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.

The French delegates took great interest in the system of this University. Accustomed as they were to look upon the State as sole master and dispenser, they now saw an independent institution, owing its fortune to voluntary contributions, revealing in every point the power of private enterprise. Unlike what takes place in France, where administrative unity makes itself felt in the smallest village, the British Government effaces itself, and merely endeavours to inspire faith in political unity. Absolutely her own mistress, the University of Edinburgh is free to confer high honorary degrees on her distinguished visitors. However, these honorary diplomas are but of two kinds, viz.: Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) and Doctor of Laws (LL.D.). In 1884, seventeen degrees of D.D. and 122 degrees of LL.D. were reserved for the various delegates. “The only laws I know,” smilingly said the learned Helmholtz, “are the laws of Physics.”

The solemn proclamation of the University degrees took place on Thursday, April 17. The streets and monuments of the beautiful city were decorated with flags, and an air of rejoicing pervaded the whole atmosphere.

The ceremony began by a special prayer, alluding to the past, looking forward to the future, and asking for God’s blessing on the delegates and their countries. The large assembly filled the immense hall where the Synod of the Presbyterian Church holds its meetings. The Chancellor and the Rector of the University were seated on a platform with a large number of professors; those who were about to receive honorary degrees occupied seats in the centre of the hall; about three thousand students found seats in various parts of the hall.

The Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh had arranged that the new graduates should be called in alphabetical order. As each of them heard his name, he rose and mounted the platform. The students took great pleasure in heartily cheering those savants who had had most influence on their studies. When Pasteur’s name was pronounced, a great silence ensued; every one was trying to obtain a sight of him as he walked towards the platform. His appearance was the signal for a perfect outburst of applause; five thousand men rose and cheered him. It was indeed a splendid ovation.

In the evening, a banquet was set out in the hall, which was hung with the blue and white colours of the University; there were a thousand guests, seated round twenty-eight tables, one of which, the high table, was reserved for the speakers who were to propose the toasts, which were to last four hours. Pasteur was seated next to Virchow; they talked together of the question of rabies, and Virchow owned that, when he saw Pasteur in 1881 about to tackle this question, he much doubted the possibility of a solution. This friendly chat between two such men proves the desirability of such gatherings; intercourse between the greatest scientists can but lead to general peace and fraternity between nations. After having read a telegram from the Queen, congratulating the University and welcoming the guests, a toast was drunk to the Queen and to the Royal Family, and a few words spoken by the representative of the Emperor of Brazil. Pasteur then rose to speak:

“My Lord Chancellor, Gentlemen, the city of Edinburgh is now offering a sight of which she may be proud. All the great scientific institutions, meeting here, appear as an immense Congress of hopes and congratulations. The honour and glory of this international rendezvous deservedly belong to you, for it is centuries since Scotland united her destinies with those of the human mind. She was one of the first among the nations to understand that intellect leads the world. And the world of intellect, gladly answering your call, lays a well-merited homage at your feet. When, yesterday, the eminent Professor Robert Flint, addressing the Edinburgh University from the pulpit of St. Giles, exclaimed, ‘Remember the past and look to the future,’ all the delegates, seated like judges at a great tribunal, evoked a vision of past centuries and joined in a unanimous wish for a yet more glorious future.

“Amongst the illustrious delegates of all nations who bring you an assurance of cordial good wishes, France has sent to represent her those of her institutions which are most representative of the French spirit and the best part of French glory. France is ready to applaud whenever a source of light appears in the world; and when death strikes down a man of genius, France is ready to weep as for one of her own children. This noble spirit of solidarity was brought home to me when I heard some of you speak feelingly of the death of the illustrious chemist, J. B. Dumas, a celebrated member of all your Academies, and only a few years ago an eloquent panegyrist of your great Faraday. It was a bitter grief to me that I had to leave Paris before his funeral ceremony; but the hope of rendering here a last and solemn homage to that revered master helped me to conquer my affliction. Moreover, gentlemen, men may pass, but their works remain; we all are but passing guests of these great homes of intellect, which, like all the Universities who have come to greet you in this solemn day, are assured of immortality.”

