those who had been bitten to eat
the liver of the dog who had done the harm,
while Gallian prescribed as a remedy the eyes
of crabs! During the middle ages, which were
haunted by mad dogs, the remedies used were
omelettes made of ground oyster shells and
cauterisation of the wound with red-hot irons;
but most frequently they stifled the unhappy
sufferers between two mattresses. In the
eighteenth century a Lieutenant of Police
161

162 PASTEUR

named Lenoir founded a prize of twelve hun-
dred pounds, to be awarded by the Royal So-
ciety of Medicine to the author of the best
paper on the methods of curing hydrophobia.
It was won by a certain Dr. Roux, a physician
at Dijon, and, among the methods of saving
those who had been bitten, he recommended
cauterisation with hot irons, and more espe-
cially with antimony tri-chloride ("butter of
antimony").

In the eighteenth century the problem of hy-
drophobia, although it had been studied more
scientifically, had made but little progress, until
Pasteur caused a sensation by discovering its
solution. He began his researches in 1880 with
the collaboration of Doctors Chamberland,
Roux and Thuillier. We cannot follow them
through all the details of the long succession of
exceedingly delicate experiments that often
had to be commenced all over again in order to
obtain assured results ; but a very simple sum-
mary will make it clear that Pasteur's genius
was as fruitful as ever, and that his illness had

HYDROPHOBIA 163

in no wise impaired his qualities as an experi-
menter.

On the 10th of December, 1880, Pasteur, be-
ing informed by Dr. Lannelongue that he had
under treatment, at Trousseau a five-year-old
child who had been bitten by a mad dog, went
to obtain a specimen of his saliva. In the saliva
he discovered a microbe, which was not that of
hydrophobia, and which, when injected into
rabbits, caused their death within two days of
a different disease. Nevertheless, the saliva
contained the microbes of hydrophobia, but
they lost all their virulence within twenty-four
hours. Since rabies chiefly affects the nerve
centres, Pasteur inoculated rabbits and dogs
with the cranial marrow of rabid dogs. The
subjects inoculated developed hydrophobia
after a greater or less lapse of time, and the ex-
periments became difficult to follow and to con-
trol. In order to hasten the period of inocula-
tion, Pasteur conceived the idea of injecting the
matter containing the germs directly into the
dogs' skulls; but the idea of trepanning, neces-

164 PASTEUR

sitated by the injection, was repugnant to him.

"He could witness, without much distress, a
simple operation such as subcutaneous inocu-
lation," writes M. Roux, "although even then,
if the animal cried a little, Pasteur would be
overcome with pity and make his escape, lav-
ishing on the victim words of consolation and
encouragement, which would have seemed com-
ical if they had not been so touching. The
thought that a dog's skull would have to be
perforated was most unpleasant to him. He
was keenly anxious to have the experiment
tried, yet he shrank from seeing it undertaken.
I did it one day when he was absent. The fol-
lowing day, when I reported to him that the
intracranial inoculation offered no difficulties,
he fell to pitying the dog :

" 'Poor beast! Its brain is no doubt rup-
tured ; it must be paralysed/

"Without reply, I descended to the basement
to get the animal, and brought it back with me
to the laboratory. Pasteur was not fond of
dogs, but when he saw this one, full of spirits

HYDROPHOBIA 165

and curiously exploring the premises, he ex-
hibited the keenest satisfaction and began to
lavish terms of endearment upon it. He felt
an infinite gratitude towards this particular dog
for having stood the trepanning so well, and
thus having put an end to all his scruples in
regard to future trepanning." l

The experiment succeeded, and the period of
inoculation was reduced to twenty days, and it
was demonstrated that the principal seat of the
malady was in the nervous centres. To the first
results, which were of a theoretic character,
Pasteur became ambitious to add others of a
practical nature. Was it possible to render
dogs immune to hydrophobia after they had
been bitten, as he had rendered cattle and
sheep immune to anthrax? And could this im-
munity be extended to man?

The problem was quite complex, for he did
not know the microbe of hydrophobia, which
had barely been detected by Dr. Roux, in the

*L'Oeuvre Medicate de Pasteur, by Dr. Roux. Agenda
du Chimiste, 1896.

166 PASTEUR

form of points almost imperceptible under the
most powerful microscopes. It was here that
the inventive genius of Pasteur displayed itself.
Since he could not cultivate these microbes in
appropriate liquids and attenuate them ac-
cording to the method that he had used in the
case of anthrax and chicken cholera, he con-
ceived the idea of cultivating them from rabbit
to rabbit, and in this way he obtained a fixed
maximum of virulence which reduced the
period of inoculation to seven days. But how
was the virus to be transformed into vaccine?
Pasteur observed that the infected marrows,
when brought into contact with dry air, lost
their virulence in proportion to the length of
time they were exposed, becoming almost harm-
less after fifteen days.

.The attenuated virus having been found by
a process which, although hardly scientific, was
certain, the next facts to ascertain were : First,
whether inoculation with this vaccine virus
would render dogs resistant to hydrophobia;
and, secondly, whether inoculation would pre-

HYDROPHOBIA 167

vent the disease from appearing and developing
in animals that had been bitten.

The experiments were long and full of diffi-
culties. The laboratory in the Rue d'Ulm no
longer sufficed to contain all the subjects. The
State placed at Pasteur's disposal more exten-
sive quarters at Villeneuve-l'Etang, near Saint-
Cloud. Finally his experiments achieved this
double result: Hydrophobia could be com-
municated to animals by inoculation; and, on
the other hand, inoculation with attenuated
virus rendered dogs resistant to hydrophobia,
and prevented the disease from appearing in
those that had been bitten.

Pasteur was sure of the efficacy of his dis-
covery, but he hesitated to apply his method to
human beings.

"I have not yet dared to make any attempt
upon man," he wrote to the Emperor of Bra-
zil, "in spite of my confidence as to the result,
and in spite of the numerous opportunities that
have been offered me since my last lecture at
the Academy of Sciences. I am too much

168 PASTEUR

afraid of a failure, which may compromise my
future plans. I want first to collect a multi-
tude of successful cases of the treatment of ani-
mals. In this respect matters are going well.
I already have numerous examples of dogs ren-
dered immune after having been bitten. I take
two dogs, and I cause them to be bitten by an-
other dog that is mad. I vaccinate one of them,
and I leave the other without treatment; the
latter dies of hydrophobia; the one that was
vaccinated is immune.

"But, no matter to what extent I should mul-
tiply these examples of the prophylaxis of hy-
drophobia in dogs, it seems to me that my hand
would inevitably tremble when the time came
to apply the treatment to a human being.

"Here is where the high and powerful initia-
tive of the Sovereign of a State might inter-
vene most profitably for the greatest good of
humanity. If I were king or emperor, or even
President of the Republic, this is the way in
which I should exercise my right to pardon
prisoners condemned to death. I should offer

HYDROPHOBIA 169

the condemned man, through his lawyer, on
the eve of his client's execution, the choice be-
tween imminent death and an experiment con-
sisting of preventive inoculation of hydro-
phobia for the purpose of rendering his consti-
tution immune to that disease. Aside from the
risks of these experiments, the life of the con-
demned man would be spared. In case the ex-
periments should succeed — and, in point of fact,
I am sure they would — in order to protect so-
ciety, which had previously condemned the
criminal, he could be kept in custody for the
rest of his life.

"Every condemned man would accept. For
the only thing which a condemned man fears
is death.

"This brings me to the question of cholera,
which Your Majesty also had the goodness to
discuss with me. Neither Doctors Strauss and
Roux nor Dr. Koch have succeeded in infect-
ing animals with cholera. Hence there is a
great uncertainty regarding the bacillus which
Dr. Koch believes to be the cause of cholera.

170 PASTEUR

We ought to be allowed to try to give cholera
to criminals condemned to death by making
them swallow cultures of these bacilli. As soon
as the malady should make its appearance the
remedies regarded as most efficacious could im-
mediately be administered.

"I attach so much importance to these meas-
ures that, if Your Majesty should share my
views, I would gladly set out for Rio Janeiro,
despite my age and state of health, in order to
devote myself to this sort of study of the
prophylaxis of hydrophobia, or the contagion of
cholera, and the remedies to be applied to it."
(Letter cited by M. Vallery-Radot, in La Vie
de Pasteur.)

His conscience became so troubled by this
weight of responsibility that the famous sci-
entist even thought of inoculating himself,
when at last his experiments, repeatedly tried
upon animals, gave such unmistakable results
that he decided to apply his methods to human
beings.

The first inoculation was given to a boy nine

HYDROPHOBIA 171

years old, an Alsatian, named Joseph Meister,
who had been seriously bitten by a mad dog on
the 6th of July, 1885. He had fourteen wounds,
and was in a lamentable state. The treatment
began with the injection of the least virulent
vaccine obtained from infected marrow four-
teen days old. The child stood it admirably,
but Pasteur became anxious, distressed to the
point of sleeplessness, when it became necessary
to pass on to the virulent vaccines. How would
the young patient respond to them? He stood
them all without any apparent trouble, and two
months from the time that he was first attacked
not a sign of hydrophobia had developed. Nor
did young Meister subsequently ever show any
symptom of it.

