pasteur had the power of concentrating his thoughts to such a degree that he often, when absorbed in one idea, became absolutely unconscious of what took place around him. at one of the meetings of the académie fran?aise, whilst the dictionary was being discussed, he scribbled the following note on a stray sheet of paper—
“i do not know how to hide my ideas from those who work with me; still, i wish i could have kept those i am going to express a little longer to myself. the experiments have already begun which will decide them.
“it concerns rabies, but the results might be general.
“i am inclined to think that the virus which is considered rabic may be accompanied by a substance which, by impregnating the nervous system, would make it unsuitable for the culture of the microbe. thence vaccinal immunity. if that is so, the theory might be a general one: it would be a stupendous discovery.
“i have just met chamberland in the rue gay-lussac, and explained to him this view and my experiments. he was much struck, and asked my permission to make at once on anthrax the experiment i am about to make on rabies as soon as the dog and the culture rabbits are dead. roux, the day before yesterday, was equally struck.
“académie fran?aise, thursday, january 29, 1885.”
could that vaccinal substance associated with the rabic virus be isolated? in the meanwhile a main fact was acquired, that of preventive inoculation, since pasteur was sure of his series of dogs rendered refractory to rabies after a bite. months were going by without bringing an answer to the question “why?” of the antirabic vaccination, as mysterious as the “why?” of jennerian vaccination.{414}
on monday, july 6, pasteur saw a little alsatian boy, joseph meister, enter his laboratory, accompanied by his mother. he was only nine years old, and had been bitten two days before by a mad dog at meissengott, near schlestadt.
the child, going alone to school by a little by-road, had been attacked by a furious dog and thrown to the ground. too small to defend himself, he had only thought of covering his face with his hands. a bricklayer, seeing the scene from a distance, arrived, and succeeded in beating the dog off with an iron bar; he picked up the boy, covered with blood and saliva. the dog went back to his master, théodore vone, a grocer at meissengott, whom he bit on the arm. vone seized a gun and shot the animal, whose stomach was found to be full of hay, straw, pieces of wood, etc. when little meister’s parents heard all these details they went, full of anxiety, to consult dr. weber, at villé, that same evening. after cauterizing the wounds with carbolic, dr. weber advised mme. meister to start for paris, where she could relate the facts to one who was not a physician, but who would be the best judge of what could be done in such a serious case. théodore vone, anxious on his own and on the child’s account, decided to come also.
pasteur reassured him; his clothes had wiped off the dog’s saliva, and his shirt-sleeve was intact. he might safely go back to alsace, and he promptly did so.
pasteur’s emotion was great at the sight of the fourteen wounds of the little boy, who suffered so much that he could hardly walk. what should he do for this child? could he risk the preventive treatment which had been constantly successful on his dogs? pasteur was divided between his hopes and his scruples, painful in their acuteness. before deciding on a course of action, he made arrangements for the comfort of this poor woman and her child, alone in paris, and gave them an appointment for 5 o’clock, after the institute meeting. he did not wish to attempt anything without having seen vulpian and talked it over with him. since the rabies commission had been constituted, pasteur had formed a growing esteem for the great judgment of vulpian, who, in his lectures on the general and comparative physiology of the nervous system, had already mentioned the profit to human clinics to be drawn from experimenting on animals.
his was a most prudent mind, always seeing all the aspects of a problem. the man was worthy of the scientist: he was{415} absolutely straightforward, and of a discreet and active kindness. he was passionately fond of work, and had recourse to it when smitten by a deep sorrow.
vulpian expressed the opinion that pasteur’s experiments on dogs were sufficiently conclusive to authorize him to foresee the same success in human pathology. why not try this treatment? added the professor, usually so reserved. was there any other efficacious treatment against hydrophobia? if at least the cauterizations had been made with a red-hot iron! but what was the good of carbolic acid twelve hours after the accident. if the almost certain danger which threatened the boy were weighed against the chances of snatching him from death, pasteur would see that it was more than a right, that it was a duty to apply antirabic inoculation to little meister.
this was also the opinion of dr. grancher, whom pasteur consulted. m. grancher worked at the laboratory; he and dr. straus might claim to be the two first french physicians who took up the study of bacteriology; these novel studies fascinated him, and he was drawn to pasteur by the deepest admiration and by a strong affection, which pasteur thoroughly reciprocated.
vulpian and m. grancher examined little meister in the evening, and, seeing the number of bites, some of which, on one hand especially, were very deep, they decided on performing the first inoculation immediately; the substance chosen was fourteen days old and had quite lost its virulence: it was to be followed by further inoculations gradually increasing in strength.
it was a very slight operation, a mere injection into the side (by means of a pravaz syringe) of a few drops of a liquid prepared with some fragments of medulla oblongata. the child, who cried very much before the operation, soon dried his tears when he found the slight prick was all that he had to undergo.
pasteur had had a bedroom comfortably arranged for the mother and child in the old rollin college, and the little boy was very happy amidst the various animals—chickens, rabbits, white mice, guinea-pigs, etc.; he begged and easily obtained of pasteur the life of several of the youngest of them.
“all is going well,” pasteur wrote to his son-in-law on july 11: “the child sleeps well, has a good appetite, and the inoculated matter is absorbed into the system from one day{416} to another without leaving a trace. it is true that i have not yet come to the test inoculations, which will take place on tuesday, wednesday and thursday. if the lad keeps well during the three following weeks, i think the experiment will be safe to succeed. i shall send the child and his mother back to meissengott (near schlestadt) in any case on august 1, giving these good people detailed instruction as to the observations they are to record for me. i shall make no statement before the end of the vacation.”
but, as the inoculations were becoming more virulent, pasteur became a prey to anxiety: “my dear children,” wrote mme. pasteur, “your father has had another bad night; he is dreading the last inoculations on the child. and yet there can be no drawing back now! the boy continues in perfect health.”
renewed hopes were expressed in the following letter from pasteur—
“my dear rené, i think great things are coming to pass. joseph meister has just left the laboratory. the three last inoculations have left some pink marks under the skin, gradually widening and not at all tender. there is some action, which is becoming more intense as we approach the final inoculation, which will take place on thursday, july 16. the lad is very well this morning, and has slept well, though slightly restless; he has a good appetite and no feverishness. he had a slight hysterical attack yesterday.”