Pasteur, having thus rendered homage to J. B. Dumas, and having glorified his country by his presence, his speech and the great honours conferred on him, would have returned home at once; but the undergraduates begged to be allowed to entertain, the next day, some of those men whom they looked upon as examples and whom they might never see again.

Pasteur thanked the students for this invitation, which filled him with pride and pleasure, for he had always loved young people, he said, and continued, in his deep, stirring voice:

“Ever since I can remember my life as a man, I do not think I have ever spoken for the first time with a student without saying to him, ‘Work perseveringly; work can be made into a pleasure, and alone is profitable to man, to his city, to his country.’ It is even more natural that I should thus speak to you. The common soul (if I may so speak) of an assembly of young men is wholly formed of the most generous feelings, being yet illumined with the divine spark which is in every man as he enters this world. You have just given a proof of this assurance, and I have felt moved to the heart in hearing you applaud, as you have just been doing, such men as de Lesseps, Helmholtz and Virchow. Your language has borrowed from ours the beautiful word enthusiasm, bequeathed to us by the Greeks: εν θεός, an inward God. It was almost with a divine feeling that you just now cheered those great men.

“One of those of our writers who have best made known to France and to Europe the philosophy of Robert Reid and Dugald Stewart said, addressing young men in the preface of one of his works:—

“‘Whatever career you may embrace, look up to an exalted goal; worship great men and great things.’

“Great things! You have indeed seen them. Will not this centenary remain one of Scotland’s glorious memories? As to great men, in no country is their memory better honoured than in yours. But, if work should be the very life of your life, if the cult for great men and great things should be associated with your every thought, that is still not enough. Try to bring into everything you undertake the spirit of scientific method, founded on the immortal works of Galileo, Descartes and Newton.

“You especially, medical students of this celebrated University of Edinburgh—who, trained as you are by eminent masters, may aspire to the highest scientific ambition—be you inspired by the experimental method. To its principles, Scotland owes such men as Brewster, Thomson and Lister.”

The speaker who had to respond on behalf of the students to the foreign delegates expressed himself thus, directly addressing Pasteur:

“Monsieur Pasteur, you have snatched from nature secrets too carefully, almost maliciously hidden. We greet in you a benefactor of humanity, all the more so because we know that you admit the existence of spiritual secrets, revealed to us by what you have just called the work of God in us.

“Representatives of France, we beg you to tell your great country that we are following with admiration the great reforms now being introduced into every branch of your education, reforms which we look upon as tokens of a beneficent rivalry and of a more and more cordial intercourse—for misunderstandings result from ignorance, a darkness lightened by the work of scientists.”

The next morning, at ten o’clock, crowds gathered on the station platform with waving handkerchiefs. People were showing each other a great Edinburgh daily paper, in which Pasteur’s speech to the undergraduates was reproduced and which also contained the following announcement in large print:

“In memory of M. Pasteur’s visit to Edinburgh, Mr. Younger offers to the Edinburgh University a donation of £500.”

Livingstone’s daughter, Mrs. Bruce, on whom Pasteur had called the preceding day, came to the station a few moments before the departure of the train, bringing him a book entitled The Life of Livingstone.

The saloon carriage awaited Pasteur and his friends. They departed, delighted with the hospitality they had received, and much struck with the prominent place given to science and the welcome accorded to Pasteur. “This is indeed glory,” said one of them. “Believe me,” said Pasteur, “I only look upon it as a reason for continuing to go forward as long as my strength does not fail me.”

CHAPTER XII

1884—1885

Much confusion prevailed at that time regarding this disease, its seat, its causes, and its remedy. Three things seemed positive: firstly, that the rabic virus was contained in the saliva of the mad animals; secondly, that it was communicated through bites; and thirdly, that the period of incubation might vary from a few days to several months. Clinical observation was reduced to complete impotence; perhaps experiments might throw some light on the subject.