Then came another lad, who had played the
part of hero, a young shepherd by the name of
J. B. Jupille, who successfully underwent the
second treatment for hydrophobia. This boy,
fifteen years of age, had fought with a mad dog
on the lands of Villers-Farlay, in the Jura, in
order to save his comrades, five other young

172 PASTEUR

shepherds. He had been badly bitten in the
struggle, and his case was more serious than
that of Meister, because a whole week had
passed between the day on which he had re-
ceived his wounds and that on which he could
be inoculated. Like the first patient, he re-
ceived the hypodermic from Dr. Grancher, with
the assistance of Vulpian, on Tuesday, October
29th, 1885; and, after a series of injections of
vaccines, he was immune to hydrophobia.

It was at the meeting of the Academy of Sci-
ences, held October 26th, 1885, that Pasteur
made his communication on the subject of hy-
drophobia, preventive vaccination and vaccina-
tion after bites, as applied to men. Dr. Vulpian
responded and paid homage to the genius of
Pasteur:

"The Academy will not be surprised if, as a
member of the section of medicine and surgery,
I ask the floor in order to express the senti-
ments of admiration inspired in me by the com-
munication of M. Pasteur. These will be

HYDROPHOBIA 173

shared, I am convinced, by the medical profes-
sion as a whole.

"Hydrophobia, that terrible disease against
which all therapeutic efforts have hitherto
failed, has at last found its remedy. M. Pas-
teur, who has had no precursor but himself
along this route, has been led through a series
of researches, uninterruptedly pursued for
years, to create a method of treatment by the
aid of which it is possible to prevent, beyond
all question, the development of hydrophobia
in a man recently bitten by a mad dog. I say,
beyond all question, because, after what I have
seen in M. Pasteur's laboratory, I cannot myself
doubt the permanent success of this treatment,
whenever it is applied in its full extent within
a few days after the bite has been received.

"It becomes at once necessary to take steps
towards the organisation of a public system of
treatment for hydrophobia, according to the
Pasteur method. Every individual bitten by
a mad dog ought to be able to benefit by this
great discovery, which puts the seal of glory

174 PASTEUR

upon our illustrious colleague, and is destined
to redound greatly to the honour of our coun-
try."

It was Pasteur's destiny never to triumph
through any of his discoveries until after he
had overcome desperate resistance. The value
of his method was questioned by a large part
of the profession, he was ridiculed, and the
comic papers published caricatures upon his
work.

Pasteur's enemies, who had not even yet dis-
armed in the presence of his genius, renewed
their attacks in connection with a failure which
occurred in December, 1885, the death of a
young girl, Louise Lepelletier, who had been
inoculated thirty-seven days after she was bit-
ten. Nevertheless, all resistance and all per-
fidy disappeared beneath the immense flood of
enthusiasm which had been aroused by Pas-
teur's discoveries. A public system of vaccina-
tion against hydrophobia was installed, and
people flocked there from all parts of France
and from every other country. Within one year

HYDROPHOBIA 175

and two months, from October, 1885, to De-
cember, 1886, 2,682 persons who had been bit-
ten were treated there, and out of this number
only 31 succumbed. The efficacy of the method
had been demonstrated.

Pasteur took an interest in the children
whom he treated, and lavished caresses and
presents on them. He wrote to them, after the
course of treatment was over, trying to keep
watch of their subsequent lives, and urging
upon them the advantages of honesty and in-
dustry. The great man, surrounded with the
halo of glory, and over-burdened with his la-
bours and his thoughts, found himself pa-
ternally drawn towards these little ones — and
they were his best source of repose.

CHAPTER IX

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE

AFTER the close of the war of 1870 Pas-
teur wrote to Emile Duclaux, expressing
his great desire to gather all his pupils into one
establishment of which he should be the mas-
ter, and where they could work together for
science and the cure of disease, in accordance
with his system and fertile methods. More
than twenty years were destined to pass before
he saw the realisation of this wish that was so
dear to him, and he was not only infirm but
almost helpless when he entered the building
that was to bear his name.

Thanks to the movement of universal en-
thusiasm aroused by his cure for hydrophobia,
an international subscription was opened, upon
the initiative of the Academy of Sciences, for
176

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE 177

the purpose of founding an establishment for
vaccination and for scientific studies, under the
title of the Pasteur Institute. Within a few
months the modest mites of the poor and the
bank notes of the rich and generous formed .a
sum amounting to 2,586,680 francs (approxi-
mately $517,336.00), and the Institute build-
ings, slowly constructed, were inaugurated by
the President of the Republic, Sadi-Carnot, on
the 14th of November, 1888. The ceremony
took place in the library hall before a gathering
including delegations from learned societies,
cabinet ministers, members of the Committee
of the Institute, presided over by Joseph Ber-
trand, prominent statesmen and former gov-
ernment officials. Doctor Grancher, treasurer
of the Committee, who had been one of the first
to recognise the value of the method of vacci-
nating against hydrophobia, celebrated the dis-
coveries of the illustrious scientist, now so
nearly vanquished in life's struggle.

"You know," he said to his eminent hearers,
"that M. Pasteur is an innovator, that his ere-

178 PASTEUR

ative imagination, controlled by a rigorous ob-
servation of facts, has overthrown many errors,
and built up in their place an entirely new sci-
ence. His discoveries relating to ferments, to
the generation of infinitely small organisms,
and to microbes as the cause of contagious dis-
eases have constituted, in biological chemistry,
in the veterinary art and in medicine, not a
regular process, but a radical revolution. Now
revolutions, even those inspired by scientific
demonstrations, leave behind them wherever
they pass some victims who do not easily for-
give. Consequently M. Pasteur has a number
of adversaries scattered throughout the world,
not to count those French Athenians who do
not like to see the same man always in the
right and always fortunate. And, as though his
adversaries were not already numerous enough,
M. Pasteur made himself others by the im-
placable rigour of his dialectics and the dog-
matic form that he sometimes gives to his
though ts."
To this discourse of Dr. Grancher Pasteur re-

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE 179

plied in lofty and noble words, in which there
was a blending of melancholy and pride and of
the deep confidence that he had in the powers
of science.

"And on the day when, foreseeing the future
possibilities that would be opened up by the
discovery of the virus" — so ran the words de-
livered by his son, for Pasteur himself was too
much overcome by suffering and emotion to de-
liver them in person — "I appealed directly to
my country to enable us by means of private
subscriptions to build laboratories designed not
only for the treatment of hydrophobia, but also
for the study of virulent and contagious dis-
eases, that same day France gave to us with
lavish hands . . .

"And here we see it finished, this grand build-
ing of which it may be truly said that there is
not a single stone that is not the material sign
of a generous thought. All the virtues have
paid tribute towards the erection of this abode
of toil.

"Alas, it is my most poignant sorrow that I

180 PASTEUR

enter it as a man already vanquished by age, no
longer surrounded by any of my former mas-
ters, nor any of the companions of my strug-
gles, neither Dumas, nor Bouley, nor Paul Bert,
nor Vulpian, who, after having been, like you,
my dear Grancher, the counsellor of my early
efforts, became the most convinced and ener-
getic defender of my method!

"And yet, although I grieve to think they are
no longer here, after having taken part so val-
iantly in controversies which I never provoked,
but which I was forced to endure; although
they cannot hear me proclaim what I owe to
their counsels and support ; although I feel their
absence as keenly as on the day after their
death, I have at least the consolation of the
thought that all this work which we defended
together is destined not to perish. And this
faith in our science is shared by the collaborat-
ors and disciples here present.

"Hold fast to the enthusiasm, my dear col-
laborators, which has been yours since the ear-
liest hour, but make strict accuracy its insep-

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE 181

arable companion. Assert nothing that cannot
be proved in some simple and decisive fashion.

"Cultivate the critical spirit. Taken by it-
self, it is neither an awakener of ideas nor an
incentive to great deeds. But without it noth-
ing is stable. It always has the last word. This
which I ask of you, and which you in turn will
ask of the disciples whom you train, is the thing
which of all others is most difficult for an in-
ventor.

"To believe that you have discovered an im-
portant scientific fact, to feel a feverish desire
to proclaim it, and yet to force yourself, for
days and weeks, sometimes for years, to combat
your own discovery, to do your utmost to dis-
prove your own experiments, and to refrain
from announcing what you have discovered un-
til you have exhausted every contrary hypothe-
sis, that indeed is an arduous task.

"But when, after all these efforts, you arrive
at certainty, you experience one of the greatest
joys that the human soul can know, and the
thought that you will contribute ,to the honour

182 PASTEUR

of your country renders this joy even more pro-
found,

"Even if science has no country, the man of
science must needs have one, and it is to her
that he should give the credit for the influence
which his labours may have throughout the
world.

"If I may be permitted, Mr. President, to
close with a philosophic reflection brought to
my mind by your presence in this hall of toil, I
would like to say that it seems to me that two
contrary laws are today at war: one, a law of
blood and death, which, by daily inventing new
methods of combat, forces the peoples to be for-
ever ready for the field of battle; and the other,
a law of peace and labour and health, which
dreams only of delivering mankind from the
scourges that beset it.

"The one seeks only violent conquests, the
other only the assuagement of human ills. The
latter places a single human life above all vic-
tories; the former would sacrifice hundreds of
thousands of existences to the ambition of one

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE 183

man alone. The law of which we are the in-
struments seeks, even in the midst of carnage,
to stay the bloody havoc wrought by the law of
war. The bandaging inspired by our antiseptic
methods may preserve thousands of soldiers.
Which of these laws will be victorious over the
other? God alone knows. But of this we may
be assured, that French science will do its ut-
most, in obedience to the law of humanity, to
extend the frontiers of life."