the letter ended with an affectionate invitation. “perhaps one of the great medical facts of the century is going to take place; you would regret not having seen it!”
pasteur was going through a succession of hopes, fears, anguish, and an ardent yearning to snatch little meister from death; he could no longer work. at nights, feverish visions came to him of this child whom he had seen playing in the garden, suffocating in the mad struggles of hydrophobia, like the dying child he had seen at the h?pital trousseau in 1880. vainly his experimental genius assured him that the virus of that most terrible of diseases was about to be vanquished, that humanity was about to be delivered from this dread horror—his human tenderness was stronger than all, his accustomed ready sympathy for the sufferings and anxieties of others was for the nonce centred in “the dear lad.”
the treatment lasted ten days; meister was inoculated{417} twelve times. the virulence of the medulla used was tested by trephinings on rabbits, and proved to be gradually stronger. pasteur even inoculated on july 16, at 11 a.m., some medulla only one day old, bound to give hydrophobia to rabbits after only seven days’ incubation; it was the surest test of the immunity and preservation due to the treatment.
cured from his wounds, delighted with all he saw, gaily running about as if he had been in his own alsatian farm, little meister, whose blue eyes now showed neither fear nor shyness, merrily received the last inoculation; in the evening, after claiming a kiss from “dear monsieur pasteur,” as he called him, he went to bed and slept peacefully. pasteur spent a terrible night of insomnia; in those slow dark hours of night when all vision is distorted, pasteur, losing sight of the accumulation of experiments which guaranteed his success, imagined that the little boy would die.
the treatment being now completed, pasteur left little meister to the care of dr. grancher (the lad was not to return to alsace until july 27) and consented to take a few days’ rest. he spent them with his daughter in a quiet, almost deserted country place in burgundy, but without however finding much restfulness in the beautiful peaceful scenery; he lived in constant expectation of dr. grancher’s daily telegram or letter containing news of joseph meister.
by the time he went to the jura, pasteur’s fears had almost disappeared. he wrote from arbois to his son august 3, 1885: “very good news last night of the bitten lad. i am looking forward with great hopes to the time when i can draw a conclusion. it will be thirty-one days to-morrow since he was bitten.”
on august 20, six weeks before the new elections of deputies, léon say, pasteur’s colleague at the académie fran?aise, wrote to him that many beauce agricultors were anxious to put his name down on the list of candidates, as a recognition of the services rendered by science. a few months before, jules simon had thought pasteur might be elected as a life senator, but pasteur had refused to be convinced. he now replied to léon say—
“your proposal touches me very much and it would be agreeable to me to owe a deputy’s mandate to electors, several of whom have applied the results of my investigations. but{418} politics frighten me and i have already refused a candidature in the jura and a seat in the senate in the course of this year.
“i might be tempted perhaps, if i no longer felt active enough for my laboratory work. but i still feel equal to further researches, and on my return to paris, i shall be organizing a ‘service’ against rabies which will absorb all my energies. i now possess a very perfect method of prophylaxis against that terrible disease, a method equally adapted to human beings and to dogs, and by which your much afflicted department will be one of the first to benefit.
“before my departure for jura i dared to treat a poor little nine-year-old lad whose mother brought him to me from alsace, where he had been attacked on the 4th ult., and bitten on the thighs, legs, and hand in such a manner that hydrophobia would have been inevitable. he remains in perfect health.”
whilst many political speeches were being prepared, pasteur was thinking over a literary speech. he had been requested by the académie fran?aise to welcome joseph bertrand, elected in place of j. b. dumas—the eulogium of a scientist, spoken by one scientist, himself welcomed by another scientist. this was an unusual programme for the académie fran?aise, perhaps too unusual in the eyes of pasteur, who did not think himself worthy of speaking in the name of the académie. such was his modesty; he forgot that amongst the savants who had been members of the académie, several, such as fontenelle, cuvier, j. b. dumas, etc., had published immortal pages, and that some extracts from his own works would one day become classical.
the vacation gave him time to read over the writings of his beloved teacher, and also to study the life and works of joseph bertrand, already his colleague at the académie des sciences.
bertrand’s election had been simple and easy, like everything he had undertaken since his birth. it seemed as if a good fairy had leant over his cradle and whispered to him, “thou shalt know many things, without having had to learn them.” it is a fact that he could read without having held a book in his hands. he was ill and in bed whilst his brother alexander was being taught to read; he listened to the lessons and kept the various combinations of letters in his mind. when he became convalescent, his parents brought him a book of natural history so that he might look at the pictures. he took the volume{419} and read from it fluently; he was not five years old. he learnt the elements of geometry very much in the same way.
pasteur in his speech thus described joseph bertrand’s childhood: “at ten years old you were already celebrated, and it was prophesied that you would pass at the head of the list into the ecole polytechnique and become a member of the academy of sciences? no one doubted this, not even yourself. you were indeed a child prodigy. sometimes it amused you to hide in a class of higher mathematics, and when the professor propounded a difficult problem that no one could solve, one of the students would triumphantly lift you in his arms, stand you on a chair so that you might reach the board, and you would then give the required solution with a calm assurance, in the midst of applause from the professors and pupils.”
pasteur, whose every progress had been painfully acquired, admired the ease with which bertrand had passed through the first stages of his career. at an age when marbles and india-rubber balls are usually an important interest, bertrand walked merrily to the jardin des plantes to attend a course of lectures by gay-lussac. a few hours later, he might be seen at the sorbonne, listening with interest to saint marc girardin, the literary moralist. the next day, he would go to a lecture on comparative legislation; never was so young a child seen in such serious places. he borrowed as many books from the institute library as biot himself; he learnt whole passages by heart, merely by glancing at them. he became a doctor ès sciences at sixteen, and a member of the institute at thirty-four.
besides his personal works—such as those on analytic mechanics, which place him in the very first rank—his teaching had been brought to bear during forty years on all branches of mathematics. bertrand’s life, apparently so happy, had been saddened by the irreparable loss, during the commune, of a great many precious notes, letters, and manuscripts, which had been burnt with the house where he had left them. discouraged by this ruin of ten years’ work, he had given way to a tendency to writing slight popular articles, of high literary merit, instead of continuing his deeper scientific work. his eulogy of j. b. dumas was not quite seriously enthusiastic enough to please pasteur, who had a veritable cult for the memory of his old teacher, and who eagerly grasped this opportunity of speaking again of j. b. dumas’ influence on himself, of his admirable scientific discoveries, and of his political duties,{420} undertaken in the hope of being useful to science, but often proving a source of disappointment.
pasteur enjoyed looking back on the beloved memory of j. b. dumas, as he sat preparing his speech in his study at arbois, looking out on the familiar landscape of his childhood, where the progress of practical science was evidenced by the occasional passing, through the distant pine woods, of the white smoke of the switzerland express.
when in his laboratory in paris, pasteur hated to be disturbed whilst making experiments or writing out notes of his work. any visitor was unwelcome; one day that some one was attempting to force his way in, m. roux was amused at seeing pasteur—vexed at being disturbed and anxious not to pain the visitor—come out to say imploringly, “oh! not now, please! i am too busy!”