Bouley had affirmed in April, 1870, that the germ of the evil was localized in the saliva, and a new fact had seemed to support this theory. On December 10, 1880, Pasteur was advised by Professor Lannelongue that a five-year-old child, bitten on the face a month before, had just been admitted into the Hôpital Trousseau. The unfortunate little patient presented all the characteristics of hydrophobia: spasms, restlessness, shudders at the least breath of air, an ardent thirst, accompanied with an absolute impossibility of swallowing, convulsive movements, fits of furious rage—not one symptom was absent. The child died after twenty-four hours of horrible suffering—suffocated by the mucus which filled the mouth. Pasteur gathered some of that mucus four hours after the child’s death, and mixed it with water; he then inoculated this into some rabbits, which died in less than thirty-six hours, and whose saliva, injected into other rabbits, provoked an almost equally rapid death. Dr. Maurice Raynaud, who had already declared that hydrophobia could be transmitted to rabbits through the human saliva, and who had also caused the death of some rabbits with the saliva of that same child, thought himself justified in saying that those rabbits had died of hydrophobia.

Pasteur was slower in drawing conclusions. He had examined with a microscope the blood of those rabbits which had died in the laboratory, and had found in it a micro-organism; he had cultivated this organism in veal broth, inoculated it into rabbits and dogs, and, its virulence having manifested itself in these animals, their blood had been found to contain that same microbe. “But,” added Pasteur at the meeting of the Academy of Medicine (January 18, 1881), “I am absolutely ignorant of the connection there may be between this new disease and hydrophobia.” It was indeed a singular thing that the deadly issue of this disease should occur so early, when the incubation period of hydrophobia is usually so long. Was there not some unknown microbe associated with the rabic saliva? This query was followed by experiments made with the saliva of children who had died of ordinary diseases, and even with that of healthy adults. Thuillier, following up and studying this saliva microbe and its special virulence with his usual patience, soon applied to it with success the method of attenuation by the oxygen in air. “What did we want with a new disease?” said a good many people, and yet it was making a stop forward to clear up this preliminary confusion. Pasteur, in the course of a long and minute study of the saliva of mad dogs—in which it was so generally admitted that the virulent principle of rabies had its seat, that precautions against saliva were the only ones taken at post-mortem examinations—discovered many other mistakes. If a healthy dog’s saliva contains many microbes, licked up by the dog in various kinds of dirt, what must be the condition of the mouth of a rabid dog, springing upon everything he meets, to tear it and bite it? The rabic virus is therefore associated with many other micro-organisms, ready to play their part and puzzle experimentalists; abscesses, morbid complications of all sorts, may intervene before the development of the rabic virus. Hydrophobia might evidently be developed by the inoculation of saliva, but it could not be confidently asserted that it would. Pasteur had made endless efforts to inoculate rabies to rabbits solely through the saliva of a mad dog; as soon as a case of hydrophobia occurred in Bourrel’s kennels, a telegram informed the laboratory, and a few rabbits were immediately taken round in a cab.

One day, Pasteur having wished to collect a little saliva from the jaws of a rabid dog, so as to obtain it directly, two of Bourrel’s assistants undertook to drag a mad bulldog, foaming at the mouth, from its cage; they seized it by means of a lasso, and stretched it on a table. These two men, thus associated with Pasteur in the same danger, with the same calm heroism, held the struggling, ferocious animal down with their powerful hands, whilst the scientist drew, by means of a glass tube held between his lips, a few drops of the deadly saliva.

But the same uncertainty followed the inoculation of the saliva; the incubation was so slow that weeks and months often elapsed whilst the result of an experiment was being anxiously awaited. Evidently the saliva was not a sure agent for experiments, and if more knowledge was to be obtained, some other means had to be found of obtaining it.

Magendie and Renault had both tried experimenting with rabic blood, but with no results, and Paul Bert had been equally unsuccessful. Pasteur tried in his turn, but also in vain. “We must try other experiments,” he said, with his usual indefatigable perseverance.

As the number of cases observed became larger, he felt a growing conviction that hydrophobia has its seat in the nervous system, and particularly in the medulla oblongata. “The propagation of the virus in a rabid dog’s nervous system can almost be observed in its every stage,” writes M. Roux, Pasteur’s daily associate in these researches, which he afterwards made the subject of his thesis. “The anguish and fury due to the excitation of the grey cortex of the brain are followed by an alteration of the voice and a difficulty in deglutition. The medulla oblongata and the nerves starting from it are attacked in their turn; finally, the spinal cord itself becomes invaded and paralysis closes the scene.”