What lofty accents, and how well they sum
up the philosophy of the long and laborious
effort which Pasteur unfalteringly sustained!
He had reached his home, vanquished by life,
to use his own expression, but it was peopled
by active toilers, his pupils and disciples, who
were imbued with his method and would con-
tinue to carry on his work, one and all obedient
to his temperament and genius as a scientist.

The first buildings, erected on the Rue Dutot,
are devoted to the service of the bacteriological
Institute. They cover a surface space of eleven
thousand square metres, and consist of two vast

184 PASTEUR

two-story pavillions, parallel to the street, and
connected by a third midway between them.

They contain, besides the laboratories, the
study halls, and a library where scientific
works may be consulted, and which also con-
tains busts of Pasteur, of Don Pedro, of Alex-
ander III, of Mme. Furtado-Heine, of Mme.
Boucicaut, of M. A. de Rothschild and of the
Count de Laubespin, all benefactors of the In-
stitute. It is also adorned by two paintings,
the one representing Emile Duclaux, the other
Professor Metchnikoff. Work in this fine and
spacious chamber is facilitated by the cordial
welcome of its librarian, M. Roussel. An apart-
ment has been reserved for Pasteur; it is at
present occupied by Dr. Roux, director of the
institute.

All the working rooms, whatever their dimen-
sions, are finished according to the same model,
without colours, and with varnished walls, with
the result that there is always the most abso-
lute cleanliness.

The department for the treatment of hydro-

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE 185

phobia is installed on the ground floor; it in-
cludes a waiting room, an examination room, an
inoculation room, besides a laboratory, in which
are preserved the marrows of infected rabbits,
which are used for the preparation of vaccines.
In the left wing are situated a lecture room, a
laboratory for the preparation of culture
mediums and a dissecting room. The first floor
is given over to the course in the technical study
of microbes, and the second floor is used for the
researches of young scientists who have been
admitted for the purpose of carrying on their
personal studies.

The active work of the Bacteriological Insti-
tute is divided into four main branches: the
department of vaccines, the department of hy-
drophobia, the department of technical mi-
crobiology, and the department of Metchnikoff.

After the erection of the Bacteriological In-
stitute, the Serotherapic Institute was founded,
as a result of the discovery, by Dr. Roux, of the
vaccine for croup, and, next, the Institute of
Biological Chemistry.

186 PASTEUR

The Pasteur Institute, as a collective whole,
which had for its first director the illustrious
scientist, Entile Duclaux, forms a vast organ-
ism, in which the most precious discoveries are
evolved. It is frequented by large numbers of
students, both native and foreign. It has
thrown forth branches throughout the world,
and there is today no country that does not pos-
sess a Pasteur Institute. We find them in Rus-
sia, Turkey, Italy, Brazil, the Argentine Repub-
lic, the French colonies, Tunis, Indo-China,
Morocco, Cambodia, etc. Every year a new
building rises in some corner of the earth where
there is some special malady to conquer, and
whither a remedy may be brought. Commis-
sions set forth from the Institute in the Rue
Dutot to go and study on the spot these great
epidemics, the modern scourges which must be
conquered.

The Pasteur Institute, today directed by Dr.
Roux, is an incomparable working laboratory,
in which the most precious discoveries are being
evolved, and it is also an admirable instrument

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE 187

for the promulgation of France's contributions
to science.

( £>w**Lu. o*wtc*~ j

50 $*«• ^4.

PAGE FROM PASTEUR'S NOTE-BOOK, WHILE PROFESSOR OF
CHEMISTRY

(Preserved at the Ecole Normale)

CHAPTER X

THE SUPREME HOMAGE

PASTEUR was seventy years of age. From
his earliest years of study he had conse-
crated his life to science, and unwaveringly,
with tireless energy, that neither envious at-
tacks nor bodily illness could break down, he
had pursued, through a chain of strong and
harmonious logic, the revolution which his
genius had introduced into science and medi-
cine. Now, in spite of the last selfish resist-
ance of those who were not willing to surrender
to the evidence of the truth, his name had be-
come famous throughout the world, his
methods were introduced into numberless
laboratories, his discoveries were everywhere
being applied with success. Pasteur, bowed

with suffering and with years, almost incapaci-
188

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 189

tated to do further work, was surrounded by
universal admiration and by the personal affec-
tion of that group of scientists who, within his
Institute, were pursuing their personal re-
searches along the path that he had traced.

It was at this epoch that various committees
were formed, both in France and abroad, for
the purpose of celebrating the seventieth anni-
versary of his birth. The movement emanated
from Denmark, Sweden and Norway, while at
Paris the Academy of Sciences was deeply
stirred, on the 7th of November, 1892, by a let-
ter from its section of medicine and surgery,
asking that homage should be paid to the illus-
trious scientist.

"MONSIEUR THE PRESIDENT: Monsieur Pasteur
will be seventy years of age on the 27th of next
December.

"The section of medicine and surgery feels that
it ought to take the initiative in celebrating this
glorious anniversary. Yet, while medicine and sur-
gery both owe M. Pasteur a boundless admiration
and gratitude, we know that the Institute as a whole
is united in this same sentiment.

190 PASTEUR

"Accordingly we propose to invite our colleagues
in the Institute, as well as all others who have
benefitted from the labours and discoveries of M.
Pasteur, either in the domain of scientific research,
or in the practice of their art, to contribute to a
subscription raised for the purpose of offering our
illustrious compatriot a souvenir and a homage
on the occasion of this jubilee.

"To this end the section of medicine and surgery
has constituted itself a subscription committee. M.
Duclaux has kindly consented to co-operate with
us, and Professor Grancher has undertaken the du-
ties of secretary of the committee.

"We beg that our colleagues will send their offer-
ings to the office of the secretary of the Institute.
"The Members of the Committee:

"MAREY, CHARCOT, BROWN-SEQUARD, GRANCHER,
BOUCHARD, VERNEUIL, GUYON, DUCLAUX."

The Academy of Sciences hastened to com-
ply with the desire of its section of medicine,
and at the following meeting Pasteur expressed
his thanks to his colleagues.

"I was not present/' he said, "at the opening
of the last meeting, when the President read
the letter from the section of medicine and sur-
gery.

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 191

"Someone was kind enough to detain me out-
side. It was well he did so. I should have
been too deeply moved to return adequate
thanks to my colleagues for the excessive hon-
our they are preparing for me. Even today I
am unable to express all the emotion and grati-
tude that I feel."

Roty, a member of the Institute, was chosen
to execute the medal which was to be presented
to him, and Messrs. Bouchard and Guyon un-
dertook to arrange the details of the Jubilee.

It took place on December 27th, 1892, in the
presence of the President of the Republic, Sadi-
Carnot, in the great amphitheatre of the new
Sorbonne.

Seated on the platform were to be seen, to
the right of the President's chair, Messrs. d'Ab-
badie, President of the Academy of Sciences;
Le Royer, President of the Senate; Ribot,
President of the Council of Ministers ; the Am-
bassadors from Russia, England, Austria-Hun-
gary, Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands,
Sweden and Norway, Denmark and Bavaria;

192 PASTEUR

on the left, Messrs. Joseph Bertrand, perma-
nent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences;
Charles Floquet, President of the Chamber;
Charles Dupuy, Minister of Public Instruction,
and all the other Ministers. Behind these offi-
cial personages were the delegations from the
Institute, the Academy of Medicine, and for-
eign scientific societies ; M. Greard, Vice-Rector
of the Academy of Paris; M. Perrot, Director
of the Ecole Normale; the deans of the facul-
ties, the presidents of the Court of Cassation,
of the Council of State and of the Court of Ap-
peals.

The auditorium was occupied by delegations
from the schools and faculties, the General As-
sociation of Students, the hospital staffs, the
ficole Normale Superieure, the Polyteehnique,
the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Sci-
ences, and the School of Pharmacy.

It was a chosen assemblage, wrought to the
highest pitch of enthusiasm, and comprising
representatives of all that was best in art and
science and intellectual thought. At half-past

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 193

ten Louis Pasteur made his entry, leaning on
the arm of the President of the Republic, while
the band of the Republican Guard saluted him
with a triumphal march, and the entire assem-
blage arose to its feet and acclaimed him with
rounds of applause. Pasteur seated himself
before a little table on the platform, in order
to receive the addresses of the delegates, and
the President of the Academy of Sciences, M.
d'Abbadie, opened the meeting and gave the
floor to M. Charles Dupuy, Minister of Public
Instruction. After summing up the works of
Pasteur, and extending a greeting to the for-
eign delegates, M. Dupuy concluded by point-
ing out the significance of the Jubilee:

"But what characterises this ceremony be-
yond all else, what gives your Jubilee its dis-
tinctive mark," he said, "is that our homage is
extended less to the past than to the future;
science, on behalf of which the whole universe
is in your debt, has received from you a sure
method and a definite principle; but, as you

194 PASTEUR

yourself have said, the era of its application has
only just commenced.

"The Pasteur Institute, built and endowed
through the gratitude and admiration of peo-
ples and of governments, for the purpose of
serving both as a centre of high scientific cul-
ture and as a source of relief for the ills of the
human race, will realise your hopes.