“when chamberland and i,” writes dr. roux, “were engaged in an interesting occupation, he mounted guard before us, and when, through the glazed doors, he saw people coming, he himself would go and meet them in order to send them away. he showed so artlessly that his sole thought was for the work, that no one ever could be offended.”
but, at arbois, where he only spent his holidays, he did not exercise so much severity; any one could come in who liked. he received in the morning a constant stream of visitors, begging for advice, recommendations, interviews, etc.
“it is both comical and touching,” wrote m. girard, a local journalist, “to see the opinion the vineyard labourers have of him. these good people have heard m. pasteur’s name in connection with the diseases of wine, and they look upon him as a sort of wine doctor. if they notice a barrel of wine getting sour, they knock at the savant’s door, bottle in hand; this door is never closed to them. peasants are not precise in their language; they do not know how to begin their explanations or how to finish them. m. pasteur, ever calm and serious, listens to the very end, takes the bottle and studies it at his leisure. a week later, the wine is ‘cured.’”
he was consulted also on many other subjects—virus, silkworms, rabies, cholera, swine-fever, etc.; many took him for a physician. whilst telling them of their mistake, he yet did everything he could for them.
during this summer of 1885, he had the melancholy joy of seeing a bust erected in the village of monay to the memory of{421} a beloved friend of his, j. j. perraud, a great and inspired sculptor, who had died in 1876. perraud, whose magnificent statue of despair is now at the louvre, had had a sad life, and, on his lonely death-bed (he was a widower, with no children), pasteur’s tender sympathy had been an unspeakable comfort. pasteur now took a leading part in the celebration of his friend’s fame, and was glad to speak to the assembled villagers at monay of the great and disinterested artist who had been born in their midst.
on his return to paris, pasteur found himself obliged to hasten the organization of a “service” for the preventive treatment of hydrophobia after a bite. the mayors of villers-farlay, in the jura, wrote to him that, on october 14, a shepherd had been cruelly bitten by a rabid dog.
six little shepherd boys were watching over their sheep in a meadow; suddenly they saw a large dog passing along the road, with hanging, foaming jaws.
“a mad dog!” they exclaimed. the dog, seeing the children, left the road and charged them; they ran away shrieking, but the eldest of them, j. b. jupille, fourteen years of age, bravely turned back in order to protect the flight of his comrades. armed with his whip, he confronted the infuriated animal, who flew at him and seized his left hand. jupille, wrestling with the dog, succeeded in kneeling on him, and forcing its jaws open in order to disengage his left hand; in so doing, his right hand was seriously bitten in its turn; finally, having been able to get hold of the animal by the neck, jupille called to his little brother to pick up his whip, which had fallen during the struggle, and securely fastened the dog’s jaws with the lash. he then took his wooden sabot, with which he battered the dog’s head, after which, in order to be sure that it could do no further harm, he dragged the body down to a little stream in the meadow, and held the head under water for several minutes. death being now certain, and all danger removed from his comrades, jupille returned to villers-farlay.
whilst the boy’s wounds were being bandaged, the dog’s carcase was fetched, and a necropsy took place the next day. the two veterinary surgeons who examined the body had not the slightest hesitation in declaring that the dog was rabid.
the mayor of villers-farlay, who had been to see pasteur during the summer, wrote to tell him that this lad would die{422} a victim of his own courage unless the new treatment intervened. the answer came immediately: pasteur declared that, after five years’ study, he had succeeded in making dogs refractory to rabies, even six or eight days after being bitten; that he had only once yet applied his method to a human being, but that once with success, in the case of little meister, and that, if jupille’s family consented, the boy might be sent to him. “i shall keep him near me in a room of my laboratory; he will be watched and need not go to bed; he will merely receive a daily prick, not more painful than a pin-prick.”
the family, on hearing this letter, came to an immediate decision; but, between the day when he was bitten and jupille’s arrival in paris, six whole days had elapsed, whilst in meister’s case there had only been two and a half!
yet, however great were pasteur’s fears for the life of this tall lad, who seemed quite surprised when congratulated on his courageous conduct, they were not what they had been in the first instance—he felt much greater confidence.
a few days later, on october 26, pasteur in a statement at the academy of sciences described the treatment followed for meister. three months and three days had passed, and the child remained perfectly well. then he spoke of his new attempt. vulpian rose—
“the academy will not be surprised,” he said, “if, as a member of the medical and surgical section, i ask to be allowed to express the feelings of admiration inspired in me by m. pasteur’s statement. i feel certain that those feelings will be shared by the whole of the medical profession.
“hydrophobia, that dread disease against which all therapeutic measures had hitherto failed, has at last found a remedy. m. pasteur, who has been preceded by no one in this path, has been led by a series of investigations unceasingly carried on for several years, to create a method of treatment, by means of which the development of hydrophobia can infallibly be prevented in a patient recently bitten by a rabid dog. i say infallibly, because, after what i have seen in m. pasteur’s laboratory, i do not doubt the constant success of this treatment when it is put into full practice a few days only after a rabic bite.
