Chapter XI (2)

The next day Pasteur wrote to his son: “Everything has gone off well, and we much hope, Thuillier and I, that preventive vaccination of this evil can be established in a practical fashion. It would be a great boon in pork-breeding countries, where terrible ravages are made by the rouget (so called because the animals die covered with red or purple blotches, already developed during the fever which precedes death). In the United States, over a million swine died of this disease in 1879; it rages in England and in Germany. This year, it has desolated the Côtes-du-Nord, the Poitou, and the departments of the Rhone Valley. I sent to M. Dumas yesterday a _résumé_ in a few lines of our results, to be read at to-day’s meeting.”

Pasteur, once more in Paris, returned eagerly to his studies on divers virus and on hydrophobia. If he was told that he over-worked himself, he replied: “It would seem to me that I was committing a theft if I were to let one day go by without doing some work.” But he was again disturbed in the work he enjoyed by the contradictions of his opponents.

Koch’s reply arrived soon after the Bollène episode. The German scientist had modified his views to a certain extent; instead of denying the attenuation of virus as in 1881, he now proclaimed it as a discovery of the first order. But he did not believe much, he said, in the practical results of the vaccination of charbon.

Pasteur put forward, in response, a report from the veterinary surgeon Boutet to the Chartres Veterinary and Agricultural School, made in the preceding October. The sheep vaccinated in Eure et Loir during the last year formed a total of 79,392. Instead of a mortality which had been more than nine per cent, on the average in the last ten years, the mortality had only been 518 sheep, much less than one per cent; 5,700 sheep had therefore been preserved by vaccination. Amongst cattle 4,562 animals had been vaccinated; out of a similar number 300 usually died every year. Since vaccination, only eleven cows had died.

“Such results appear to us convincing,” wrote M. Boutet. “If our cultivators of the Beauce understand their own interest, splenic fever and malignant pustules will soon remain a mere memory, for charbon diseases never are spontaneous, and, by preventing the death of their cattle by vaccination, they will destroy all possibility of propagation of that terrible disease, which will in consequence entirely disappear.”

Koch continued to smile at the discovery on the earthworms’ action in the etiology of anthrax. “You are mistaken, Sir,” replied Pasteur. “You are again preparing for yourself a vexing change of opinion.” And he concluded as follows: “However violent your attacks, Sir, they will not hinder the success of the method of attenuated virus. I am confidently awaiting the consequences which it holds in reserve to help humanity in its struggle against the diseases which assault it.”

This debate was hardly concluded when new polemics arose at the Académie de Médecine. A new treatment of typhoid fever was under discussion.

In 1870, M. Glénard, a Lyons medical student, who had enlisted, was, with many others, taken to Stettin as prisoner of war. A German physician, Dr. Brand, moved with compassion by the sufferings of the vanquished French soldiers, showed them great kindness and devotion. The French student attached himself to him, helped him with his work, and saw him treat typhoid fever with success by baths at 20° C. Brand prided himself on this cold-bath treatment, which produced numerous cures. M. Glénard, on his return to Lyons, remembering with confidence this method of which he had seen the excellent results, persuaded the physician of the Croix Rousse hospital, where he resided, to attempt the same treatment. This was done for ten years, and nearly all the Lyons practitioners became convinced that Brand’s method was efficacious. M. Glénard came to Paris and read to the Academy of Medicine a paper on the cold-bath treatment of typhoid fever. The Academy appointed a commission, composed of civil and military physicians, and the discussion was opened.

The oratorical display which had struck Pasteur when he first came to the Académie de Médecine was much to the fore on that occasion; the merely curious hearers of that discussion had an opportunity of enjoying medical eloquence, besides acquiring information on the new treatment of typhoid fever. There were some vehement denunciations of the microbe which was suspected in typhoid fever. “You aim at the microbe and you bring down the patient!” exclaimed one of the orators, who added, amidst great applause, that it was time “to offer an impassable barrier to such adventurous boldness and thus to preserve patients from the unforeseen dangers of that therapeutic whirlwind!”

Another orator took up a lighter tone: “I do not much believe in that invasion of parasites which threatens us like an eleventh plague of Egypt,” said M. Peter. And attacking the scientists who meddled with medicine, _chymiasters_ as he called them, “They have come to this,” he said, “that in typhoid fevers they only see _the_ typhoid fever, in typhoid fever, fever only, and in fever, increased heat. They have thus reached that luminous idea that heat must be fought by cold. This organism is on fire, let us pour water over it; it is a fireman’s doctrine.”

Vulpian, whose grave mind was not unlike Pasteur’s, intervened, and said that new attempts should not be discouraged by sneers. Without pronouncing on the merits of the cold-bath method, which he had not tried, he looked beyond this discussion, indicating the road which theoretically seemed to him to lead to a curative treatment. The first thing was to discover the agent which causes typhoid fever, and then, when that was known, attempt to destroy or paralyse it in the tissues of typhoid patients, or else to find drugs capable either of preventing the aggressions of that agent or of annihilating the effects of that aggression, “to produce, relatively to typhoid fever, the effect determined by salicylate of soda in acute rheumatism of the articulations.”

Beyond the restricted audience, allowed a few seats in the Académie de Médecine, the general public itself was taking an interest in this prolonged debate. The very high death rate in the army due to typhoid fever was the cause of this eager attention. Whilst the German army, where Brand’s method was employed, hardly lost five men out of a thousand, the French army lost more than ten per thousand.