"May you long continue, dear and illustrious
master, to preside over the destinies of this
young and glorious edifice, and animate with
your inspiring ardour the phalanx of disciples
who will surely fulfil the promises of the Pas-
teur doctrine. May France possess you for
long years yet to come, and distinguish you be-
fore the world as the worthy object of her love,
her gratitude and her pride."

After M. d'Abbadie had presented Pasteur
with the great golden medal engraved by Roty,
addresses were made by Messrs. Bertrand and
Daubree, and then by the famous English sur-
geon, Lister, in the name of the Royal Society
of London.

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 195

"Monsieur Pasteur/' he said, "the great hon-
our has been accorded me of bringing you the
homage of the sciences of medicine and sur-
gery.

"As a matter of fact, there is no one living in
the entire world to whom the medical sciences
owe so much as they do to you. Your re-
searches in regard to fermentations have shed a
powerful light that has illumined the fatal
darkness of surgery and changed the treatment
of wounds from a matter of empiricism, uncer-
tain and too often disastrous, to a scientific art
of assured beneficence.

"Thanks to you, surgery has undergone a
complete revolution which has robbed it of its
terrors and extended its efficacious powers al-
most without limit.

"Medicine is indebted, no less than surgery,
to your profound and philosophic studies. You
have lifted the veil which for centuries had
overhung infectious diseases. You have dis-
covered and demonstrated their microbic na-
ture; thanks to your initiative, and in many

196 PASTEUR

cases to your special and personal labours, there
are already a number of these pernicious disor-
ders of the causes of which we have a com-
plete knowledge.

"Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

"This knowledge has already perfected in a
surprising fashion the diagnosis of these
scourges of the human race, and has pointed
out the path which must be followed in their
prophylactic and curative treatment. On this
path your fine discoveries of the attenuation
and reinforcement of viruses and preventive
inoculations serve and will always continue to
serve as guiding stars.

"As a brilliant illustration, I may refer to
your services in regard to hydrophobia. Their
originality is so striking, both in respect to
pathology and to therapeutics, that in the be-
ginning many physicians were mistrustful of
you.

" 'Is it possible/ they said to me, 'that a man
who is neither a physician nor a biologist can
instruct us after this fashion regarding a dis-

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 197

ease over which the finest brains in the medical
profession have laboured in vain?'

"Quis novus hie nostris successit sedibus
hospesf

"For my part, I knew only too well the bril-
liance of your genius, the scrupulous care of
your inductions, and your absolute honesty, to
share such opinions for a moment. My confi-
dence has been amply justified by the results,
because, with the insignificant exception of a
few ignorant persons, the whole world now rec-
ognises the greatness of your victory over this
terrible malady. You have furnished a method
of diagnosis which puts an end, beyond ques-
tion, to the torturing uncertainty which for-
merly haunted anyone who had been bitten by
a dog which, although healthy, was suspected
of being mad. This alone would have sufficed
to assure you the eternal gratitude of humanity.

"But through your marvellous system of in-
oculations against hydrophobia you have suc-
ceeded in following up the poison after its en-
try into the system and have vanquished it.

198 PASTEUR

"Monsieur Pasteur, infectious diseases con-
stitute, as you know, the great majority of
maladies that afflict the human race. You can
therefore well understand that the sciences of
medicine and surgery are eager, upon this sol-
emn occasion, to offer you the profound homage
of their admiration and gratitude."

At the close of this address the two great
scientists exchanged affectionate greetings in
the midst of tumultuous enthusiasm. Further
addresses were delivered by M. Bergeron, per-
manent secretary of the Academy of Medicine,
and by M. Sauton, President of the Municipal
Council of Paris. The delegations then filed
past the little table behind which Pasteur was
seated, and laid their addresses on it.

England was represented not only by Lister,
but by Burdon-Sanderson, Grath, Molloy,
Pavy, Percival Wright, Roscoe, Ray Lancaster,
Ruffer, Sydney Martin, Woodhead, Plimmer;
Germany by Haskovec and Schottelius; Bel-
gium by Berlier, Van Beneden, Casimir, De-
paire, Errera, Laurent, Parmentier, Pechere,

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 199

Rousseau, Rufferath, de Wilde; Denmark by
Jacobsen, Salomonsen, Studgaard, Wanscher;
Spain by Chiron and Gener; Holland by En-
gelmann, Pekelharing, Sponck, Stokvis, Van
Overbecle de Meyer; Italy by Campana and
Perroncito; Russia by Metchnikoff and Wino-
gradsky; Poland by Benni, Bujwid and Gale-
zowski; Sweden and Norway by Hjartdahl,
Malm, Lindstrom, Nordenson, Selander; Switz-
erland by Cerenville, d'Espine, Ladame, Soret,
Tarel, Sulzer. The leading scientific soci-
eties also had their delegates; the University
of Athens was represented by M. Panas,
and the Berlin Society of Medicine and Fac-
ulty of Medicine by M. Bouchard. There
were still other delegations, from the Society
of Medicine at Berne, the Belgian Society of
Microscopy, and the Society of Students of
the Civil Hospitals of Brussels, from the Acad-
emic College of Bucharest and the University
of Christiania, from the Association of Hygiene
at Cologne, from the Academy of Copenhagen,
etc.

200 PASTEUR

The French delegations were called forward
in their turn, and those from Dole and Arbois
attracted special attention because, in the midst
of this glorious ceremony, they called to mind
the humble origin of Pasteur; the mayor of
Dole offered him in the name of its citizens an
album containing reproductions of his birth
certificate and of the little house in which he
was born. This was an intimate note, tender
and touching.

Pasteur's reply to these discourses celebrat-
ing his glory had to be read by his son ; it is a
page of grave eloquence, and forms as it were
his moral and scientific testament. Here is the
complete text, which deserves to be preserved
as one of the most beautiful monuments of
French thought.

"MONSIEUR THE PRESIDENT OP THE REPUBLIC:
Your presence transforms everything; an intimate
festival becomes a great festival, and the simple an-
niversary of the birth of a scientist will remain,
thanks to you, a date in the history of French sci-
ence.

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 201

"MONSIEUR THE MINISTER:

"GENTLEMEN: In the midst of all this brilliance
my first thought reverts regretfully to all those men
of science who spent their lives in vain endeavours.
In the past they had to struggle against prejudices
which stifled their ideas. These prejudices con-
quered, they still encountered other obstacles and
difficulties of all sorts.

"It was only a few years ago, before the public
authorities and the municipal council had begun to
provide magnificent abodes for science, that a man
whom I greatly loved and admired, Claude Ber-
nard, possessed as his sole laboratory a low and
humid cellar, only a few steps from here. Perhaps
it was in that cellar that he contracted the disease
which caused his death. Upon learning of the re-
ception you were preparing for me tonight, his was
the first image that rose before my mind. I salute
the memory of that great man.

"Gentlemen, though an ingenious and delicate
thought, it would seem as though you had wished
to cause a vision of my entire life to pass before
my eyes. One of my compatriots from the Jura, the
mayor of the city of Dole, has brought me a photo-
graph of the very humble home in which my father
and mother lived their hard and needy life.

"The presence of all these students from the Ecole

202 PASTEUR

Normale reminds me of the intoxication of my first
scientific enthusiasms.

"The representatives of the Faculty of Lille evoke
the memory of my first studies in crystalography
and fermentations, which opened to me an entire
new world. What boundless hopes took possession
of me when I first grasped the fact that there were
laws behind all those obscure phenomena!

"You, my dear colleagues, have yourselves been
witnesses of the series of deductions that permitted
me, as a disciple of the experimental method, to ar-
rive at physiological studies. If at times I have
troubled the calm of our Academies with somewhat
heated discussions, it was because I was passion-
ately defending the truth.

"You, lastly, delegates from foreign nations, who
have come from so far to give proof of your sym-
pathy towards France, you bring me the most pro-
found joy that can be felt by a man who believes
invincibly that science and peace will triumph over
ignorance and war; that the various peoples will
come to an agreement not to destroy, but to build
up; and that the future will belong to those who
have done the most for suffering humanity. I appeal
to you, by dear Lister, and to you all, illustrious
representatives of science and medicine and surgery.

"Young men, young men, put your confidence in
these sure and powerful methods, from which we

THE SUPREME HOMAGE 203

have as yet learned only the first secrets. And I
say to all of you, whatever your career may be,
guard yourselves from the taint of destructive and
sterile scepticism, refuse to be discouraged by the
sadness of certain hours which pass over a nation.
Live in the serene peace of laboratories and libra-
ries. Say to yourselves at first: What have I done
towards my own education? And then, in propor-
tion as you advance: What have I done for my
country? Do so up to the moment when, perhaps,
you may have the immense happiness of thinking
that you have contributed in some measure to the
progress and well-being of humanity. But, whether
life favours your efforts to a greater or a less extent,
one must have earned the right to say when the
great goal draws near: 'I have done what I could/
"Gentlemen, I wish to express my profound emo-
tion and my deepest gratitude. Just as the great
artist, Roty, on* the reverse side of this medal, has
hidden under roses the date of heavy years that
weigh upon my life, so you, my dear colleagues,
have wished to give to my old age a spectacle to
gladden it immensely, the spectacle of all this eager
and affectionate youth."

The ceremony, notwithstanding that it was
official, ended in an outburst of enthusiasm that
gave it a high human significance.