“it is now necessary to see about organizing an installation for the treatment of hydrophobia by m. pasteur’s method. every person bitten by a rabid dog must be given the oppor{423}tunity of benefiting by this great discovery, which will seal the fame of our illustrious colleague and bring glory to our whole country.”
pasteur had ended his reading by a touching description of jupille’s action, leaving the assembly under the impression of that boy of fourteen, sacrificing himself to save his companions. an academician, baron larrey, whose authority was rendered all the greater by his calmness, dignity, and moderation, rose to speak. after acknowledging the importance of pasteur’s discovery, larrey continued, “the sudden inspiration, agility and courage, with which the ferocious dog was muzzled, and thus made incapable of committing further injury to bystanders, ... such an act of bravery deserves to be rewarded. i therefore have the honour of begging the académie des sciences to recommend to the académie fran?aise this young shepherd, who, by giving such a generous example of courage and devotion, has well deserved a montyon prize.”
bouley, then chairman of the academy, rose to speak in his turn—
“we are entitled to say that the date of the present meeting will remain for ever memorable in the history of medicine, and glorious for french science; for it is that of one of the greatest steps ever accomplished in the medical order of things—a progress realized by the discovery of an efficacious means of preventive treatment for a disease, the incurable nature of which was a legacy handed down by one century to another. from this day, humanity is armed with a means of fighting the fatal disease of hydrophobia and of preventing its onset. it is to m. pasteur that we owe this, and we could not feel too much admiration or too much gratitude for the efforts on his part which have led to such a magnificent result....”
five years previously, bouley, in the annual combined public meeting of the five academies, had proclaimed his enthusiasm for the discovery of the vaccination of anthrax. but on hearing him again on this october day, in 1885, his colleagues could not but be painfully struck by the change in him; his voice was weak, his face thin and pale. he was dying of an affection of the heart, and quite aware of it, but he was sustained by a wonderful energy, and ready to forget his sufferings in his joy at the thought that the sum of human sorrows would be diminished by pasteur’s victory. he went to the académie{424} de médecine the next day to enjoy the echo of the great sitting of the académie des sciences. he died on november 29.
the chairman of the academy of medicine, m. jules bergeron, applauded pasteur’s statement all the more that he too had publicly deplored (in 1862) the impotence of medical science in the presence of this cruel disease.
but while m. bergeron shared the admiration felt by vulpian and dr. grancher for the experiments which had transformed the rabic virus into its own vaccine, other medical men were divided into several categories: some were full of enthusiasm, others reserved their opinion, many were sceptical, and a few even positively hostile.
as soon as pasteur’s paper was published, people bitten by rabid dogs began to arrive from all sides to the laboratory. the “service” of hydrophobia became the chief business of the day. every morning was spent by eugène viala in preparing the fragments of marrow used for inoculations: in a little room permanently kept at a temperature of 20° to 23° c., stood rows of sterilized flasks, their tubular openings closed by plugs of cotton-wool. each flask contained a rabic marrow, hanging from the stopper by a thread and gradually drying up by the action of some fragments of caustic potash lying at the bottom of the flask. viala cut those marrows into small pieces by means of scissors previously put through a flame, and placed them in small sterilized glasses; he then added a few drops of veal broth and pounded the mixture with a glass rod. the vaccinal liquid was now ready; each glass was covered with a paper cover, and bore the date of the medulla used, the earliest of which was fourteen days old. for each patient under treatment from a certain date, there was a whole series of little glasses. pasteur always attended these operations personally.
in the large hall of the laboratory, pasteur’s collaborators, messrs. chamberland and roux, carried on investigations into contagious diseases under the master’s directions; the place was full of flasks, pipets, phials, containing culture broths. etienne wasserzug, another curator, hardly more than a boy, fresh from the ecole normale, where his bright intelligence and affectionate heart had made him very popular, translated (for he knew the english, german, italian, hungarian and spanish languages, and was awaiting a favourable opportunity of learning russian) the letters which arrived from all parts of the{425} world; he also entertained foreign scientists. pasteur had in him a most valuable interpreter. physicians came from all parts of the world asking to be allowed to study the details of the method. one morning, dr. grancher found pasteur listening to a physician who was gravely and solemnly holding forth his objections to microbian doctrines, and in particular to the treatment of hydrophobia. pasteur having heard this long monologue, rose and said, “sir, your language is not very intelligible to me. i am not a physician and do not desire to be one. never speak to me of your dogma of morbid spontaneity. i am a chemist; i carry out experiments and i try to understand what they teach me. what do you think, doctor?” he added, turning to m. grancher. the latter smilingly answered that the hour for inoculations had struck. they took place at eleven, in pasteur’s study; he, standing by the open door, called out the names of the patients. the date and circumstances of the bites and the veterinary surgeon’s certificate were entered in a register, and the patients were divided into series according to the degree of virulence which was to be inoculated on each day of the period of treatment.
pasteur took a personal interest in each of his patients, helping those who were poor and illiterate to find suitable lodgings in the great capital. children especially inspired him with a loving solicitude. but his pity was mingled with terror, when, on november 9, a little girl of ten was brought to him who had been severely bitten on the head by a mountain dog, on october 3, thirty-seven days before!! the wound was still suppurating. he said to himself, “this is a hopeless case: hydrophobia is no doubt about to appear immediately; it is much too late for the preventive treatment to have the least chance of success. should i not, in the scientific interest of the method, refuse to treat this child? if the issue is fatal, all those who have already been treated will be frightened, and many bitten persons, discouraged from coming to the laboratory, may succumb to the disease!” these thoughts rapidly crossed pasteur’s mind. but he found himself unable to resist his compassion for the father and mother, begging him to try and save their child.
after the treatment was over, louise pelletier had returned to school, when fits of breathlessness appeared, soon followed by convulsive spasms; she could swallow nothing. pasteur hastened to her side when these symptoms began, and new inoculations were attempted. on december 2, there was a{426} respite of a few hours, moments of calm which inspired pasteur with the vain hope that she might yet be saved. this delusion was a short-lived one. after attending bouley’s funeral, his heart full of sorrow, pasteur spent the day by little louise’s bedside, in her parents’ rooms in the rue dauphine. he could not tear himself away; she herself, full of affection for him, gasped out a desire that he should not go away, that he should stay with her! she felt for his hand between two spasms. pasteur shared the grief of the father and mother. when all hope had to be abandoned: “i did so wish i could have saved your little one!” he said. and as he came down the staircase, he burst into tears.
he was obliged, a few days later, to preside at the reception of joseph bertrand at the académie fran?aise; his sad feelings little in harmony with the occasion. he read in a mournful and troubled voice the speech he had prepared during his peaceful and happy holidays at arbois. henry houssaye, reporting on this ceremony in the journal des débats, wrote, “m. pasteur ended his speech amidst a torrent of applause, he received a veritable ovation. he seemed unaccountably moved. how can m. pasteur, who has received every mark of admiration, every supreme honour, whose name is consecrated by universal renown, still be touched by anything save the discoveries of his powerful genius?” people did not realize that pasteur’s thoughts were far away from himself and from his brilliant discovery. he was thinking of dumas, his master, of bouley, his faithful friend and colleague, and of the child he had been unable to snatch from the jaws of death; his mind was not with the living, but with the dead.