Whilst military service was not compulsory, epidemics in barracks were looked upon with more or less compassionate attention. But the thought that typhoid fever had been more destructive within the last ten years than the most sanguinary battle now awakened all minds and hearts. Is then personal fear necessary to awaken human compassion?

Bouley, who was more given to propagating new doctrines than to lingering on such philosophical problems, thought it was time to introduce into the debate certain ideas on the great problems tackled by medicine since the discovery of what might be called a fourth kingdom in nature, that of microbia. In a statement read at the Académie de Médecine, he formulated in broad lines the rôle of the infinitesimally small and their activity in producing the phenomena of fermentations and diseases. He showed by the parallel works of Pasteur on the one hand, and M. Chauveau on the other, that contagion is the function of a living element. “It is especially,” said Bouley, “on the question of the prophylaxis of virulent diseases that the microbian doctrine has given the most marvellous results. To seize upon the most deadly virus, to submit them to a methodical culture, to cause modifying agents to act upon them in a measured proportion, and thus to succeed in attenuating them in divers degrees, so as to utilize their strength, reduced but still efficacious, in transmitting a benignant malady by means of which immunity is acquired against the deadly disease: what a beautiful dream!! And M. Pasteur has made that dream into a reality!!!...”

The debate widened, typhoid fever became a mere incident. The pathogenic action of the infinitesimally small entered into the discussion; traditional medicine faced microbian medicine. M. Peter rushed once more to the front rank for the fight. He declared that he did not apply the term _chymiaster_ to Pasteur; he recognized that it was but “fair to proclaim that we owe to M. Pasteur’s researches the most useful practical applications in surgery and in obstetrics.” But considering that medicine might claim more independence, he repeated that the discovery of the material elements of virulent diseases did not throw so much light as had been said, either on pathological anatomy, on the evolution, on the treatment or especially on the prophylaxis of virulent diseases. “Those are but natural history curiosities,” he added, “interesting no doubt, but of very little profit to medicine, and not worth either the time given to them or the noise made about them. After so many laborious researches, nothing will be changed in medicine, there will only be a few more microbes.”

A newspaper having repeated this last sentence, a professor of the Faculty of Medicine, M. Cornil, simply recalled how, at the time when the acarus of itch had been discovered, many partisans of old doctrines had probably exclaimed, “What is your acarus to me? Will it teach me more than I know already?” “But,” added M. Cornil, “the physician who had understood the value of that discovery no longer inflicted internal medication upon his patients to cure them of what seemed an inveterate disease, but merely cured them by means of a brush and a little ointment.”

M. Peter, continuing his violent speech, quoted certain vaccination failures, and incompletely reported experiments, saying, grandly: “M. Pasteur’s excuse is that he is a chemist, who has tried, out of a wish to be useful, to reform medicine, to which he is a complete stranger....

“In the struggle I have undertaken the present discussion is but a skirmish; but, to judge from the reinforcements which are coming to me, the _mêlée_ may become general, and victory will remain, I hope, to the larger battalions, that is to say, to the ‘old medicine.’”

Bouley, amazed that M. Peter should thus scout the notion of microbia introduced into pathology, valiantly fought this “skirmish” alone. He recalled the discussions à propos of tuberculosis, so obscure until a new and vivifying notion came to simplify the solution of the problem. “And you reject that solution! You say, ‘What does it matter to me?’... What! M. Koch, of Berlin--who with such discoveries as he has made might well abstain from envy--M. Koch points out to you the presence of bacteria in tubercles, and that seems to you of no importance? But that microbe gives you the explanation of those contagious properties of tuberculosis so well demonstrated by M. Villemin, for it is the instrument of virulence itself which is put under your eyes.”

Bouley then went on to refute the arguments of M. Peter, epitomized the history of the discovery of the attenuation of virus, and all that this method of cultures possible in an extra-organic medium might suggest that was hopeful for a vaccine of cholera and of yellow fever, which might be discovered one day and protect humanity against those terrible scourges. He concluded thus--“Let M. Peter do what I have done; let him study M. Pasteur, and penetrate thoroughly into all that is admirable, through the absolute certainty of the results, in the long series of researches which have led him from the discovery of ferments to that of the nature of virus; and then I can assure him that instead of decrying this great glory of France, of whom we must all be proud, he too will feel himself carried away by enthusiasm and will bow with admiration and respect before the chemist, who, though not a physician, illumines medicine and dispels, in the light of his experiments, a darkness which had hitherto remained impenetrable.”

A year before this (Peter had not failed to report the fact) an experiment of anthrax vaccination had completely failed at the Turin Veterinary School. All the sheep, vaccinated and non-vaccinated, had succumbed subsequently to the inoculation of the blood of a sheep which had died of charbon.

This took place in March, 1882. As soon as Pasteur heard of this extraordinary fiasco, which seemed the counterpart of the Pouilly-le-Fort experiment, he wrote on April 16 to the director of the Turin Veterinary School, asking on what day the sheep had died the blood of which had been used for the virulent inoculation.

The director answered simply that the sheep had died on the morning of March 22, and that its blood had been inoculated during the course of the following day. “There has been,” said Pasteur, “a grave scientific mistake; the blood inoculated was septic as well as full of charbon.”