As long as the virus has not reached the nervous centres, it may sojourn for weeks or months in some point of the body; this explains the slowness of certain incubations, and the fortunate escapes after some bites from rabid dogs. The a priori supposition that the virus attacks the nervous centres went very far back; it had served as a basis to a theory enunciated by Dr. Duboué (of Pau), who had, however, not supported it by any experiments. On the contrary, when M. Galtier, a professor at the Lyons Veterinary School, had attempted experiments in that direction, he had to inform the Academy of Medicine, in January, 1881, that he had only ascertained the existence of virus in rabid dogs in the lingual glands and in the bucco-pharyngeal mucous membrane. “More than ten times, and always unsuccessfully, have I inoculated the product obtained by pressure of the cerebral substances of the cerebellum or of the medulla oblongata of rabid dogs.”

Pasteur was about to prove that it was possible to succeed by operating in a special manner, according to a rigorous technique, unknown in other laboratories. When the post-mortem examination of a mad dog had revealed no characteristic lesion, the brain was uncovered, and the surface of the medulla oblongata scalded with a glass stick, so as to destroy any external dust or dirt. Then, with a long tube, previously put through a flame, a particle of the substance was drawn and deposited in a glass just taken from a stove heated up to 200° C., and mixed with a little water or sterilized broth by means of a glass agitator, also previously put through a flame. The syringe used for inoculation on the rabbit or dog (lying ready on the operating board) had been purified in boiling water.

Most of the animals who received this inoculation under the skin succumbed to hydrophobia; that virulent matter was therefore more successful than the saliva, which was a great result obtained.

“The seat of the rabic virus,” wrote Pasteur, “is therefore not in the saliva only: the brain contains it in a degree of virulence at least equal to that of the saliva of rabid animals.” But, to Pasteur’s eyes, this was but a preliminary step on the long road which stretched before him; it was necessary that all the inoculated animals should contract hydrophobia, and the period of incubation had to be shortened.

It was then that it occurred to Pasteur to inoculate the rabic virus directly on the surface of a dog’s brain. He thought that, by placing the virus from the beginning in its true medium, hydrophobia would more surely supervene and the incubation might be shorter. The experiment was attempted: a dog under chloroform was fixed to the operating board, and a small, round portion of the cranium removed by means of a trephine (a surgical instrument somewhat similar to a fret-saw); the tough fibrous membrane called the dura-mater, being thus exposed, was then injected with a small quantity of the prepared virus, which lay in readiness in a Pravaz syringe. The wound was washed with carbolic and the skin stitched together, the whole thing lasting but a few minutes. The dog, on returning to consciousness, seemed quite the same as usual. But, after fourteen days, hydrophobia appeared: rabid fury, characteristic howls, the tearing up and devouring of his bed, delirious hallucination, and finally, paralysis and death.

A method was therefore found by which rabies was contracted surely and swiftly. Trephinings were again performed on chloroformed animals—Pasteur had a great horror of useless sufferings, and always insisted on anæsthesia. In every case, characteristic hydrophobia occurred after inoculation on the brain. The main lines of this complicated question were beginning to be traceable; but other obstacles were in the way. Pasteur could not apply the method he had hitherto used, i.e. to isolate, and then to cultivate in an artificial medium, the microbe of hydrophobia, for he failed in detecting this microbe. Yet its existence admitted of no doubt; perhaps it was beyond the limits of human sight. “Since this unknown being is living,” thought Pasteur, “we must cultivate it; failing an artificial medium, let us try the brain of living rabbits; it would indeed be an experimental feat!”

As soon as a trephined and inoculated rabbit died paralyzed, a little of his rabic medulla was inoculated to another; each inoculation succeeded another, and the time of incubation became shorter and shorter, until, after a hundred uninterrupted inoculations, it came to be reduced to seven days. But the virus, having reached this degree, the virulence of which was found to be greater than that of the virus of dogs made rabid by an accidental bite, now became fixed; Pasteur had mastered it. He could now predict the exact time when death should occur in each of the inoculated animals; his predictions were verified with surprising accuracy.