a telegram from new york having announced that four children, bitten by rabid dogs, were starting for paris, many adversaries who had heard of louise pelletier’s death were saying triumphantly that, if those children’s parents had known of her fate, they would have spared them so long and useless a journey.
the four little americans belonged to workmen’s families and were sent to paris by means of a public subscription opened in the columns of the new york herald; they were accompanied by a doctor and by the mother of the youngest of them, a boy only five years old. after the first inoculation, this little boy, astonished at the insignificant prick, could not help saying, “is this all we have come such a long journey for?” the{427} children were received with enthusiasm on their return to new york, and were asked “many questions about the great man who had taken such care of them.”
a letter dated from that time (january 14, 1886) shows that pasteur yet found time for kindness, in the midst of his world-famed occupations.
“my dear jupille, i have received your letters, and i am much pleased with the news you give me of your health. mme. pasteur thanks you for remembering her. she, and every one at the laboratory, join with me in wishing that you may keep well and improve as much as possible in reading, writing and arithmetic. your writing is already much better than it was, but you should take some pains with your spelling. where do you go to school? who teaches you? do you work at home as much as you might? you know that joseph meister, who was first to be vaccinated, often writes to me; well, i think he is improving more quickly than you are, though he is only ten years old. so, mind you take pains, do not waste your time with other boys, and listen to the advice of your teachers, and of your father and mother. remember me to m. perrot, the mayor of villers-farlay. perhaps, without him, you would have become ill, and to be ill of hydrophobia means inevitable death; therefore you owe him much gratitude. good-bye. keep well.”
pasteur’s solicitude did not confine itself to his two first patients, joseph meister and the fearless jupille, but was extended to all those who had come under his care; his kindness was like a living flame. the very little ones who then only saw in him a “kind gentleman” bending over them understood later in life, when recalling the sweet smile lighting up his serious face, that science, thus understood, unites moral with intellectual grandeur.
good, like evil, is infectious; pasteur’s science and devotion inspired an act of generosity which was to be followed by many others. he received a visit from one of his colleagues at the académie fran?aise, edouard hervé, who looked upon journalism as a great responsibility and as a school of mutual respect between adversaries. he was bringing to pasteur, from the comte de laubespin, a generous philanthropist, a sum of 40,000 fr. destined to meet the expenses necessitated by the organization of the hydrophobia treatment. pasteur, when{428} questioned by hervé, answered that his intention was to found a model establishment in paris, supported by donations and international subscriptions, without having recourse to the state. but he added that he wanted to wait a little longer until the success of the treatment was undoubted. statistics came to support it; bouley, who had been entrusted with an official inquiry on the subject under the empire, had found that the proportion of deaths after bites from rabid dogs had been 40 per 100, 320 cases having been watched. the proportion often was greater still: whilst joseph meister was under pasteur’s care, five persons were bitten by a rabid dog on the pantin road, near paris, and every one of them succumbed to hydrophobia.
pasteur, instead of referring to bouley’s statistics, preferred to adopt those of m. leblanc, a veterinary surgeon and a member of the academy of medicine, who had for a long time been head of the sanitary department of the préfecture de police. these statistics only gave a proportion of deaths of 16 per 100, and had been carefully and accurately kept.
on march 1, he was able to affirm, before the academy, that the new method had given proofs of its merit, for, out of 350 persons treated, only one death had taken place, that of the little pelletier. he concluded thus—
“it may be seen, by comparison with the most rigorous statistics, that a very large number of persons have already been saved from death.
“the prophylaxis of hydrophobia after a bite is established.
“it is advisable to create a vaccinal institute against hydrophobia.”
the academy of sciences appointed a commission who unanimously adopted the suggestion that an establishment for the preventive treatment of hydrophobia after a bite should be created in paris, under the name of institut pasteur. a subscription was about to be opened in france and abroad. the spending of the funds would be directed by a special committee.
a great wave of enthusiasm and generosity swept from one end of france to another and reached foreign countries. a newspaper of milan, the perseveranza, which had opened a subscription, collected 6,000 fr. in its first list. the journal d’alsace headed a propaganda in favour of this work, “sprung from science and charity.” it reminded its readers that pasteur had occupied a professor’s chair in the former brilliant{429} faculty of science of strasburg, and that his first inoculation was made on an alsatian boy, joseph meister. the newspaper intended to send the subscriptions to pasteur with these words: “offerings from alsace-lorraine to the pasteur institute.”
the war of 1870 still darkened the memories of nations. amongst eager and numerous inventions of instruments of death and destruction, humanity breathed when fresh news came from the laboratory, where a continued struggle was taking place against diseases. the most mysterious, the most cruel of all was going to be reduced to impotence.
yet the method was about to meet with a few more cases like louise pelletier’s; accidents would result, either from delay or from exceptionally serious wounds. happy days were still in store for those who sowed doubt and hatred.
during the early part of march, pasteur received nineteen russians, coming from the province of smolensk. they had been attacked by a rabid wolf and most of them had terrible wounds: one of them, a priest, had been surprised by the infuriated beast as he was going into church, his upper lip and right cheek had been torn off, his face was one gaping wound. another, the youngest of them, had had the skin of his forehead torn off by the wolf’s teeth; other bites were like knife cuts. five of these unhappy wretches were in such a condition that they had to be carried to the h?tel dieu hospital as soon as they arrived.
the russian doctor who had accompanied these mujiks related how the wolf had wandered for two days and two nights, tearing to pieces every one he met, and how he had finally been struck down with an axe by one of those he had bitten most severely.
because of the gravity of the wounds, and in order to make up for the time lost by the russians before they started, pasteur decided on making two inoculations every day, one in the morning and one in the evening; the patients at the h?tel dieu could be inoculated upon at the hospital.
the fourteen others came every morning in their touloupes and fur caps, with their wounds bandaged, and joined without a word the motley groups awaiting treatment at the laboratory—an english family, a basque peasant, a hungarian in his national costume, etc., etc.{430}
in the evening, the dumb and resigned band of mujiks came again to the laboratory door. they seemed led by fate, heedless of the struggle between life and death of which they were the prize. “pasteur” was the only french word they knew, and their set and melancholy faces brightened in his presence as with a ray of hope and gratitude.