Though the director of the Turin Veterinary School affirmed that the blood had been carefully examined and that it was in no wise septic, Pasteur looked back on his 1877 experiments on anthrax and septicæmia, and maintained before the Paris Central Veterinary Society on June 8, 1882, that the Turin School had done wrong in using the blood of an animal at least twenty-four hours after its death, for the blood must have been septic besides containing anthrax. The six professors of the Turin School protested unanimously against such an interpretation. “We hold it marvellous,” they wrote ironically, “that your Illustrious Lordship should have recognized so surely, from Paris, the disease which made such havoc amongst the animals vaccinated and non-vaccinated and inoculated with blood containing anthrax in our school on March 23, 1882.

“It does not seem to us possible that a scientist should affirm the existence of septicæmia in an animal he has not even seen....”

The quarrel with the Turin School had now lasted a year. On April 9, 1883, Pasteur appealed to the Academy of Sciences to judge of the Turin incident and to put an end to this agitation, which threatened to cover truth with a veil. He read out the letter he had just addressed to the Turin professors.

“Gentlemen, a dispute having arisen between you and myself respecting the interpretation to be given to the absolute failure of your control experiment of March 23, 1882, I have the honour to inform you that, if you will accept the suggestion, I will go to Turin any day you may choose; you shall inoculate in my presence some virulent charbon into any number of sheep you like. The exact moment of death in each case shall be determined, and I will demonstrate to you that in every case the blood of the corpse containing only charbon at the first will also be septic on the next day. It will thus be established with absolute certainty that the assertion formulated by me on June 8, 1882, against which you have protested on two occasions, arises, not as you say, from an arbitrary opinion, but from an immovable scientific principle; and that I have legitimately affirmed from Paris the presence of septicæmia without it being in the least necessary that I should have seen the corpse of the sheep you utilized for your experiments.

“Minutes of the facts as they are produced shall be drawn up day by day, and signed by the professors of the Turin Veterinary School and by the other persons, physicians or veterinary surgeons, who may have been present at the experiments; these minutes will then be published both at the Academies of Turin and of Paris.”

Pasteur contented himself with reading this letter to the Academy of Sciences. For months he had not attended the Academy of Medicine; he was tired of incessant and barren struggles; he often used to come away from the discussions worn out and excited. He would say to Messrs. Chamberland and Roux, who waited for him after the meetings, “How is it that certain doctors do not understand the range, the value, of our experiments? How is it that they do not foresee the great future of all these studies?”

The day after the Académie des Sciences meeting, judging that his letter to Turin sufficiently closed the incident, Pasteur started for Arbois. He wanted to set up a laboratory adjoining his house. Where the father had worked with his hands, the son would work at his great light-emitting studies.

On April 3 a letter from M. Peter had been read at the Academy of Medicine, declaring that he did not give up the struggle and that nothing would be lost by waiting.

At the following sitting, another physician, M. Fauvel, while declaring himself an admirer of Pasteur’s work and full of respect for his person, thought it well not to accept blindly all the inductions into which Pasteur might find himself drawn, and to oppose those which were contradictory to acquired facts. After M. Fauvel, M. Peter violently attacked what he called “microbicidal drugs which may become homicidal,” he said. When reading the account of this meeting, Pasteur had an impulse of anger. His resolutions not to return to the Academy of Medicine gave way before the desire not to leave Bouley alone to lead the defensive campaign; he started for Paris.

As his family was then at Arbois, and the doors of his flat at the Ecole Normale closed, the simplest thing for Pasteur was to go to the Hôtel du Louvre, accompanied by a member of his family. The next morning he carefully prepared his speech, and, at three o’clock in the afternoon, he entered the Academy of Medicine. The President, M. Hardy, welcomed him in these words--“Allow me, before you begin to speak, to tell you that it is with great pleasure that we see you once again among us, and that the Academy hopes that, now that you have once more found your way to its precincts, you will not forget it again.”

After isolating and rectifying the points of discussion, Pasteur advised M. Peter to make a more searching inquiry into the subject of anthrax vaccination, and to trust to Time, the only sovereign judge. Should not the recollection of the violent hostility encountered at first by Jenner put people on their guard against hasty judgments? There was not one of the doctors present who could not remember what had been written at one time against vaccination!!!

He went on to oppose the false idea that each science should restrict itself within its own limitations. “What do I, a physician, says M. Peter, want with the minds of the chemist, the physicist and the physiologist?

“On hearing him speak with so much disdain of the chemists and physiologists who touch upon questions of disease, you might verily think that he is speaking in the name of a science whose principles are founded on a rock! Does he want proofs of the slow progress of therapeutics? It is now six months since, in this assembly of the greatest medical men, the question was discussed whether it is better to treat typhoid fever with cold lotions or with quinine, with alcohol or salicylic acid, or even not to treat it at all.

“And, when we are perhaps on the eve of solving the question of the etiology of that disease by a microbe, M. Peter commits the medical blasphemy of saying, ‘What do your microbes matter to me? It will only be one microbe the more!’”

Amazed that sarcasm should be levelled against new studies which opened such wide horizons, he denounced the flippancy with which a professor of the Faculty of Medicine allowed himself to speak of vaccinations by attenuated virus.

He ended by rejoicing once more that this great discovery should have been a French one.

