Louis Pasteur

“ Louis Pasteur is the most striking figure in nineteenth century science. In biology, in chemistry, in physics, in medicine and surgery, and in the important practical subjects of fermentation, spontaneous generation and sanitation, he has left landmarks that represent great advances in science and starting-points for new explorations into the as yet unmapped domain of scientific knowledge. ”

“ Any account of the scientific progress of this century which omits the name of Louis Pasteur would be lamentably incomplete. In that part of science which relates strictly to human life and the means of preserving it, the work of this great man must be placed in the first rank. Indeed, we believe that no other stride in biological investigation from the beginning of time has been so great in its immediate and prospective results as has been the increment contributed by Pasteur and his contemporary Koch. ”

“ In these days, among the too familiar scourges of the hospital, his work was perpetually putting questions to him; to a man whose mind was open the answer might come at any moment and from any quarter.
As a fact, already, far from his own circle and for a long while out of his ken, there was working in France the most remarkable scientist of the century, Louis Pasteur, who more than once put his scientific ability at the disposal of a stricken industry, and in his quiet laboratory revived the industrial life of a teeming population. ”

“ Louis Pasteur, of France (b. December 17, 1822; d. September 28, 1895) , gave new direction and impulse to chemistry and pathology by the discovery711 that fermentation arose from micro-organisms, and also that disease was, in many instances, due to the presence of bacilli in blood or tissue. He followed this with his system of culture and inoculation, by means of which he performed most miraculous cures of even such a vicious disease as hydrophobia. The Pasteur Institute in Paris stands a monument to his genius and philanthropy. ”

“ Louis Pasteur (born 1822) , chemist, is celebrated for his researches relative to the polarization of light, and for his investigations on fermentation, the preservation of wines, and the propagation of zymotic diseases in silkworms and domestic animals. Pasteur’s most important work for medicine was the demonstration of the existence of the germs which cause putrefaction. ”

“ Overstrained by years of labour in this field, Pasteur was smitten with paralysis in October 1868. But this calamity did not prevent him from making a journey to Alais in January 1869, for the express purpose of combating the criticisms to which his labours had been subjected. Pasteur is combustible, and contradiction readily stirs him into flame. No [xxx] scientific man now living has fought so many battles as he. To enable him to render his experiments decisive, the French Emperor placed a villa at his disposal near Trieste, where silkworm culture had been carried on for some time at a loss. ”

“ This is an institution partly supported and controlled by the French government, which as its chief aim prosecutes researches in cancer, tuberculosis, appendicitis and other prevalent maladies. Its name is taken from Louis Pasteur, who carried on his later researches there. Pasteur indicated the possibility of a science of stereo-chemistry; and was the first to show that the fermentations of milk, butter etc. are due to living micro-organisms. ”

“ But if Pasteur had overlooked nothing in his efforts to prevent or arrest the evil changes of wine, he still saw that full confidence was not felt in the efficacy of a process which must, it was thought, damage the taste, or the colour, or the limpidity of the wine. After having invited the judgment of people in society, whose preference, if they felt any, was generally for the heated wines, Pasteur wished to have a more decisive opinion. He addressed himself first to wine merchants and others practised in detecting the smallest peculiarities of wines ”

“ In scientific discussions, it is not as in politics,' he added with a smile, 'where demonstration is often difficult. In the natural sciences, doctrines must be based on an assemblage of results, of observations, and of experiments. If a doctrine is challenged, it seldom happens that its truth or falsehood cannot be established by the application of some crucial test. Even a single experiment will often suffice either to refute or consolidate the doctrine.'
Reviewing the labours of the past forty years, Pasteur then called to mind the numerous controversies in which he had been engaged. ”

“ M. Duclaux, who had become Professor of the Faculty of Sciences in Clermont-Ferrand, offered the use of his laboratory to his old master. Pasteur accepted it. Eager to commence an investigation which would bring him again to the study of fermentation, he attacked the diseases of beer. But it was not only for the purpose of creating a new link between these researches and his former ones that he occupied himself with this subject, he was also influenced by a somewhat patriotic idea. He dreamt of success in an [169] industry in which Germany is superior to France. ”

“ Where the mind of genius discerns the distant truth, which it pursues, the mind [xlii] not so gifted often discerns nothing but the extravagance, which it avoids. Names, not yet forgotten, could be given to illustrate these two classes of minds. As representative of the first class, I would name a man whom I have often named before, who, basing himself in great part on the researches of Pasteur, fought, in England, the battle of the germ theory with persistent valour, but whose labours broke him down before he saw the triumph which he foresaw completed. ”

“ The great art—and no one practised it better than Pasteur—consists in instituting decisive experiments which leave no room for an inexact interpretation of facts. These decisive proofs of the true part played by the little microscopic fungus, by this flower of vinegar, this mycoderma aceti, are thus formulated by Pasteur. It is but another example of the method which he used in alcoholic, lactic, and tartaric fermentations. The theories of Berzelius, of Mitscherlich, and of Liebig were destined again to receive the rudest shocks by the demonstration of these rigorous facts. ”

“ The secret of attenuation had thus become an open one to Pasteur. He laid hold of the murderous virus of splenic fever, and succeeded in rendering it, not only harmless to life, but a sure protection against the virus in its most concentrated form. No man, in my opinion, can work at these subjects so rapidly as Pasteur without falling into errors of detail. But this [xxxviii] may occur while his main position remains impregnable. Such a result, for example, as that obtained in presence of so many witnesses at Melun must surely remain an ever-memorable conquest of science. ”