their condition was the more alarming that a whole fortnight had elapsed between their being bitten and the date of the first inoculations. statistics were terrifying as to the results of wolf-bites, the average proportion of deaths being 82 per 100. general anxiety and excitement prevailed concerning the hapless russians, and the news of the death of three of them produced an intense emotion.
pasteur had unceasingly continued his visits to the h?tel dieu. he was overwhelmed with grief. his confidence in his method was in no wise shaken, the general results would not allow it. but questions of statistics were of little account in his eyes when he was the witness of a misfortune; his charity was not of that kind which is exhausted by collective generalities: each individual appealed to his heart. as he passed through the wards at the h?tel dieu, each patient in his bed inspired him with deep compassion. and that is why so many who only saw him pass, heard his voice, met his pitiful eyes resting on them, have preserved of him a memory such as the poor had of st. vincent de paul.
“the other russians are keeping well so far,” declared pasteur at the academy sitting of april 12, 1886. whilst certain opponents in france continued to discuss the three deaths and apparently saw nought but those failures, the return of the sixteen survivors was greeted with an almost religious emotion. other russians had come before them and were saved, and the tsar, knowing these things, desired his brother, the grand duke vladimir, to bring to pasteur an imperial gift, the cross of the order of st. anne of russia, in diamonds. he did more, he gave 100,000 fr. in aid of the proposed pasteur institute.
in april, 1886, the english government, seeing the practical results of the method for the prophylaxis of hydrophobia, appointed a commission to study and verify the facts. sir james paget was the president of it, and the other members were:—dr. lauder-brunton, mr. fleming, sir joseph lister, dr. quain, sir henry roscoe, professor burdon sanderson, and{431} mr. victor horsley, secretary. the résumé of the programme was as follows—
development of the rabic virus in the medulla oblongata of animals dying of rabies.
transmission of this virus by subdural or subcutaneous inoculation.
intensification of this virus by successive passages from rabbit to rabbit.
possibility either of protecting healthy animals from ulterior bites from rabid animals, or of preventing the onset of rabies in animals already bitten, by means of vaccinal inoculations.
applications of this method to man and value of its results.
burdon sanderson and horsley came to paris, and two rabbits, inoculated on by pasteur, were taken to england; a series of experiments was to be begun on them, and an inquiry was to take place afterwards concerning patients treated both in france and in england. pasteur, who lost his temper at prejudices and ill-timed levity, approved and solicited inquiry and careful examination.
long lists of subscribers appeared in the journal officiel—millionaires, poor workmen, students, women, etc. a great festival was organized at the trocadéro in favour of the pasteur institute; the greatest artistes offered their services. coquelin recited verses written for the occasion which excited loud applause from the immense audience. gounod, who had conducted his ave maria, turned round after the closing bars, and, in an impulse of heartfelt enthusiasm, kissed both his hands to the savant.
in the evening at a banquet, pasteur thanked his colleagues and the organizers of this incomparable performance. “was it not,” he said, “a touching sight, that of those immortal composers, those great charmers of fortunate humanity coming to the assistance of those who wish to study and to serve suffering humanity? and you too come, great artistes, great actors, like so many generals re-entering the ranks to give greater vigour to a common feeling. i cannot easily describe what i felt. dare i confess that i was hearing most of you for the first time? i do not think i have spent more than ten evenings of my whole life at a theatre. but i can have no regrets now that you have given me, in a few hours’ interval, as in an exquisite synthesis, the feelings that so many others scatter over several months, or rather several years.{432}”
a few days later, the subscription from alsace-lorraine brought in 43,000 fr. pasteur received it with grateful emotion, and was pleased and touched to find the name of little joseph meister among the list of private subscribers. it was now eleven months since he had been bitten so cruelly by the dog, whose rabic condition had immediately been recognized by the german authorities. pasteur ever kept a corner of his heart for the boy who had caused him such anxiety.
pasteur’s name was now familiar to all those who were trying to benefit humanity; his presence at charitable gatherings was considered as a happy omen, and he was asked to preside on many such occasions. he was ever ready with his help and sympathy, speaking in public, answering letters from private individuals, giving wholesome advice to young people who came to him for it, and doing nothing by halves. if he found the time, even during that period when the study of rabies was absorbing him, to undertake so many things and to achieve so many tasks, he owed it to mme. pasteur, who watched over his peace, keeping him safe from intrusions and interruptions. this retired, almost recluse life, enabled him to complete many works, a few of which would have sufficed to make several scientists celebrated.
every morning, between ten and eleven o’clock, pasteur walked down the rue claude-bernard to the rue vauquelin, where a few temporary buildings had been erected to facilitate the treatment of hydrophobia, close to the rabbit hutches, hencoops, and dog kennels which occupied the yard of the old collège rollin. the patients under treatment walked about cheerfully amidst these surroundings, looking like holiday makers in a zoological garden. children, whose tears were already dried at the second inoculation, ran about merrily. pasteur, who loved the little ones, always kept sweets or new copper coins for them in his drawer. one little girl amused herself by having holes bored in those coins, and hung them round her neck like a necklace; she was wearing this ornament on the day of her departure, when she ran to kiss the great man as she would have kissed her grandfather.
drs. grancher, roux, chantemesse, and charrin came by turns to perform the inoculations. a surgery ward had been installed to treat the numerous wounds of the patients, and entrusted to the young and energetic dr. terrillon.{433}
in august, 1886, while staying at arbois, pasteur spent much time over his notes and registers; he was sometimes tempted to read over certain articles of passionate criticism. “how difficult it is to obtain the triumph of truth!” he would say. “opposition is a useful stimulant, but bad faith is such a pitiable thing. how is it that they are not struck with the results as shown by statistics? from 1880 to 1885, sixty persons are stated to have died of hydrophobia in the paris hospitals; well, since november 1, 1885, when the prophylactic method was started in my laboratory, only three deaths have occurred in those hospitals, two of which were cases which had not been treated. it is evident that very few people who had been bitten did not come to be treated. in france, out of that unknown but very restricted number, seventeen cases of death have been noted, whilst out of the 1,726 french and algerians who came to the laboratory only ten died after the treatment.”