* * * * *

Pasteur went back to Arbois for a few days. On his return to Paris, he was beginning some new experiments, when he received a long letter from the Turin professors. Instead of accepting his offer, they enumerated their experiments, asked some questions in an offended and ironical manner, and concluded by praising an Italian national vaccine, which produced absolute immunity in the future--when it did not kill.

“They cannot get out of this dilemma,” said Pasteur; “either they knew my 1877 notes, unravelling the contradictory statements of Davaine, Jaillard and Leplat, and Paul Bert, or they did not know them. If they did not know them on March 22, 1882, there is nothing more to say; they were not guilty in acting as they did, but they should have owned it freely. If they did know them, why ever did they inoculate blood taken from a sheep twenty-four hours after its death? They say that this blood was not septic; but how do they know? They have done nothing to find out. They should have inoculated some guinea-pigs, by choice, and then tried some cultures in a vacuum to compare them with cultures in contact with air. Why will they not receive me? A meeting between truth-seeking men would be the most natural thing in the world!”

Still hoping to persuade his adversaries to meet him at Turin and be convinced, Pasteur wrote to them. “_Paris, May 9, 1883._ Gentlemen--Your letter of April 30 surprises me very much. What is in question between you and me? That I should go to Turin, if you will allow me, to demonstrate that sheep, dead of charbon, as numerous as you like, will, for a few hours after their death, be exclusively infected with anthrax, and that the day after their death they will present both anthrax and septic infection; and that therefore, when, on March 23, 1882, wishing to inoculate blood infected with anthrax only into sheep vaccinated and non-vaccinated, you took blood from a carcase twenty-four hours after death, you committed a grave scientific mistake.

“Instead of answering yes or no, instead of saying to me ‘Come to Turin,’ or ‘Do not come,’ you ask me, in a manuscript letter of seventeen pages, to send you from Paris, in writing, preliminary explanations of all that I should have to demonstrate in Turin.

“Really, what is the good? Would not that lead to endless discussions? It is because of the uselessness of a written controversy that I have placed myself at your disposal.

“I have once more the honour of asking you to inform me whether you accept the proposal made to you on April 9, that I should go to Turin to place before your eyes the proofs of the facts I have just mentioned.

“P.S.--In order not to complicate the debate, I do not dwell upon the many erroneous quotations and statements contained in your letter.”

M. Roux began to prepare an interesting curriculum of experiments to be carried out at Turin. But the Turin professors wrote a disagreeable letter, published a little pamphlet entitled _Of the Scientific Dogmatism of the Illustrious Professor Pasteur_, and things remained as they were.

All these discussions, renewed on so many divers points, were not altogether a waste of time; some of them bore fruitful results by causing most decisive proofs to be sought for. It has also made the path of Pasteur’s followers wider and smoother that he himself should have borne the brunt of the first opposition.

In the meanwhile, testimonials of gratitude continued to pour in from the agricultors and veterinary surgeons who had seen the results of two years’ practice of the vaccination against anthrax.

In the year 1882, 613,740 sheep and 83,946 oxen had been vaccinated. The Department of the Cantal which had before lost about 3,000,000 fr. every year, desired in June, 1883, on the occasion of an agricultural show, to give M. Pasteur a special acknowledgement of their gratitude. It consisted of a cup of silver-plated bronze, ornamented with a group of cattle. Behind the group--imitating in this the town of Aubenas, who had made a microscope figure as an attribute of honour--was represented, in small proportions, an instrument which found itself for the first time raised to such an exalted position, the little syringe used for inoculations.

Pasteur was much pressed to come himself and receive this offering from a land which would henceforth owe its fortune to him. He allowed himself to be persuaded, and arrived, accompanied as usual by his family.

The Mayor, surrounded by the municipal councillors, greeted him in these words: “Our town of Aurillac is very small, and you will not find here the brilliant population which inhabits great cities; but you will find minds capable of understanding the scientific and humanitarian mission which you have so generously undertaken. You will also find hearts capable of appreciating your benefits and of preserving the memory of them; your name has been on all our lips for a long time.”

Pasteur, visiting that local exhibition, did not resemble the official personages who listen wearily to the details given them by a staff of functionaries. He thought but of acquiring knowledge, going straight to this or that exhibitor and questioning him, not with perfunctory politeness, but with a real desire for practical information; no detail seemed to him insignificant. “Nothing should be neglected,” he said; “and a remark from a rough labourer who does well what he has to do is infinitely precious.”

After visiting the products and agricultural implements, Pasteur was met in the street by a peasant who stopped and waved his large hat, shouting, “Long live Pasteur!”... “You have saved my cattle,” continued the man, coming up to shake hands with him.

Physicians in their turn desired to celebrate and to honour him who, though not a physician, had rendered such service to medicine. Thirty-two of them assembled to drink his health. The head physician of the Aurillac Hospital, Dr. Fleys, said in proposing the toast: “What the mechanism of the heavens owes to Newton, chemistry to Lavoisier, geology to Cuvier, general anatomy to Bichat, physiology to Claude Bernard, pathology and hygiene will owe to Pasteur. Unite with me, dear colleagues, and let us drink to the fame of the illustrious Pasteur, the precursor of the medicine of the future, a benefactor to humanity.”