204 PASTEUR

Louis Pasteur had fulfilled his task. The ro-
bust toiler, genius and dogged will combined,
could now rest among his disciples, who con-
tinued the struggle in his place and according
to his methods on behalf of science and against
disease, in order to "extend the frontiers of
life."

CHAPTER XI

THE LAST DAYS OF A GREAT MAN

EVER since his first attacks of paralysis
Pasteur had retained a certain heaviness
in his movements, and, while his brain was in-
tact, experiments demanding a supreme manual
dexterity had become difficult for him. He was
forced regretfully to abandon his labours, still
unsatisfied with what he had achieved, and with
his imagination still active and dreaming of
discoveries that still evaded him. Pasteur con-
tinued to follow the experiments of his disci-
ples, which were born of his methods, but what
he wanted was the power to push onward by
himself to the extreme limits of the new path
which his genius had laid open. However, he
accepted his destiny without bitterness. He
was able to share the delight of Dr. Roux when
205

206 PASTEUR

the latter's labours resulted in the discovery
of a vaccine for diphtheria, which had previ-
ously decimated the lives of children. Then
croup was vanquished, just as rabies and an-
thrax had been before it; thousands of exist-
ences, and those of the most precious sort, for
the future of the race slumbered in them, had
thus been saved. Dr. Yersin, for his part, dis-
covered the microbe of the plague; while the
whole band of workers, who had come to be
known as "Pasteurians," each following his in-
dividual aptitudes and tastes, rivalled one an-
other in zealous service of science and human-
ity.

It was at this period of researches and dis-
coveries, based on his doctrines and his proc-
esses as an experimenter, that Louis Pasteur
was attacked by the malady from which he
was destined to die. On the 1st of November,
1894, he had an attack of uremia, and there fol-
lowed a long, slow agony, lasting for months,
with alternations of hope and despair. Pas-
teur endured it with Christian resignation, for

THE LAST DAYS 207

science in his case had in no way destroyed
faith, and throughout his life he had remained
a practical Catholic. His pupils took turns in
watching beside him, thus showing that he had
not only been able to arouse their scientific en-
thusiasm, but had also attached them to him by
his kindliness and bigness of heart.

"At the end of December," writes M. Vallery-
Radot, "we began to have hope. On the 1st of
January, after receiving all of his collaborators
down to the youngest of the laboratory attend-
ants, Pasteur saw one of his colleagues of the
Academie Frangaise enter the room.

"It was Alexandre Dumas. He had a bou-
quet of roses with him, and was accompanied
by one of his daughters.

" 'I wanted to begin the year well/ he said;
'I bring you all my best wishes.' "

Ever since they first met, twelve years be-
fore, on a certain Thursday at the Academie
Frangaise, Alexandre Dumas and Pasteur had
felt themselves mutually drawn towards each
other. Pasteur, charmed at first by the swift

208 PASTEUR

deductions of this brilliant mind, had been sur-
prised, touched, deeply moved by the courtesies
and delicate attentions that were prompted by
a heart which opened to friendship all the more
widely because it opened only in deep earnest.
Dumas, who had a wide experience of men,
loved and admired Pasteur as a genius without
pride and full of kindliness. On this New
Year's afternoon he fell to chatting with a cor-
diality that contained something of the un-
quenchable gaiety of his father. In this little
chamber adjoining the laboratory, how remote
he was from all the worlds that he had studied,
the worlds inhabited by the class of beings he
had studied, "microbes in human form," as he
called them, creatures that were either danger-
ous, ridiculous or vile! Occasionally, however,
he had shown upon the stage man as he might
be, and as he ought to be, a Montaiglin, a
Claude, "poor, well-meaning man, out of place
in our times." For back of this dramatic au-
thor was a man eager to exert a moral influence,
back of the realist a symbolist, back of the satir-

THE LAST DAYS 209

1st a mystic. After having hungered for glory
he placed higher than all else the desire to be
useful. And the glance of his blue eyes, ordi-
narily cold and keen, seeming to penetrate one's
most secret thoughts, this glance, always on
guard, always ironic, took on an expression of
affectionate veneration for him whom he called
"our dear and great Pasteur." It is only those
who are accustomed to tend the sick can know
how much pleasure certain visits give them.
That of Alexandre Dumas Pasteur compared
to a ray of sunshine. (Vie de Pasteur.)

The illustrious old man still had a few more
happy hours before him; but, although he was
removed to Villeneuve-FEtang, the change to
the country brought no improvement to his
condition, which had now become hopeless.

Pasteur resigned himself to die, and neverthe-
less he took great care to hide his sufferings, in
order to spare the feelings of his family and his
disciples. He was not, however, always master
of his own emotions. Happening, one evening,
to be alone with his grandchildren, the son and

210 PASTEUR

daughter of M. and Mme. Vallery-Radot, he
took them in his arms and kissed them linger-
ingly, while heavy tears rolled slowly clown the
length of his pain-racked face. When the
startled children questioned him, the great man
answered sorrowfully:

"I am weeping, my children, because I am
so soon to leave you."

It was during the afternoon of Wednesday,
September 27, that the Cure of Garches was
summoned to the side of Pasteur, whose end
was felt to be very near. He received extreme
unction, after having made confession to R. P.
Boulanger, of the Dominican order. He died
the following morning at twenty minutes to
five after a brief agony.

It was a universal calamity. Telegrams
poured into the Institute, and there is one of
them which must be cited in full, and which
came from the establishment in Berlin directed
by Dr. Koch, who had so often had occasion
to combat him :

"Profoundly moved by the loss which is uni-

THE LAST DAYS 211

versally felt, and which the Pasteur Institute
has just sustained in the person of its gifted
founder, the Berlin Institute of Infectious Dis-
eases expresses its heartfelt participation in the
general sorrow."

The Government decided that the obsequies
of Louis Pasteur should be national and that
the State should bear the expense. They were
conducted with full official pomp and before
an immense public gathering, on October 5th,
1895. The religious ceremony, presided over by
Monseigneur Richard, was conducted at Notre-
Dame, in the presence of the President of the
Republic, Felix Faure, the Grand Duke Con-
stantine of Russia, and Prince Nicholas of
Greece. At its conclusion M. Poincare deliv-
ered an admirable address in the name of the
Government beside the bier, where it rested
before the threshold of Notre Dame.

"Science," he said, "will never weary, Mes-
sieurs, of admiring in the genius of Pasteur the
combined force of a creative imagination and
the most rigorous experimental method.

212 PASTEUR

"He had sudden inspirations, which bore him
on towards unexpected discoveries; he had in-
stincts of divination which pushed him forward
along unexplored paths; he had swift, headlong
rushes of thought that overleaped and antici-
pated the establishment of the truth, prepared
the way for it, made its attainment more rapid
and more sure. But when a scientific problem
had taken shape before him, in one of those
general flashes of illumination, he never con-
sidered it as solved until he had questioned all
nature, until he had classified or eliminated all
of the facts, until he had forced them, each and
every one, to give him an answer.

"He was careful to guard against any philo-
sophical prejudice that might hamper the sin-
cerity of his observations. The experimental
method, he declared in his address at the time
of his reception at the Academic, should be de-
tached from all metaphysical speculation, and,
while claiming for his conscience the right to
assert loudly its spiritual and religious convic-
tions, he claimed no less energetically all the

PASTEUR'S TOMB

It is in the Rue Dutot, beneath the principal entrance to the Pasteur
Institute, in a crypt lined with marble, that one of the most glorious
representatives of universal science has found his last resting place.

THE LAST DAYS 213

prerogatives of liberty on behalf of science. And
it was really the unrestrained curiosity of his
searching mind, spurred on by his inventive
powers, and seconded by his scrupulous re-
search for objective truths, that guided him
through the long and brilliant evolution of his
scientific labours. . . . "

"Happy is he," said Pasteur; "happy is he
who carries within him his own ideal, and lives
in obedience to it." Throughout his life Pas-
teur himself lived in obedience to the highest
and purest of ideals, in science and virtue and
charity. All his thoughts and all his actions
were illumined by the reflected rays of that in-
ner flame; he owed his greatness to his sensi-
bilities ; and posterity will assign him a place in
the radiant line of apostles of goodness and of
truth.

The body of Louis Pasteur was interred in
the Institute, and there he lies, in the cold and
austere crypt, while men of learning, inspired
by his genius, continue and carry towards com-

214 PASTEUR

pletion his work that was so prolific for the ad-
vance of science and for the good of humanity.

The illustrious savant was one of the greatest
of modern heroes, and we may well conclude
with the words of Emile Duclaux :

"There is no other example in science of a
savant who has been privileged to see the do-
main which he discovered expand and bear fruit
to such an extent. Perhaps Lavoisier, whose
name comes naturally to mind in speaking of
Pasteur, might have had the joy of seeing him-
self equally great, if he had been able to keep
on to the end of his career. The only exact
comparison is that of a Napoleon dying tri-
umphant in the midst of Europe permanently
conquered and pacified. Even that vision, mag-
nificent as it is, is incomplete: Pasteur con-
quered the world, yet his glory did not cost a
single tear."

END

BRIEF INDEX

OP THE PRINCIPAL NAMES CITED

BASTIAN, HENRY CHARLTON, English physician,
born at Truro, Cornwall, April 26, 1837. Author
of numerous works, among others, The Modes of
Origin of Lowest Organisms; The Beginnings of
Life; Clinical Lectures on the Common Forms of
Paralysis from Brain Disease.