Pasteur was not yet satisfied with the immense progress marked by infallible inoculation and the shortened incubation; he now wished to decrease the degrees of virulence—when the attenuation of the virus was once conquered, it might be hoped that dogs could be made refractory to rabies. Pasteur abstracted a fragment of the medulla from a rabbit which had just died of rabies after an inoculation of the fixed virus; this fragment was suspended by a thread in a sterilized phial, the air in which was kept dry by some pieces of caustic potash lying at the bottom of the vessel and which was closed by a cotton-wool plug to prevent the entrance of atmospheric dusts. The temperature of the room where this desiccation took place was maintained at 23° C. As the medulla gradually became dry, its virulence decreased, until, at the end of fourteen days, it had become absolutely extinguished. This now inactive medulla was crushed and mixed with pure water, and injected under the skin of some dogs. The next day they were inoculated with medulla which had been desiccating for thirteen days, and so on, using increased virulence until the medulla was used of a rabbit dead the same day. These dogs might now be bitten by rabid dogs given them as companions for a few minutes, or submitted to the intracranial inoculations of the deadly virus: they resisted both.

Having at last obtained this refractory condition, Pasteur was anxious that his results should be verified by a Commission. The Minister of Public Instruction acceded to this desire, and a Commission was constituted in May, 1884, composed of Messrs. Béclard, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Paul Bert, Bouley, Villemin, Vulpian, and Tisserand, Director of the Agriculture Office. The Commission immediately set to work; a rabid dog having succumbed at Alfort on June 1, its carcase was brought to the laboratory of the Ecole Normale, and a fragment of the medulla oblongata was mixed with some sterilized broth. Two dogs, declared by Pasteur to be refractory to rabies, were trephined, and a few drops of the liquid injected into their brains; two other dogs and two rabbits received inoculations at the same time, with the same liquid and in precisely the same manner.

Bouley was taking notes for a report to be presented to the Minister:

“M. Pasteur tells us that, considering the nature of the rabic virus used, the rabbits and the two new dogs will develop rabies within twelve or fifteen days, and that the two refractory dogs will not develop it at all, however long they may be detained under observation.”

On May 29, Mme. Pasteur wrote to her children:

“The Commission on rabies met to-day and elected M. Bouley as chairman. Nothing is settled as to commencing experiments. Your father is absorbed in his thoughts, talks little, sleeps little, rises at dawn, and, in one word, continues the life I began with him this day thirty-five years ago.”

On June 3, Bourrel sent word that he had a rabid dog in the kennels of the Rue Fontaine-au-Roi; a refractory dog and a new dog were immediately submitted to numerous bites; the latter was violently bitten on the head in several places. The rabid dog, still living the next day and still able to bite, was given two more dogs, one of which was refractory; this dog, and the refractory dog bitten on the 3rd, were allowed to receive the first bites, the Commission having thought that perhaps the saliva might then be more abundant and more dangerous.

On June 6, the rabid dog having died, the Commission proceeded to inoculate the medulla of the animal into six more dogs, by means of trephining. Three of those dogs were refractory, the three others were fresh from the kennels; there were also two rabbits.

On the 10th, Bourrel telegraphed the arrival of another rabid dog, and the same operations were gone through.

“This rabid, furious dog,” wrote Pasteur to his son-in-law, “had spent the night lying on his master’s bed; his appearance had been suspicious for a day or two. On the morning of the 10th, his voice became rabietic, and his master, who had heard the bark of a rabid dog twenty years ago, was seized with terror, and brought the dog to M. Bourrel, who found that he was indeed in the biting stage of rabies. Fortunately a lingering fidelity had prevented him from attacking his master....

“This morning the rabic condition is beginning to appear on one of the new dogs trephined on June 1, at the same time as two refractory dogs. Let us hope that the other new dog will also develop it and that the two refractory ones will resist.”

At the same time that the Commission examined this dog which developed rabies within the exact time indicated by Pasteur, the two rabbits on whom inoculation had been performed at the same time were found to present the first symptoms of rabic paralysis. “This paralysis,” noted Bouley, “is revealed by great weakness of the limbs, particularly of the hind quarters; the least shock knocks them over and they experience great difficulty in getting up again.” The second new dog on whom inoculation had been performed on June 1 was now also rabid; the refractory dogs were in perfect health.