* * * * *

This glorious title was now associated with his name. In the first rank of his enthusiastic admirers came the scientists, who, from the point of view of pure science, admired the achievements, within those thirty-five years, of that great man whose perseverance equalled his penetration. Then came the manufacturers, the sericicultors, and the agricultors, who owed their fortune to him who had placed every process he discovered into the public domain. Finally, France could quote the words of the English physiologist, Huxley, in a public lecture at the London Royal Society: “Pasteur’s discoveries alone would suffice to cover the war indemnity of five milliards paid by France to Germany in 1870.”

To that capital was added the inestimable price of human lives saved. Since the antiseptic method had been adopted in surgical operations, the mortality had fallen from 50 per 100 to 5 per 100.

In the lying-in hospitals, more than decimated formerly (for the statistics had shown a death-rate of not only 100 but 200 per 1,000), the number of fatalities was now reduced to 3 per 1,000 and soon afterwards fell to 1 per 1,000. And, in consequence of the principles established by Pasteur, hygiene was growing, developing, and at last taking its proper place in the public view. So much progress accomplished had brought Pasteur a daily growing acknowledgment of gratitude, his country was more than proud of him. His powerful mind, allied with his very tender heart, had brought to French glory an aureole of charity.

The Government of the Republic remembered that England had voted two national rewards to Jenner, one in 1802 and one in 1807, the first of £10,000, and the second of £20,000. It was at the time of that deliberation that Pitt, the great orator, exclaimed, “Vote, gentlemen, your gratitude will never reach the amount of the service rendered.”

The French Ministry proposed to augment the 12,000 fr. pension accorded to Pasteur in 1874 as a national recompense, and to make it 25,000 fr., to revert first to Pasteur’s widow, and then to his children. A Commission was formed and Paul Bert again chosen to draw up the report.

On several occasions at the meetings of the commission one of its members, Benjamin Raspail, exalted the parasitic theory propounded in 1843 by his own father. His filial pleading went so far as to accuse Pasteur of plagiarism. Paul Bert, whilst recognizing the share attributed by F. V. Raspail to microscopic beings, recalled the fact that his attempt in favour of epidemic and contagious diseases had not been adopted by scientists. “No doubt,” he said, “the parasitic origin of the itch was now definitely accepted, thanks in a great measure to the efforts of Raspail; but generalizations were considered as out of proportion to the fact they were supposed to rest on. It seemed excessive to conclude from the existence of the acarus of itch, visible to the naked eye or with the weakest magnifying glass, the presence of microscopic parasites in the humours of virulent diseases.... Such hypotheses can be considered but as a sort of intuition.”

“Hypotheses,” said Pasteur, “come into our laboratories in armfuls; they fill our registers with projected experiments, they stimulate us to research--and that is all.” One thing only counted for him: experimental verification.

Paul Bert, in his very complete report, quoted Huxley’s words to the Royal Society and Pitt’s words to the House of Commons. He stated that since the first Bill had been voted, a new series of discoveries, no less marvellous from a theoretical point of view and yet more important from a practical point of view, had come to strike the world of Science with astonishment and admiration.” Recapitulating Pasteur’s works, he said--

“They may be classed in three series, constituting three great discoveries.

“The first one may be formulated thus: _Each fermentation is produced by the development of a special microbe_.

“_The second one may be given this formula: Each infectious disease_ (those at least that M. Pasteur and his immediate followers have studied) _is produced by the development within the organism of a special microbe_.

“The third one may be expressed in this way: _The microbe of an infectious disease, cultivated under certain detrimental conditions, is attenuated in its pathogenic activity; from a virus it has become a vaccine_.

“As a practical consequence of the first discovery, M. Pasteur has given rules for the manufacture of beer and of vinegar, and shown how beer and wine may be preserved against secondary fermentations which would turn them sour, bitter or slimy, and which render difficult their transport and even their preservation on the spot.

“As a practical consequence of the second discovery, M. Pasteur has given rules to be followed to preserve cattle from splenic fever contamination, and silkworms from the diseases which decimated them. Surgeons, on the other hand, have succeeded, by means of the guidance it afforded, in effecting almost completely the disappearance of erysipelas and of the purulent infections which formerly brought about the death of so many patients after operations.

“As a practical consequence of the third discovery, M. Pasteur has given rules for, and indeed has effected, the preservation of horses, oxen, and sheep from the anthrax disease which every year kills in France about 20,000,000 francs’ worth. Swine will also be preserved from the rouget disease which decimates them, and poultry from the cholera which makes such terrible havoc among them. Everything leads us to hope that rabies will also soon be conquered.” When Paul Bert was congratulated on his report, he said, “Admiration is such a good, wholesome thing!!”

The Bill was voted by the Chamber, and a fortnight later by the Senate, unanimously. Pasteur heard the first news through the newspapers, for he had just gone to the Jura. On July 14, he left Arbois for Dôle, where he had promised to be present at a double ceremony.

* * * * *

On that national holiday, a statue of Peace was to be inaugurated, and a memorial plate placed on the house where Pasteur was born; truly a harmonious association of ideas. The prefect of the Jura evidently felt it when, while unveiling the statue in the presence of Pasteur, he said: “This is Peace, who has inspired Genius and the great services it has rendered.” The official procession, followed by popular acclamation, went on to the narrow Rue des Tanneurs. When Pasteur, who had not seen his native place since his childhood, found himself before that tannery, in the low humble rooms of which his father and mother had lived, he felt himself the prey to a strong emotion.