BERT, PAUL, French physiologist and statesman,
born at Auxerre in 1833, died at Hanoi in 1886.

BIOT, JEAN BAPTISTE, astronomer, mathematician,
physicist, and chemist, born at Paris in 1774,
died at Paris in 1862. He participated in efforts
undertaken in Spain to measure the meridian,
and has left important writings on polarisation,
stellar astronomy, etc.

BUFFON, GEORGES Louis LECLERC, Comte de,
naturalist and one of the greatest of French
writers, born at Montbard, Cote-d'Or, in 1707,
died at Paris in 1788. Author of a Natural His-
tory and a Treatise on the Epochs of Nature.
Member of the Academic Franchise.

215

216 PASTEUR

DAGUERRE, LOUISE JACQUES MENDE, inventor of
the diorama and one of the inventors of pho-
tography, born at Cormeilles-en-Parisis (Seine-
et-Oise) in 1789, died at Bry-sur-Marne in 1851.

DAVAINE, CASIMIR JOSEPH, French physician,
born at Saint- Amand-les-Eaux in 1812, died at
Garches in 1882, author of remarkable treatises
on experimental physiology. His discovery, in
1850, of the bacteria of anthrax makes him the
true precursor of Pasteur.

DELAFOSSE, GABRIEL, French mineralogist, born
at Saint-Quentin in 1796, died at Paris in 1878.
He occupied the chair of mineralogy in the Paris
Faculty of Sciences and in the ficole Normale,
and in 1857 was elected member of the Academy
of Sciences. Delafosse devoted himself in a very
special way to the study of crystalography.

DUMAS, JEAN BAPTISTE, chemist, born at Alais
(Gard) in 1800, died at Cannes in 1884. He was
elected member of the Academy of Sciences in
1832, then professor in the Faculty of Sciences
of Paris, the Faculty of Medicine and the Col-
lege de France. He was the founder of the Nor-
mal School of Arts and Sciences. Dumas was
a member of the Institute, permanent secretary
of the Academy of Sciences, and member of the
Academie Franchise (1875). He was the author

INDEX 217

of a great Treatise on Chemistry applied to the
Arts.

FREMY, EDMOND, French chemist, born at Ver-
sailles in 1814, died at Paris in 1894. Author of
remarkable researches relating to the fatty acids.

GU^RIN, JULES RENE, French surgeon, born at
Boussu, Belgium, in 1801, died at Hyeres in 1886.

HAUY, ABBE RENE JUST, French mineralogist,
born at Saint- Just, Oise, in 1743, died at Paris in
1822. He founded the science of crystalography.

HELMHOLTZ, HERMANN VON, German physiolo-
gist and physicist, born at Potsdam in 1821, died
at Charlottenburg in 1894. Author of remarka-
ble works on optics, electricity and acoustics.

HERSCHEL, SIR WILLIAM, celebrated astronomer,
born in Hanover in 1738, died at Slough, near
Windsor, in 1822. He was the founder of the
science of stellar astronomy.

JOLY, NICOLAS, French zoologist, born at Toul
July llth, 1812. Author of numerous works, in-
cluding Researches in Regard to Silk Worms and
Their Diseases, 1858 ; Researches into the Origin,
Germination and Fructification of Brewer's
Yeast.

KOCH, ROBERT, German physician and microbiolo-
gist, born at Klausthal, Hanover, in 1843. He
has published remarkable researches in tubercu-

218 PASTEUR

losis, the bacilli of which he discovered and suc-
ceeded in cultivating.

LAVOISIER, ANTOINE LAURENT, famous French
chemist, born at Paris in 1743, died in Paris in
1794. One of the founders of modern chemistry,
on the basis of a previously unknown law, that
of the conservation of matter: "Nothing is lost,
nothing is created."

LIEBIG, JUSTUS, Baron von, German chemist,
born at Darmstadt in 1803, died at Munich in
1873. He was one of the first to apply chemical
analysis to the phenomena of organic life.

LITTRE, MAXIMILIEN PAUL EMILE, French philol-
ogist and philosopher of the positivist school,
born at Paris in 1801, died at Paris in 1881. His
principal work is his Dictionary of the French
Language. He was a member of the Academic
Franchise.

MITSCHERLICH, EILHARD, German chemist,
born at Neuende in 1794, died at Schoeneberg in
1863. He was the discoverer of the law of
isomorphism.

NEEDHAM, JOHN TUBERVILLE, English physicist,
born at London in 1713, died at Brussels in 1781.

NIEPCE, JOSEPH NICEPHORE, French chemist, born
at Chalon-sur-Saone in 1765, died in the same

INDEX 219

town in 1833. With Daguerre, he was one of the
inventors of photography.

NISARD, JEAN MARIE NAPOLEON DESIRE, French
man of letters, born at Chatillon-sur-Seine in
1806, died at San Remo in 1883. He was direc-
tor of the Ecole Normale Superieure and member
of the Academic Franchise.

PARACELSUS (his real name being Philippus
Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohen-
heim), a celebrated Swiss physician and alchem-
ist, born at Einsiedeln, in the canton of Schwyz,
December llth, 1493, died at Salzburg September
24th, 1541. He may be regarded as the founder
of the modern doctrine of specifics.

POUCHET, FELIX ARCHIMEDE, French naturalist,
born at Rouen in 1800, died in that same city in
1872. He was celebrated for his controversies
with Pasteur on the subject of spontaneous gen-
eration.

QUATREFAGES, JEAN Louis ARMAND DE BREAU
DE, French naturalist and anthropologist, born at
Berthezene, Gard, in 1810, died at Paris in 1892.
He defended the theory of the unity of the ori-
gin of man.

REGNAULT, HENRI VICTOR, French physicist and
chemist, born at Aix-la-Chapelle July llth, 1810,
died at Paris January 19th, 1878.

220 PASTEUR

ROUX, PIERRE PAUL EMILE, French physician,
born at Confolens, Charente, December 17th,
1853. Member of the Academy of Medicine and
the Academy of Sciences. Director of the Pas-
teur Institute.

SCHULTZE, MAX JOHANN SIGISMOND, German
anatomist, born at Freiburg-im-Breisgau March
15th, 1825, died at Bonn January 16th, 1874. He
was appointed professor at Bonn in 1859, and
there founded an important anatomical institute.

SPALLANZANI, LAZARO, Italian naturalist, born
at Scandiano in 1729, died at Pavia in 1799. He
was the author of important works upon the cir-
culation of the blood, the digestion, reproduction,
and microscopic animals.

THENARD, Louis JACQUES, Baron, learned French
chemist, collaborator of Gay-Lussac, born at La
Louptiere, Aube, in 1777, died at Paris in 1857.
He was the discoverer of hydrogen peroxide,
boron, etc. Pasteur delivered a discourse at the
unveiling of his monument.

TROUSSEAU, ARMAND, French physician, born at
Tours in 1801, died at Paris in 1867. He was au-
thor of a Treatise on Therapeutics, which for a
long time remained a classic.

TYNDALL, JOHN, English physicist, born at
Leighlin Bridge, Ireland, in 1820, died at Hind

INDEX 221

Head in 1893. Author of remarkable works upon
heat and electricity.

VAN TIEGHEM, PHILIPPE EDOUARD LEON, French
botanist, member of the Institute, born at Bail-
leul, Nord, April 19th, 1839, was a student at the
Ecole Normale from 1858 to 1861, and later be-
came a lecturer in the same school. Member of
the Academy of Sciences.

VIC AT, Louis JOSEPH, French engineer, born at
Nevers, March 31st, 1786, died at Grenoble April
10th, 1861. Author of memorable works on hy-
draulic limes and cements.

PRINCIPAL PUBLICATIONS, ARTICLES,

MONOGRAPHS, ETC., OF LOUIS

PASTEUR

1848 Notes on the Crystallization of Sulphur.

Researches into the different Modes of

grouping in Sulphate of Potash.

Researches in Dimorphism.

Memorandum on the Relation which may

exist between crystalline Form and chemi-
cal Composition and on the Cause of ro-
tary Polarization.

Researches into the Relations which may ex-

ist between crystalline Form, chemical
Composition and the Direction of the ro-
tary Power.

Researches into the Relations which may ex-

ist between crystalline Form, chemical
Composition and the Direction of rotary
Polarization (2d Memorandum) .

1849 Researches into the specific Properties of the

two Acids which compose racemic Acid.

223

224 PASTEUR

1850 New Researches into the Relations which

may exist between crystalline Form, chem-
ical Composition and the Phenomenon of
rotary Polarization.

New Researches into the Relations which

may exist between crystalline Form, chem-
ical Composition and molecular rotary
Power.

1851 Memorandum upon aspartic and malic Acid.

Regarding a Memorandum relative to as-

partic and malic Acid.

1852 Observations upon artificial Populin and

Salicin.

New Researches into the Relations which

may exist between crystalline Form, chem-
ical Composition and the molecular rotary
Phenomenon.

1853 New Facts relating to the History of racemic

Acid (M. Kestner's Letter to M. Biot).
Notes on the Origin of racemic Acid.

Notes on Quinidine.

New Researches into the Relations which

may exist between crystalline Form, chem-
ical Composition and the molecular rotary
Phenomenon.

Note upon Quinidine.