but pasteur was not yet satisfied with this proportion, already so low; he was trying to forestall the outburst of hydrophobia by a greater rapidity and intensity of the treatment. he read a paper on the subject to the academy of sciences on november 2, 1886. admiral jurien de la gravière, who was in the chair, said to him, “all great discoveries have gone through a time of trial. may your health withstand the troubles and difficulties in your way.”
pasteur’s health had indeed suffered from so much work and anxiety, and there were symptoms of some heart trouble. drs. villemin and grancher persuaded him to interrupt his work and to think of spending a restful winter in the south of france. m. raphael bischoffsheim, a great lover of science, placed at pasteur’s disposal his beautiful villa at bordighera, close to the french frontier, which he had on divers occasions lent to other distinguished guests, the queen of italy, henri sainte-claire deville, gambetta, etc.
pasteur consented to leave his work at the end of november, and started one evening from the gare de lyon with his wife, his daughter and her husband, and his two grandchildren; eighteen friends came to the station to see him off, including his pupils, m. bischoffsheim, and some foreign physicians who were staying in paris to study the prophylactic treatment of hydrophobia.
the bright dawn and the sunshine already appearing at{434} avignon contrasted with the foggy november weather left behind in paris and brought a feeling of comfort, almost of returning health; a delegation of doctors met the train at nice, bringing pasteur their good wishes.
the travelling party drove from vintimille to bordighera under the deep blue sky reflected in a sea of a yet deeper blue, along a road bordered with cacti, palms and other tropical plants. the sight of the lovely gardens of the villa bischoffsheim gave pasteur a delicious feeling of rest.
his health soon improved sufficiently for him to be able to take some short walks. but his thoughts constantly recurred to the laboratory. m. duclaux was then thinking of starting a monthly periodical entitled annals of the pasteur institute. pasteur, writing to him on december 27, 1887, to express his approbation, suggested various experiments to be attempted. he attributed the action of the preventive inoculations to a vaccinal matter associated with the rabic microbe. pasteur had thought at first that the first development of the pathogenic microbe caused the disappearance from the organism of an element necessary to the life of that microbe. it was, in other words, a theory of exhaustion. but since 1885, he adopted the other idea, supported indeed by biologists, that immunity was due to a substance left in the body by the culture of the microbe and which opposed the invasion—a theory of addition.
“i am happy to learn,” wrote villemin, his friend and his medical adviser, “that your health is improving; continue to rest in that beautiful country, you have well deserved it, and rest is absolutely necessary to you. you have overtaxed yourself beyond all reason and you must make up for it. repairs to the nervous system are worked chiefly by relaxation from the mental storms and moral anxieties which your rabid work has occasioned in you. give the bordighera sun a chance!”
but pasteur was not allowed the rest he so much needed; on january 4, 1887, referring to a death which had occurred after treatment in the preceding december, m. peter declared that the antirabic cure was useless; at the following meeting he called it dangerous when applied in the “intensive” form. dujardin-beaumetz, chauveau and verneuil immediately intervened, declaring that the alleged fact was “devoid of any scientific character.” a week later, mm. grancher and brouardel bore the brunt of the discussion. grancher, pasteur’s representative on this occasion, disproved certain allegations, and{435} added: “the medical men who have been chosen by m. pasteur to assist him in his work have not hesitated to practise the antirabic inoculation on themselves, as a safeguard against an accidental inoculation of the virus which they are constantly handling. what greater proof can they give of their bona fide convictions?” he showed that the mortality amongst the cases treated remained below 1 per 100. “m. pasteur will soon publish foreign statistics from samara, moscow, st. petersburg, odessa, warsaw and vienna: they are all absolutely favourable.”
as it was insinuated that the laboratory of the ecole normale kept its failures a secret, it was decided that the annals of the pasteur institute would publish a monthly list and bulletin of patients under treatment.
vulpian, at another meeting (it was almost the last time he was heard at the académie de médecine), said, à propos of what he called an inexcusable opposition, “this new benefit adds to the number of those which our illustrious pasteur has already rendered to humanity.... our works and our names will soon be buried under the rising tide of oblivion: the name and the works of m. pasteur will continue to stand on heights too great to be reached by its sullen waves.” pasteur was much disturbed by the noise of these discussions; every post increased his feverishness, and he spoke every morning of returning to paris to answer his opponents.
it was a pitiful thing to note on his worn countenance the visible signs of the necessity of the peace and rest offered by this beautiful land of serene sunshine; and to hear at the same time a constant echo of those angry debates. anonymous letters were sent to him, insulting newspaper articles—all that envy and hatred can invent; the seamy side of human nature was being revealed to him. “i did not know i had so many enemies,” he said mournfully. he was consoled to some extent by the ardent support of the greatest medical men in france.
vulpian, in a statement to the académie des sciences, constituted himself pasteur’s champion. pasteur indeed was safe from attacks in that centre, but certain low slanderers who attended the public meetings of the académie continued to accuse pasteur of concealing the failures of his method. vulpian—who was furiously angry at such an insinuation against “a man like m. pasteur, whose good faith, loyalty and scientific integrity should be an example to his adversaries as they are to{436} his friends”—thought that it was in the interest both of science and of humanity to state once more the facts recently confirmed by new statistics; the public is so impressionable and so mobile in its opinions that one article is often enough to shake general confidence. he was therefore anxious to reassure all those who had been inoculated on and who might be induced by those discussions to wonder with anguish whether they really were saved. the academy of sciences decided that vulpian’s statement should be inserted in extenso in all the reports and a copy of it sent to every village in france. vulpian wrote to pasteur at the same time, “all your admirers hope that those interested attacks will merely excite your contempt. fine weather is no doubt reigning at bordighera: you must take advantage of it and become quite well.... the academy of medicine is almost entirely on your side; there are at the most but four or five exceptions.”
pasteur had a few calm days after these debates. whilst planning out new investigations, he was much interested in the plans for his institute which were now submitted to him. his thoughts were always away from bordighera, which he seemed to look upon as a sort of exile. this impression was partly due to the situation of the town, so close to the frontier, and the haunt of so many homeless wanderers. he once met a sad-faced, still beautiful woman, in mourning robes, and recognized the empress eugénie.