The mayor quoted these words from the resolutions of the Municipal Council: “M. Pasteur is a benefactor of Humanity, one of the great men of France; he will remain for all Dôlois and in particular those who, like him, have risen from the ranks of the people, an object of respect as well as an example to follow; we consider that it is our duty to perpetuate his name in our town.”

The Director of Fine Arts, M. Kaempfen, representing the Government at the ceremony, pronounced these simple words: “In the name of the Government of the Republic, I salute the inscription which commemorates the fact that in this little house, in this little street, was born, on December 27, 1822, he who was to become one of the greatest scientists of this century so great in science, and who has, by his admirable labours, increased the glory of France and deserved well of the whole of humanity.”

The feelings in Pasteur’s heart burst forth in these terms: “Gentlemen, I am profoundly moved by the honour done to me by the town of Dôle; but allow me, while expressing my gratitude, to protest against this excess of praise. By according to me a homage rendered usually but to the illustrious dead, you anticipate too much the judgment of posterity. Will it ratify your decision? and should not you, Mr. Mayor, have prudently warned the Municipal Council against such a hasty resolution?

“But after protesting, gentlemen, against the brilliant testimony of an admiration which is more than I deserve, let me tell you that I am touched, moved to the bottom of my soul. Your sympathy has joined on that memorial plate the two great things which have been the passion and the delight of my life: the love of Science and the cult of the home.

“Oh! my father, my mother, dear departed ones, who lived so humbly in this little house, it is to you that I owe everything. Thy enthusiasm, my brave-hearted mother, thou hast instilled it into me. If I have always associated the greatness of Science with the greatness of France, it is because I was impregnated with the feelings that thou hadst inspired. And thou, dearest father, whose life was as hard as thy hard trade, thou hast shown to me what patience and protracted effort can accomplish. It is to thee that I owe perseverance in daily work. Not only hadst thou the qualities which go to make a useful life, but also admiration for great men and great things. To look upwards, learn to the utmost, to seek to rise ever higher, such was thy teaching. I can see thee now, after a hard day’s work, reading in the evening some story of the battles in the glorious epoch of which thou wast a witness. Whilst teaching me to read, thy care was that I should learn the greatness of France.

“Be ye blessed, my dear parents, for what ye have been, and may the homage done to-day to your little house be yours!

“I thank you, gentlemen, for the opportunity of saying aloud what I have thought for sixty years. I thank you for this fête and for your welcome, and I thank the town of Dôle, which loses sight of none of her children, and which has kept such a remembrance of me.”

“Nothing is more exquisite,” wrote Bouley to Pasteur, “than those feelings of a noble heart, giving credit to the parents’ influence for all the glory with which their son has covered their name. All your friends recognized you, and you appeared under quite a new light to those who may have misjudged your heart by knowing of you only the somewhat bitter words of some of your Academy speeches, when the love of truth has sometimes made you forgetful of gentleness.”

It might have seemed that after so much homage, especially when offered in such a delicate way as on this last occasion, Pasteur had indeed reached a pinnacle of fame. His ambition however was not satisfied. Was it then boundless, in spite of the modesty which drew all hearts towards him? What more did he wish? Two great things: to complete his studies on hydrophobia and to establish the position of his collaborators--whose name he ever associated with his work--as his acknowledged successors.

* * * * *

A few cases of cholera had occurred at Damietta in the month of June. The English declared that it was but endemic cholera, and opposed the quarantines. They had with them the majority of the Alexandria Sanitary Council, and could easily prevent sanitary measures from being taken. If the English, voluntarily closing their eyes to the dangers of the epidemic, had wished to furnish a new proof of the importation of cholera, they could not have succeeded better. The cholera spread, and by July 14 it had reached Cairo. Between the 14th and 22nd there were five hundred deaths per day.

Alexandria was threatened. Pasteur, before leaving Paris for Arbois, submitted to the Consulting Committee of Public Hygiene the idea of a French Scientific Mission to Alexandria. “Since the last epidemic in 1865,” he said, “science has made great progress on the subject of transmissible diseases. Every one of those diseases which has been subjected to a thorough study has been found by biologists to be produced by a microscopic being developing within the body of man or of animals, and causing therein ravages which are generally mortal. All the symptoms of the disease, all the causes of death depend directly upon the physiological properties of the microbe.... What is wanted at this moment to satisfy the preoccupations of science is to inquire into the primary cause of the scourge. Now the present state of knowledge demands that attention should be drawn to the possible existence within the blood, or within some organ, of a micro-organism whose nature and properties would account in all probability for all the peculiarities of cholera, both as to the morbid symptoms and the mode of its propagation. The proved existence of such a microbe would soon take precedence over the whole question of the measures to be taken to arrest the evil in its course, and might perhaps suggest new methods of treatment.”

Not only did the Committee of Hygiene approve of Pasteur’s project, but they asked him to choose some young men whose knowledge would be equalled by their devotion. Pasteur only had to look around him. When, on his return to the laboratory, he mentioned what had taken place at the Committee of Hygiene, M. Roux immediately offered to start. A professor at the Faculty of Medicine who had some hospital practice, M. Straus, and a professor at the Alfort Veterinary School, M. Nocard, both of whom had been authorised to work in the laboratory, asked permission to accompany M. Roux. Thuillier had the same desire, but asked for twenty-four hours to think over it.