Transformation of tartaric Acid into ra-

cemic Acid.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 225

Researches into the Alcaloids of the Cin-

chonas.

— — Transformation of the tartaric Acids into
racemic Acid. Discovery of inactive tar-
taric Acid. New Method of separating
racemic Acid into right and left tartaric
Acid.

1854 Regarding Dimorphism.

1855 Memorandum upon amylic Alcohol.

1856 Note upon Sugar and Milk.

Isomorphism between isomeric Bodies, some

active and others inactive, in relation to
polarized Light.

Studies regarding the Methods of Growth of

Crystals and the Causes of their Sec-
ondary Forms.

1857 Memorandum upon so-called lactic Fermen-

tation.

Memorandum upon alcoholic Fermentation.

1858 Upon alcoholic Fermentation.

Memorandum upon the Fermentation of tar-

taric Acid.

Constant Production of Glycerine in alco-

holic Fermentation.

New Researches into alcoholic Fermentation.

New Facts concerning the History of alco-

holic Fermentation.

226 PASTEUR

1859 New Facts contributing to the History of

lactic Yeast.

New Facts concerning alcoholic Fermenta-

tion.

New Facts relating to alcoholic Fermenta-

tion, Cellulose and the fatty Matters in
Yeast formed at the expense of Sugar.

Note upon the Remarks Presented by M.

Berthelot at the last Session of the Acad-
emy.

Memorandum upon alcoholic Fermentation.

1860 Extract from the Report upon the Competi-

tion for the Prize in experimental Physi-
ology for the year 1859. Monthyon Foun-
dation.

Experiments relating to so-called spontane-

ous Generation.

On the Origin of Ferments. New Experi-

ments relating to so-called spontaneous
Generation.

Note on so-called alcoholic Fermentation.

Note relating to the Penicilium Glaucum and

to the molecular Dissymmetry of natural
organic Products.

New Experiments relating to so-called spon-

taneous Generation.

Researches into the Mode of Nutrition of

the Mucedinece.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 227

1861 Continuation of a previous Communication

relating to so-called spontaneous Genera-
tion.

The Influence of Temperature upon the Fer-

tility of Spores of the Mucedinece.

Infusorial Animalcula living without free

oxygen Gas and producing Fermentations.

Memorandum upon organic Corpuscles

which exist in the Atmosphere. Examina-
tion of the Doctrine of spontaneous Gen-
eration.

New Experiments and Views regarding the

nature of Fermentations.

Rectification of a Passage in a Note pre-

sented to the Academy by Messrs. Joly
and Musset.

1862 Studies of the Mycoderms. The Role played

by these Plants in acetic Fermentation.

New industrial Process for the Manufacture

of Vinegar.

1863 New Example of Fermentation determined

by infusorial Animalcula which can live
without free Oxygen Gas and apart from
any Contact with atmospheric Air.

Examination of the Role attributed to at-

mospheric Oxygen Gas in the Destruction
of animal and vegetable Matter after
Death.

228 PASTEUR

Note on the Presence of acetic Acid among

the Products of alcoholic Fermentation.

Remarks on the Subject of the note com-

municated by M. Van Thieghem at the
last Session of the Academy.

Note relative to a Communication from M.

Bechamp inserted in the Secretary's Re-
port of the last Session.

Researches in Regard to Putrefaction.

Note. In Response to critical Observations

presented to the Academy by Messrs.
Pouchet, Joly and Musset, at the Session
on the 21st of last September.

Remarks on the Occasion of a new Note

from Messrs. Joly and Musset relative to
the same Question.

Studies on Wines. First Part: the Influ-

ence of atmospheric Oxygen in Vinifica-
tion.

Note relative to the Claims of Priority raised

by M. Bechamp, in Regard to my Works
on Fermentations and so-called spontane-
ous Generation.
1864 Notes on spontaneous Generation.

Studies of Wines. Second Part: spontaneous

Alterations or Maladies of Wines, espe-
cially in the Jura.

Note in Response to the Remarks of M.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 229

Pouchet relative to spontaneous Genera-
tion.

Remarks on the Occasion of a Request by

Messrs. Pouchet, Joly and Musset to
await the Return of the warm Season be-
fore repeating their Experiments in
Heterogenesis.

Communication from M. Pasteur presenting

the first Number of the Annales Scien-
tifiques de I' E cole Nor male, which was
published under his Direction.

Remarks on the Occasion of a Memorandum

by Messrs. Bussy and Buignet on the
Changes of Temperature produced by the
Mixture of Liquids produced by separate
Cultures.

1865 Report upon Experiments relating to spon-
taneous Generation.

Practical Process for preserving and improv-

ing Wines.

Note on the Deposits that are formed in

Wines.

New Observations on the Subject of the

preservation of Wines.

Note on the Occasion of a Communication

from Messrs. Leplat and Jaillard con-
cerning the Disease of splenic Apoplexy
(sang de rate) .

230 PASTEUR

Observations on the Diseases of Silk-worms.

Note accompanying the Presentation of a

Pamphlet on the Preservation of Wines.

Notes on the Employment of Heat as a

means of preserving Wines.
1866 New Studies on the Disease of Silk-worms.

Observations on the Subject of a Note by M.

Bechamp, relative to the Nature of the
silk-worm Disease.

Observation on the Subject of a Note by M.

Bechamp, relative to the Nature of the
present silk-worm Disease.

Observation on the Subject of a Note by M.

Balbiani, relative to the silk- worm Dis-
ease.

New experimental Studies of the silk-worm

Disease.

1866 Remarks on the Occasion of a Note by M.

Donne regarding spontaneous Generation
of infusorial Animalcula.

Observations on the Subject of a Note by M.

Pouchet regarding vital Resistance.

1867 Letter to M. Dumas on the Nature of Cor-

puscles in Silk-worms.

• Letter to M. Dumas on the Disease of Silk-
worms.

1868 Observations relative to Experiments de-

scribed in a Communication from M.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 231

Chauveau regarding the Nature of vaccine
Virus.

Letter addressed to M. Dumas, regarding

precocious Cultures of silk-worm eggs of
native Stock resulting from selective
Breeding.

Letter to M. Dumas on the Subject of the

Disease of Silk-worms.

Second Letter to M. Dumas. Precocious

Cultures of Eggs of native Stock resulting
from selective Breeding.

Note on the silk-worm Disease popularly

designated by the Name of morts blancs
or morts flats.

Report by M. Pasteur regarding his Com-

mission in 1868 in Relation to the silk-
worm Disease.

Regarding a Method of determining, through

early Experiments on silk-worm Eggs,
which of them are predisposed to the Dis-
ease of morts flats.

1869 Letter addressed to Marechal Vaillant, on
the good Effect of cellular Selection in the
Culture of silk-worm Eggs.

Letter to M. Dumas, apropos of a letter

from M. Cornalia on the proposed Method
of regenerating the Breeds of Silk-worms.

Result of Observations made upon the Dis-

232 PASTEUR

ease of morts flats, both hereditary and
accidental.

Observations relating to a previous Com-

munication by M. Raybaud-Lange, on the
Disease of morts flats and the Method of
combatting it. Letter to Marechal Vail-
lant.

Note on the Selection of Cocoons made by

Aid of the Microscope for the Purpose of
Regenerating the native Breeds of Silk-
worms.

Result of two small Cultures of Silk-worms

reared from Eggs studied by M. Pasteur.

Note on the Industry of silk-worm Eggs and

on the Quality of native Eggs, on the Oc-
casion of a Report of the Silk Commission
of Lyons.

Of the Practice of heating, for the Preserva-

tion and Amelioration of Wines.

Note on the Subject of a Complaint from

M. Paul Thenard, relating to the Heating
of Wines.

Note relating to the Communications of M.

de Vergnette-Lamotte and M. P. Thenard
addressed to the Academy at the Meetings
of September 20 and October 4.

Reply to the last Note of M. P. Thenard

regarding the Heating of Wines.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 233

1870 Letter to Marechal Vaillant regarding the

Results obtained from the Culture of
French Breeds of Silk-worms, effected by
means of Eggs obtained by a Process of
Selection.

1871 Note on a Memorandum by M. Liebig, rela-

tive to fermentation.

Reply to some Remarks by M. Fremy, rela-

tive to the preceding Communication.

Observations apropos of a Communication

from M. Trecul regarding the Origin of
lactic and alcoholic Yeasts.

Concerning the Nature and Origin of Fer-

ments. Reply to a Note inserted by M.
Fremy, in the Report of the Meeting of
January 15, 1872.

Observations on the Subject of Communica-

tions from M. Fremy.

New Observations on the Subject of Com-

munications from M. Fremy.

Observations relative to Communications

from M. de Vergnette-Lamotte, on the
Preservation of Wines.

Reply to the Communication from M. de

Vergnette-Lamotte, concerning the Preser-
vation of Wines.

• Concerning the Amelioration of Wines

through the Application of Heat.

234 PASTEUR

New Experiments to prove that the Germ of

the Yeast which produces Wine comes
from the Grapes themselves.

Reply to a Communication by M. Fremy

concerning the Generation of Ferments.

New Facts leading to a better Understanding

of the Theory of Fermentations properly
so called.

Reply of M. Pasteur to M. Fremy.

Observations on the Subject of two Notes

which M. Fremy had published in the Re-
port of the Meeting of October 7th.

Reply to a Note by M. Trecul, regarding the

Origin of Yeasts.