During the whole of June, Pasteur found time to keep his daughter and son-in-law informed of the progress of events. “Keep my letters,” he wrote, “they are almost like copies of the notes taken on the experiments.”

Towards the end of the month, dozens of dogs were submitted to control-experiments which were continued until August. The dogs which Pasteur declared to be refractory underwent all the various tests made with rabic virus; bites, injections into the veins, trephining, everything was tried before Pasteur would decide to call them vaccinated. On June 17, Bourrel sent word that the new dog bitten on June 3 was becoming rabic; the members of the Commission went to the Rue Fontaine-au-Roi. The period of incubation had only lasted fourteen days, a fact attributed by Bouley to the bites having been chiefly about the head. The dog was destroying his kennel and biting his chain ferociously. More new dogs developed rabies the following days. Nineteen new dogs had been experimented upon: three died out of six bitten by a rabid dog, six out of eight after intravenous inoculation, and five out of five after subdural inoculation. Bouley thought that a few more cases might occur, the period of incubation after bites being so extremely irregular.

Bouley’s report was sent to the Minister of Public Instruction at the beginning of August. “We submit to you to-day,” he wrote, “this report on the first series of experiments that we have just witnessed, in order that M. Pasteur may refer to it in the paper which he proposes to read at the Copenhagen International Scientific Congress on these magnificent results, which devolve so much credit on French Science and which give it a fresh claim to the world’s gratitude.”

The Commission wished that a large kennel yard might be built, in order that the duration of immunity in protected dogs might be timed, and that other great problem solved, viz., whether it would be possible, through the inoculation of attenuated virus, to defy the virus from bites.

By the Minister’s request, the Commission investigated the Meudon woods in search of a favourable site; an excellent place was found in the lower part of the Park, away from dwelling houses, easy to enclose and presumably in no one’s way. But, when the inhabitants of Meudon heard of this project, they protested vehemently, evidently terrified at the thought of rabid dogs, however securely bound, in their peaceful neighbourhood.

Another piece of ground was then suggested to Pasteur, near St. Cloud, in the Park of Villeneuve l’Etang. Originally a State domain, this property had been put up for sale, but had found no buyer, not being suitable for parcelling out in small lots; the Bill was withdrawn which allowed of its sale and the greater part of the domain was devoted by the Ministry to Pasteur’s and his assistants’ experiments on the prophylaxis of contagious diseases.

Pasteur, his mind full of ideas, started for the International Medical Congress, which was now to take place at Copenhagen. Sixteen hundred members arranged to attend, and nearly all of them found on arriving that they were to be entertained in the houses of private individuals. The Danes carry hospitality to the most generous excess; several of them had been learning French for the last three years, the better to entertain the French delegates. Pasteur’s son, then secretary of the French Legation at Copenhagen, had often spoken to his father with appreciative admiration of those Northerners, who hide deep enthusiasm under apparent calmness, almost coldness.

The opening meeting took place on August 10 in the large hall of the Palace of Industry; the King and Queen of Denmark and the King and Queen of Greece were present at that impressive gathering. The President, Professor Panum, welcomed the foreign members in the name of his country; he proclaimed the neutrality of Science, adding that the three official languages to be used during the Congress would be French, English, and German. His own speech was entirely in French, “the language which least divides us,” he said, “and which we are accustomed to look upon as the most courteous in the world.”

The former president of the London Congress, Sir James Paget, emphasized the scientific consequences of those triennial meetings, showing that, thanks to them, nations may calculate the march of progress.

Virchow, in the name of Germany, developed the same idea.

Pasteur, representing France, showed again as he had done at Milan in 1878, in London in 1881, at Geneva in 1882, and quite recently in Edinburgh, how much the scientist and the patriot were one in him.

“In the name of France,” said he, “I thank M. le Président for his words of welcome.... By our presence in this Congress, we affirm the neutrality of Science ... Science is of no country.... But if Science has no country, the scientist must keep in mind all that may work towards the glory of his country. In every great scientist will be found a great patriot. The thought of adding to the greatness of his country sustains him in his long efforts, and throws him into the difficult but glorious scientific enterprises which bring about real and durable conquests. Humanity then profits by those labours coming from various directions....”