The thought of his father and mother, who had made a great many sacrifices for his education, and whose only joy was to receive him at Amiens, where they lived, during his short holidays, made him hesitate. But the thought of duty overcame his regrets; he put his papers and notes in order and went to see his dear ones again. He told his father of his intention, but his mother did not know of it. At the time when the papers spoke of a French commission to study cholera, his elder sister, who loved him with an almost motherly tenderness, said to him suddenly, “You are not going to Egypt, Louis? swear that you are not!” “I am not going to swear anything,” he answered, with absolute calm; adding that he might some time go to Russia to proceed to some vaccination of anthrax, as he had done at Buda-Pesth in 1881. When he left Amiens nothing in his farewells revealed his deep emotion; it was only from Marseilles that he wrote the truth.

Administrative difficulties retarded the departure of the Commission, which only reached Egypt on August 15. Dr. Koch had also come to study cholera. The head physician of the European hospital, Dr. Ardouin, placed his wards at the entire disposal of the French savants. In a certain number of cases, it was possible to proceed to post-mortem examinations immediately after death, before putrefaction had begun. It was a great thing from the point of view of the search after a pathogenic micro-organism as well as from the anatomo-pathological point of view.

The contents of the intestines and the characteristic stools of the cholera patients offered a great variety of micro-organisms. But which was really the cause of cholera? The most varied modes of culture were attempted in vain. The same negative results followed inoculations into divers animal species, cats, dogs, swine, monkeys, pigeons, rabbits, guinea-pigs, etc., made with the blood of cholerics or with the contents of their bowels. Experiments were made with twenty-four corpses. The epidemic ceased unexpectedly. Not to waste time, while waiting for a reappearance of the disease, the French Commission took up some researches on cattle plague. Suddenly a telegram from M. Roux informed Pasteur that Thuillier had succumbed to an attack of cholera.

“I have just heard the news of a great misfortune,” wrote Pasteur to J. B. Dumas on September 19; “M. Thuillier died yesterday at Alexandria of cholera. I have telegraphed to the Mayor of Amiens asking him to break the news to the family.

“Science loses in Thuillier a courageous representative with a great future before him. I lose a much-loved and devoted pupil; my laboratory one of its principal supports.

“I can only console myself for this death by thinking of our beloved country and all he has done for it.”

Thuillier was only twenty-six. How had this happened? Had he neglected any of the precautions which Pasteur had written down before the departure of the Commission, and which were so minute as to be thought exaggerated?

Pasteur remained silent all day, absolutely overcome. The head of the laboratory, M. Chamberland, divining his master’s grief, came to Arbois. They exchanged their sorrowful thoughts, and Pasteur fell back into his sad broodings.

A few days later, a letter from M. Roux related the sad story: “_Alexandria, September 21._ Sir and dear master--Having just heard that an Italian ship is going to start, I am writing a few lines without waiting for the French mail. The telegraph has told you of the terrible misfortune which has befallen us.”

M. Roux then proceeded to relate in detail the symptoms presented by the unfortunate young man, who, after going to bed at ten o’clock, apparently in perfect health, had suddenly been taken ill about three o’clock in the morning of Saturday, September 15. At eight o’clock, all the horrible symptoms of the most violent form of cholera were apparent, and his friends gave him up for lost. They continued their desperate endeavours however, assisted by the whole staff of French and Italian doctors.

“By dint of all our strength, all our energy, we protracted the struggle until seven o’clock on Wednesday morning, the 19th. The asphyxia, which had then lasted twenty-four hours, was stronger than our efforts.

“Your own feelings will help you to imagine our grief.

“The French colony and the medical staff are thunderstruck. Splendid funeral honours have been rendered to our poor Thuillier.

“He was buried at four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, with the finest and most imposing manifestation Alexandria had seen for a long time.

“One very precious and affecting homage was rendered by the German Commission with a noble simplicity which touched us all very much.

“M. Koch and his collaborators arrived when the news spread in the town. They gave utterance to beautiful and touching words to the memory of our dead friend. When the funeral took place, those gentlemen brought two wreaths which they themselves nailed on the coffin. ‘They are simple,’ said M. Koch, ‘but they are of laurel, such as are given to the brave.’

“M. Koch hold one corner of the pall. We embalmed our comrade’s body; he lies in a sealed zinc coffin. All formalities have been complied with, so that his remains may be brought back to France when the necessary time has expired. In Egypt the period of delay is a whole year.

“The French colony desires to erect a monument to the memory of Louis Thuillier.

“Dear master, how much more I should like to tell you! The recital of the sad event which happened so quickly would take pages. This blow is altogether incomprehensible. It was more than a fortnight since we had seen a single case of cholera; we were beginning to study cattle-plague.

“Of us all, Thuillier was the one who took most precautions; he was irreproachably careful.

“We are writing by this post a few lines to his family, in the names of all of us.

“Such are the blows cholera can strike at the end of an epidemic! Want of time forces me to close this letter. Pray believe in our respectful affection.”

The whole of the French colony, who received great marks of sympathy from the Italians and other foreigners, wished to perpetuate the memory of Thuillier. Pasteur wrote, on October 16, to a French physician at Alexandria, who had informed him of this project:

“I am touched with the generous resolution of the French colony at Alexandria to erect a monument to the memory of Louis Thuillier. That valiant and beloved young man was deserving of every honour. I know, perhaps better than any one, the loss inflicted on science by his cruel death. I cannot console myself, and I am already dreading the sight of the dear fellow’s empty place in my laboratory.”