Note on the Production of Alcohol in Fruit.

Note in Regard to an Assertion by M.

Fremy published in the last Report.

Reply to new verbal Observations by M.

Fremy. M. Pasteur demands that a Com-
mittee be appointed to pass upon the Ex-
actitude of the Experiments mentioned
during the Discussion.

Reply to Remarks by M. Trecul, in regard

to the Origin of lactic and alcoholic
Yeasts.

Observations on the Subject of three Notes

communicated by Messrs. Bechamp and
Estor at the last Meeting.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 235

1873 Note relating to a Report from M. Cornalier

regarding the Culture of Silk-worms dur-
ing 1872.

A Study of Beer; a new Process to render it

unalterable.

Observations in Regard to a Communication

from M. Vignon, entitled: "The rotary
Power in Mannite."

Reply to a Note on the Origin of Brewer's

Yeast, read by M. Trecul at the Meeting
of December 8th, 1873.

Reply to M. Trecul regarding the Origin of

Brewer's Yeast.

New Reply to M. Trecul regarding the Ori-

gin of Brewer's Yeast.

1874 Observations relating to a Communication

from Messrs. A. Gosselin and A. Robin, in
Regard to ammoniacal Urine.

On the Production of Yeast in a sweetened

mineral Medium.

Some Observations in Regard to the natural

Dissymmetric Forces.

Observations apropos of a Communication

from M. Dumas regarding the Interest
that there might be in examining the Ef-
fect produced upon Grape Vines by the
Coexistence of Phylloxera and of My-
celium shown to have occurred at Cully.

236 PASTEUR

1875 New Observations upon alcoholic Fermenta-

tion.

Concerning a new Distinction between natu-

ral organic Products and artificial organic
Products.

Observations on the Origin of Sugar in

Plants.

Notes on the cellular Method of Cultivating

silk-worm Eggs.

Note and Fermentation apropos of some

Criticisms made by Doctors Brefeld and
Traube.

Concerning the Origin of organic Ferments,

apropos of two Communications from M.
Fremy and Mr. Tyndall.

1876 Verbal Observations apropos of a Communi-

cation from M. Boussingault regarding the
Growth and Development of Indian Corn.

Concerning the Fermentation of Urine.

Reply to Observations by M. Berthelot, in

Regard to the Theory of Fermentations.

Note on the Subject of a Communication

from M. Sace, entitled: Breadmaking in
the United States and the Properties of
Hops as a Ferment.

Note on the Fermentation of Fruits, and on

the Nature of the Germs of alcoholic
Yeasts.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 237

Note on the Subject of a Communication

made by M. During, regarding the cellu-
losic Fermentation of Sugar-cane.
1877 Note on the Alteration of Urine, apropos of
a Communication from Dr. Bastian, of
London.

Reply to a Note from M. Fremy on the

ultra-cellular Generation of alcoholic Fer-
ment.

On the Alteration of Urine, apropos of re-

cent Communications from Doctor Bas-
tian.

Verbal Observations on the Occasion of a

Communication from M. Bouillant in Re-
gard to typhoid Fever.

Concerning the Fermentation of Urine. Re-

ply to Dr. Bastian.

• Reply to Dr. Bastian, regarding Bacteria

Germs held in Suspension in the At-
mosphere and in Water.

Concerning the Preservation of Food.

Concerning the Fermentation of Urine. Re-

ply to Dr. Bastian.

Note on the Subject of a recent Communi-

cation from M. Woddell, concerning the
Advantages that would result from substi-
tuting Cinchonidine for Quinine.
• A Study of the Disease of Anthrax.

238 PASTEUR

Remarks on a Communication from M. Ray-
nard.

Note on Anthrax and Septicemia.

Anthrax and Septicemia.

Note on the Subject of Dr. Bastian's Experi-

ment in regard to Urine neutralized by
Potash.

1878 Reply to some Remarks by M. Trecul on the
Origin of alcoholic Yeasts.

The Theory of Germs and its Application to

Medicine and to Surgery.

Observations on the memorandum by Mr.

Gunning, entitled: Concerning Anaerobio-
sis of Micro-organisms.

j Concerning Anthrax in Poultry, in Collabo-
ration with Messrs. Joubert and Cham-
berland.

Last Experiments of Claude Bernard. Alco-

holic Fermentation. Note on the Theory
of Fermentation.

New Communication on the Subject of Notes

on alcoholic Fermentation, found among
the Papers of Claude Bernard.

Critical Examination of a posthumous Paper

by Claude Bernard on alcoholic Fermen-
tation.

Reply to M. Berthelot, relating to alcoholic

Fermentation,

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 239

Reply to the Observations of M. Trecul rela-

tive to Fermentation.

1879 Observations relative to a Note by M. Tre-
cul, on the Subject of lower Organisms.

Second Reply to M. Berthelot.

Reply to Notes by M. Trecul, dated Decem-
ber 30 and January 30.

Observations on the Reply by M. Trecul.

Third Reply to M. Berthelot.

Fermentations. Verbal Observations ad-

dressed to M. Trecul.

Fourth Reply to M. Berthelot.

Remarks on the Occasion of a Communica-

tion from M. Feltz in Regard to a Lep-
tothrix found in the Blood of a Woman
suffering from acute puerperal Fever.

Remarks on the Occasion of a Communica-

tion from M. Feltz concerning microscopic
Organisms.

Verbal Observations apropos of a Communi-

cation from Messrs. Ed. and H. Becquerel,
as to the Degree of Cold which may be
endured by the Bacteria of Anthrax and
by other microscopic Organisms without
their losing their Virulence.

1880 Concerning virulent Diseases, and, more par-
ticularly, the Disease popularly known as
chicken Cholera.

240 PASTEUR

Remarks on the Occasion of a Note from M.

Rommier, relating to the toxic Influence
which Mycelium in the Roots of the
Grape-vine exerts upon Phylloxera.

Reply to M. Blanchard on the Occasion of

Observations on a Note by M. Romier
concerning the toxic Influence which My-
celium of the Roots of the Grape-vine ex-
erts upon Phylloxera.

Concerning Chicken Cholera; Studies of the

Conditions of Non-recurrence of the Dis-
ease and certain other Characteristics.

Concerning Chicken Cholera; Studies of the

Conditions of Non-recurrence of the Dis-
ease and certain other Characteristics.

Concerning the Extension of the Theory of

Germs and the Etiology of certain com-
mon Maladies.

Concerning the Etiology of Anthrax.

Letter to M. Dumas. Experiments tending

to prove that Poultry vaccinated for
Chicken Cholera are immune from An-
thrax.

Letter to M. Dumas, regarding the Etiology

of Diseases of the anthrax Order (in col-
laboration with M. Chamberland) .

Concerning the Attenuation of the Virus of

Chicken Cholera.

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 241

New Observations on the Etiology and

Prophylaxis of Anthrax.

On the Length of Life of the anthrax Germs

and their Persistence in cultivated Ground.

Concerning the Attenuation of Viruses and

their Return to Virulence.

• Regarding the Possibility of rendering Sheep

. immune from Anthrax by the Method of
Preventive Inoculation.

The Vaccine of Anthrax.

Concerning Hydrophobia.

Concerning Vaccination against Anthrax.

Observation apropos of a Note from Messrs.

Arloing, Cornevin and Thomas, regarding
the Cause of the Immunity of Adults of
the bovine Species from Anthrax.

1882 Concerning Rouget or the "red Disease" of

Swine.

New Facts helpful to an Understanding of

Hydrophobia.

Statistics on the Subject of Vaccination as

a Preventive against Anthrax, based upon
eighty-five thousand Animals.

1883 Concerning Vaccination against Anthrax.

The veterinary Commission of Turin.

Telegraphic Despatch addressed to M. Du-

mas.

Vaccination of Swine against Rouget by

242 PASTEUR

Means of an Attenuation of the deadly
Virus of that Disease.

1884 New Communication in regard to Hydro-
phobia.

Concerning Hydrophobia.

Observations in Regard to a Note by M.

Duclaux, relating to Germination in a Soil
rich in organic Matter but exempt from
Microbes.

Method for preventing Hydrophobia after

the Patient has been bitten.

Reply to Remarks by Messrs. Vulpian,

Bouley and Larrey.

1886 Results of the Application of the Method of

preventing Hydrophobia after the Patient
has been bitten.

Reply to Observations by the President and

by M. Vulpian apropos of the preceding
Communication.

Supplementary Note on the Results of the

Application of the Method of Prophylaxis
of Hydrophobia after having been bitten.

Observations relating to a Communication

by M. Picetti regarding a new Species of
Asparagine.

New communication regarding Hydrophobia.

1887 Statistical Summary of the Persons who

have been treated at the Pasteur Institute

PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 243

after having been bitten by Animals that
either had hydrophobia or were suspected
of having it.

Note accompanying the Presentation of the

Report of the English Commission on Hy-
drophobia.

1888 Concerning the first Volume of Annals of the

Pasteur Institute, and more particularly
a Memorandum by Messrs. Roux and
Chamberland, entitled: Immunity from
Septicemia, conferred by soluble Sub-
stances.

Remarks relating to a Communication from

M. Gamaleia concerning preventive Vac-
cination against Asiatic Cholera.

1889 Concerning the Method of Prophylaxis of

Hydrophobia after the Patient has been
bitten.

YB 79122