“ Air and putrescible liquids. Now Pasteur puts together air and putrescible liquids and nothing is produced. Spontaneous generation, then, has no existence. Those who still doubt have failed to grasp the question.'
But some adversaries remained incredulous. When Pasteur had announced the result of his experiments, and brought before the Academy his series of bulbs, Pouchet and Joly declared that if Pasteur had opened [110] his bulbs in the Jura and on the Mer de Glace, they, on their part, had been on the top of the Maladetta, and had proved there the inexactitude of Pasteur's results. ”

“ But in reality it is easy to find oxygen in these preserves. Pasteur did not fail to perceive that the interpretation given to Gay-Lussac's [106] experiment was wrong in another particular. He proved the fallacy of the assumption that the smallest quantity of air was always capable of producing microscopic organisms.
More thickly spread in towns than in the country, the germs become fewer in proportion as they recede from human habitations. Mountains have fewer than plains, and at a certain height they are very rare.
Pasteur's experiments to prove these facts were extremely simple. ”

“ After [109] this, Pasteur was able legitimately to exclaim in his celebrated lecture at the Sorbonne:
'There is not one circumstance known at the present day which justifies the assertion that microscopic organisms come into the world without germs or without parents like themselves. Those who maintain the contrary have been the dupes of illusions and of ill-conducted experiments, tainted with errors which they know not how either to perceive or to avoid. ”

“ Bolder than M. Biot, but with a circumspection always alive, M. Dumas declared to Pasteur, without, however, further insisting upon the point, that he would not advise anyone to occupy himself too long with such a subject. M. de Senarmont alone took the part of Pasteur, and said to M. Biot:
'Let Pasteur alone. If there is nothing to be found in the path which he has entered upon, do not be alarmed, he will not continue in it. ”

“ Pupil, and afterwards fellow worker, of the celebrated crystallographer Haüy, M. Delafosse had devoted himself to questions of molecular physics. Pasteur, who had read with enthusiasm the works of Haüy, conversed incessantly with Delafosse about the arrangements of molecules, when an unexpected note from the German chemist Mitscherlich, communicated to the Academy of Sciences, came to trouble all his scientific beliefs. ”

“ Everything to him is a subject for experiment. In May 1879, a person who was working in the laboratory was troubled with boils, which reappeared, as usually happens, at short intervals, sometimes on one part of the body, sometimes on another. Pasteur, whose mind was constantly dwelling on the part played by microscopic organisms, asked himself if the pus of the boils did not contain a parasite, the presence and development of which, and its accidental transport here and there in the body, might be the cause of the local inflammation and of the formation of the pus. ”

“ A meeting was then arranged by Pasteur and all other persons present for Thursday, June 2, thus allowing an interval of forty-eight hours after the virulent inoculation.
More than two hundred persons met that day at Melun. The Prefect of Seine-et-Marne, M. Patinot, senators, general counsellors, journalists, a great number of doctors, of veterinary surgeons, and farmers; those who believed, and those who doubted, came, impatient for the result. On their arrival at the farm of Pouilly-le-Fort, they could not repress a shout of admiration. ”

“ In short, according to Pasteur's observations, the deterioration of wines should not in any case be attributed to a natural working of the constituents of the wine, proceeding from a sort of interior spontaneous movement, which would only be affected by variations of temperature or atmospheric pressure. They are, on the contrary, exclusively dependent on the development of microscopic organisms, the germs of which exist in the wine from the moment of the original fermentation which gave it birth. What vast multitudes of germs of every kind must there not be introduced into every vintage tub! ”

“ The conquest of rabies was the last great work accomplished personally by Pasteur. Reattacked by paralysis in 1888, he conld thenceforth prosecute his ideas only by the labor of other hands. But he had a host of disciples in Europe and America, some of whom had studied under his personal guidance, but many more who, without having seen the great master, had nevertheless lighted their torches at his flame. I know of no surer index of a man's greatness than the measure of inspiration imparted by him. ”

“ There was, indeed, no more touching feature in the great Pasteur jubilee of last December than the presentation of this photograph by the Mayor of Dôle.
The little village has always had a loyal pride in the fact that M. Pasteur was born there. ”

“ Such astonishing recognition could not come except for what the public, as well as scientific men, deemed good reasons. These reasons were his services for humanity. For Pasteur was one of the men whose nature compels them to make practical use of whatever knowledge they gain, whether from books or from experiment. Though men of science had long known something of his ability, his lecture in 1868 on the madness which follows the bite of dogs afflicted with rabies first brought him to the notice of the public. ”

“ In the session of January 18, 1887, he made a warm defense of Pasteur's method, and, in closing, used these memorable words: 'The glory of Monsieur Pasteur is such that many envious teeth will be broken upon it. Our works and our names will long be buried under the inconstant tide of oblivion, when the name and the works of Pasteur will still be resplendent, and will shine upon such elevated heights that they will never be reached by that dismal flood.'
"Four months after the utterance of these enthusiastic and prophetic words. Prof. Vulpian was borne to the grave. ”

“ In 1892 his professional career was drawing to a close. In that year he received the heartiest recognition that France could give to his work, when he went there officially to represent the Royal Society at the Pasteur celebration. A great gathering of scientists and others, presided over by President Carnot, came together at the Sorbonne to honour Pasteur's seventieth birthday. It was a dramatic scene such as our neighbours love, when the two illustrious fellow workers embraced one another in public, and the audience rose to the occasion. ”

“ Two years later he passed the examination for the "baccalauréat ès sciences" enabling him to become candidate for the École normale. But here something (probably the examiner) was at fault, for a note was attached to Pasteur's diploma stating that he was only " mediocre " in chemistry. In those early days and early trials the dominant note of Pasteur's life was sounded. To his sisters he writes: " Ces trois choses, la volonté, le travail, le succès, se partagent toute l'existence humaine. La volonté ouvre la porte aux carrier es brill antes et heureuses ”