On his return to Paris, Pasteur read a paper to the Academy of Sciences, in his own name and in that of Thuillier, on the now well-ascertained mode of vaccination for swine-fever. He began by recalling Thuillier’s worth:

“Thuillier entered my laboratory after taking the first rank at the Physical Science Agrégation competition at the Ecole Normale. His was a deeply meditative, silent nature; his whole person breathed a virile energy which struck all those who knew him. An indefatigable worker, he was ever ready for self-sacrifice.”

A few days before, M. Straus had given to the Biology Society a summary statement of the studies of the Cholera Commission, concluding thus: “The documents collected during those two months are far from solving the etiological problem of cholera, but will perhaps not be useless for the orientation of future research.”

The cholera bacillus was put in evidence, later on, by Dr. Koch, who had already suspected it during his researches in Egypt.

* * * * *

Glory, which had been seen in the battlefield at the beginning of the nineteenth century, now seemed to elect to dwell in the laboratory, that “temple of the future” as Pasteur called it. From every part of the world, letters reached Pasteur, appeals, requests for consultations. Many took him for a physician. “He does not cure individuals,” answered Edmond About one day to a foreigner who was under that misapprehension; “he only tries to cure humanity.” Some sceptical minds were predicting failure to his studies on hydrophobia. This problem was complicated by the fact that Pasteur was trying in vain to discover and isolate the specific microbe.

He was endeavouring to evade that difficulty; the idea pursued him that human medicine might avail itself of “the long period of incubation of hydrophobia, by attempting to establish, during that interval before the appearance of the first rabic symptoms, a refractory condition in the subjects bitten.”

At the beginning of the year 1884, J. B. Dumas enjoyed following from a distance Pasteur’s readings at the Académie des Sciences. His failing health and advancing age (he was more than eighty years old) had forced him to spend the winter in the South of France. On January 26, 1884, he wrote to Pasteur for the last time, à propos of a book[32] which was a short summary of Pasteur’s discoveries and their concatenation:

“Dear colleague and friend,--I have read with a great and sincere emotion the picture of your scientific life drawn by a faithful and loving hand.

“Myself a witness and a sincere admirer of your happy efforts, your fruitful genius and your imperturbable method, I consider it a great service rendered to Science, that the accurate and complete whole should be put before the eyes of young people.

“It will make a wholesome impression on the public in general; to young scientists, it will be an initiation, and to those who, like me, have passed the age of labour it will bring happy memories of youthful enthusiasm.

“May Providence long spare you to France, and maintain in you that admirable equilibrium between the mind that observes, the genius that conceives, and the hand that executes with a perfection unknown until now.”

This was a last proof of Dumas’ affection for Pasteur. Although his life was now fast drawing to its close, his mental faculties were in no wise impaired, for we find him three weeks later, on February 20, using his influence as Permanent Secretary of the Academy to obtain the Lacaze prize for M. Cailletet, the inventor of the well-known apparatus for the liquefaction of gases.

J. B. Dumas died on April 11, 1884. Pasteur was then about to start for Edinburgh on the occasion of the tercentenary of the celebrated Scotch University. The “Institut de France,” invited to take part in these celebrations, had selected representatives from each of the five Academies: the Académie Française was sending M. Caro; the Academy of Sciences, Pasteur and de Lesseps; the Academy of Moral Sciences, M. Gréard; the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, M. Perrot; and the Academy of Fine Arts, M. Eugène Guillaume. The Collège de France sent M. Guillaume Guizot, and the Academy of Medicine Dr. Henry Gueneau de Mussy.

Pasteur much wished to relinquish this official journey; the idea that he would not be able to follow to the grave the incomparable teacher of his youth, the counsellor and confidant of his life, was infinitely painful to him.

He was however reconciled to it by one of his colleagues, M. Mézières, who was going to Edinburgh on behalf of the Minister of Public Instruction, and who pointed out to him that the best way of honouring Dumas’ memory lay in remembering Dumas’ chief object in life--the interests of France. Pasteur went, hoping that he would have an opportunity of speaking of Dumas to the Edinburgh students.

In London, the French delegates had the pleasant surprise of finding that a private saloon had been reserved to take Pasteur and his friends to Edinburgh. This hospitality was offered to Pasteur by one of his numerous admirers, Mr. Younger, an Edinburgh brewer, as a token of gratitude for his discoveries in the manufacture of beer. He and his wife and children welcomed Pasteur with the warmest cordiality, when the train reached Edinburgh; the principal inhabitants of the great Scotch city vied with each other in entertaining the French delegates, who were delighted with their reception.

The next morning, they, and the various representatives from all parts of the world, assembled in the Cathedral of St. Giles, where, with the exalted feeling which, in the Scotch people, mingles religious with political life, the Town Council had decided that a service should inaugurate the rejoicings. The Rev. Robert Flint, mounting that pulpit from which the impetuous John Knox, Calvin’s friend and disciple, had breathed forth his violent fanaticism, preached to the immense assembly with a full consciousness of the importance of his discourse. He spoke of the relations between Science and Faith, of the absolute liberty of science in the realm of facts, of the thought of God considered as a stimulant to research, progress being but a Divine impulse.

In the afternoon, the students imparted life and merriment into the proceedings; they had organized a dramatic performance, the members of the orchestra, even, being undergraduates.