At the end of the meeting Pasteur was presented to the King. The Queen of Denmark and the Queen of Greece, regardless of etiquette, walked towards him, “a signal proof,” wrote a French contemporary, “of the esteem in which our illustrious countryman is held at the Danish Court.”

Five general meetings were to give some of the scientists an opportunity of expounding their views on subjects of universal interest. Pasteur was asked to read the first paper; his audience consisted, besides the members of the Congress, of many other men interested in scientific things, who had come to hear him describe the steps by which he had made such secure progress in the arduous question of hydrophobia. He began by a declaration of war against the prejudice by which so many people believe that rabies can occur spontaneously. Whatever the pathological, physiological, or other conditions may be under which a dog or another animal is placed, rabies never appears if the animal has not been bitten or licked by another rabid animal; this is so truly the case that hydrophobia is unknown in certain countries. In order to preserve a whole land from the disease, it is sufficient that a law should, as in Australia, compel every imported dog to be in quarantine for several months; he would then, if bitten by a mad dog before his departure, have ample time to die before infecting other animals. Norway and Lapland are equally free from rabies, a few good prophylactic measures being sufficient to avert the scourge.

It will be objected that there must have been a first rabid dog originally. “That,” said Pasteur, “is a problem which cannot be solved in the present state of knowledge, for it partakes of the great and unknown mystery of the origin of life.”

The audience followed with an impassioned curiosity the history of the stages followed by Pasteur on the road to his great discovery: the preliminary experiments, the demonstration of the fact that the rabic virus invades the nervous centres, the culture of the virus within living animals, the attenuation of the rabic virus when passed from dogs to monkeys, and simultaneously with this graduated attenuation, a converse process by successive passages from rabbit to rabbit, the possibility of obtaining in this way all the degrees of virulence, and finally the acquired certainty of having obtained a preventive vaccine against canine hydrophobia.

“Enthusiastic applause,” wrote the reporter of the Journal des Débats, “greeted the conclusion of the indefatigable worker.”

In the course of one of the excursions arranged for the members of the Congress, Pasteur had the pleasure of seeing his methods applied on a large scale, not as in Italy to the progress of sericiculture, but to that of the manufacture of beer. J. C. Jacobsen, a Danish citizen, whose name was celebrated in the whole of Europe by his munificent donations to science, had founded in 1847 the Carlsberg Brewery, now one of the most important in the world; at least 200,000 hectolitres were now produced every year by the Carlsberg Brewery and the Ny Carlsberg branch of it, which was under the direction of Jacobsen’s son.

In 1879, Jacobsen, who was unknown to Pasteur, wrote to him, “I should be very much obliged if you would allow me to order from M. Paul Dubois, one of the great artists who do France so much credit, a marble bust of yourself, which I desire to place in the Carlsberg laboratory in token of the services rendered to chemistry, physiology, and beer-manufacture, by your studies on fermentation, a foundation to all future progress in the brewer’s trade.” Paul Dubois’ bust is a masterpiece: it is most characteristic of Pasteur—the deep thoughtful far-away look in his eyes, a somewhat stern expression on his powerful features.

Actuated, like his father, by a feeling of gratitude, the younger Jacobsen had placed a bronze reproduction of this bust in a niche in the wall of the brewery, at the entrance of the Pasteur Street, leading to Ny Carlsberg.

This visit to the brewery was an object lesson to the members of the Congress, who were magnificently entertained by Jacobsen and his son; no better demonstration was ever made of the services which industry may receive from science. In the great laboratory, the physiologist Hansen had succeeded in finding differences in yeast; he had just separated from each other three kinds of yeast, each producing beer with a different flavour.

The French scientists were delighted with the practical sense and delicate feelings of the Danish people. Though they had gone through bitter trials in 1864, though France, England, and Russia had countenanced the unrighteous invasion, in the face of the old treaties which guaranteed to Denmark the possession of Schleswig, the diminished and impoverished nation had not given vent to barren recriminations or declamatory protests. Proudly and silently sorrowing, the Danes had preserved their respect for the past, faith in justice and the cult of their great men. It is a strange thing that Shakespeare should have chosen that land of good sense and well-balanced reason for the surroundings of his mysterious hero, of all men the most haunted by the maddening enigma of destiny.