shortly afterwards, he received a visit from prince napoleon, who dragged his haughty ennui from town to town. he presented himself at the villa bischoffsheim under the name of count moncalieri, coming, he said, to greet his colleague of the institute. rabies formed the subject of their conversation. the next day, pasteur called on the prince, in his commonplace hotel rooms, a mere temporary resting place for the exiled bonaparte, whose mysterious, uncompleted destiny was made more enigmatical by his startling resemblance to the great emperor.
on february 23, the day after the carnival, early in the morning, a violent earthquake cast terror over that peaceful land where nature hides with flowers the spectre of death. at 6.20 a.m. a low and distant rumbling sound was heard, coming from the depths of the earth and resembling the noise of a train passing in an underground tunnel; houses began to rock and{437} ominous cracks were heard. this first shock lasted more than a minute, during which the sense of solidity disappeared altogether, to be succeeded by a feeling of absolute, hopeless, impotence. no doubt, in every household, families gathered together, with a sudden yearning not to be divided. pasteur’s wife, children and grandchildren had barely had time to come to him when another shock took place, more terrible than the first; everything seemed about to be engulfed in an abyss. never had morning been more radiant; there was not a breath of wind, the air was absolutely transparent.
an early departure was necessary: the broken ceilings were dropping to pieces, shaken off by an incessant vibration of the ground which continued after the second shock, and of which pasteur observed the effect on glass windows with much interest. pasteur and his family dove off to vintimille in a carriage, along a road lined with ruined houses, crowded with sick people in quest of carriages and peasants coming down from their mountain dwellings, destroyed by the shock, leading donkeys loaded with bedding, the women followed by little children hastily wrapt in blankets and odd clothes. at vintimille station, terrified travellers were trying to leave france for italy or italy for france, fancying that the danger would cease on the other side of the frontier.
“we have resolved to go to arbois,” wrote mme. pasteur to her son from marseilles; “your father will be better able there than anywhere else to recover from this shock to his heart.”
after a few weeks’ stay at arbois, pasteur seemed quite well again. he was received with respect and veneration on his return to the academies of sciences and of medicine. his best and greatest colleagues had realized what the loss of him would mean to france and to the world, and surrounded him with an anxious solicitude.
at the beginning of july, pasteur received the report presented to the house of commons by the english commission after a fourteen months’ study of the prophylactic method against hydrophobia. the english scientists had verified every one of the facts upon which the method was founded, but they had not been satisfied with their experimental researches in mr. horsley’s laboratory, and had carried out a long and minute inquiry in france. after noting on pasteur’s registers the names of ninety persons treated, who had come from the same{438} neighbourhood, they had interviewed each one of them in their own homes. “it may therefore be considered as certain”—thus ran the report—“that m. pasteur has discovered a prophylactic method against hydrophobia which may be compared with that of vaccination against small-pox. it would be difficult to overestimate the utility of this discovery, both from the point of view of its practical side and of its application to general pathology. we have here a new method of inoculation, or vaccination, as m. pasteur sometimes calls it, and similar means might be employed to protect man and domestic animals against other virus as active as that of hydrophobia.”
pasteur laid this report on the desk of the academy of sciences on july 4. he spoke of its spirit of entire and unanimous confidence, and added—
“thus fall to the ground the contradictions which have been published. i leave on one side the passionate attacks which were not justified by the least attempt at experiment, the slightest observation of facts in my laboratory, or even an exchange of words and ideas with the director of the hydrophobia clinic, professor grancher, and his medical assistants.
“but, however deep is my satisfaction as a frenchman, i cannot but feel a sense of deepest sadness at the thought that this high testimony from a commission of illustrious scientists was not known by him who, at the very beginning of the application of this method, supported me by his counsels and his authority, and who later on, when i was ill and absent, knew so well how to champion truth and justice; i mean our beloved colleague vulpian.”
vulpian had succumbed to a few days’ illness. his speech in favour of pasteur was almost the farewell to the academy of this great-hearted scientist.
the discussion threatened to revive. other colleagues defended pasteur at the academy of medicine on july 12. professor brouardel spoke, also m. villemin, and then charcot, who insisted on quoting word for word vulpian’s true and simple phrase: “the discovery of the preventive treatment of hydrophobia after a bite, entirely due to m. pasteur’s experimental genius, is one of the finest discoveries ever made, both from the scientific and the humanitarian point of view.” and charcot continued: “i am persuaded that i express in these words the opinion of all the medical men who have studied the question with an open mind, free from prejudice; the{439} inventor of antirabic vaccination may, now more than ever, hold his head high and continue to accomplish his glorious task, heedless of the clamour of systematic contradiction or of the insidious murmurs of slander.”
the academy of sciences begged pasteur to become its life secretary in vulpian’s place. pasteur did not reply at once to this offer, but went to see m. berthelot: “this high position,” he said, “would be more suitable to you than to me.” m. berthelot, much touched, refused unconditionally, and pasteur accepted. he was elected on july 18. he said, in thanking his colleagues, “i would now spend what time remains before me, on the one hand in encouraging to research and in training for scientific studies,—the future of which seems to me most promising,—pupils worthy of french science; and, on the other hand, in following attentively the work incited and encouraged by this academy.
“our only consolation, as we feel our own strength failing us, is to feel that we may help those who come after us to do more and to do better than ourselves, fixing their eyes as they can on the great horizons of which we only had a glimpse.”
he did not long fulfil his new duties. on october 23, sunday morning, after writing a letter in his room, he tried to speak to mme. pasteur and could not pronounce a word; his tongue was paralyzed. he had promised to lunch with his daughter on that day, and, fearing that she might be alarmed, he drove to her house. after spending a few hours in an easy chair, he consented to remain at her house with mme. pasteur. in the evening his speech returned, and two days later, when he went back to the ecole normale, no one would have noticed any change in him. but, on the following saturday morning, he had another almost similar attack, without any premonitory symptoms. his speech remained somewhat difficult, and his deep powerful voice completely lost its strength. in january, 1888, he was obliged to resign his secretaryship.
ill-health had emaciated his features. a portrait of him by carolus duran represents him looking ill and weary, a sad look in his eyes. but goodness predominates in those worn features, revealing that lovable soul, full of pity for all human sufferings, and of which the painter has rendered the unspeakable thrill.
pasteur’s various portraits, compared with one another, show us different aspects of his physiognomy. a luminous profile, painted by henner ten years before, brings out the powerful{440} harmony of the forehead. in 1886, bonnat painted, for the brewer jacobsen, who wished to present it to mme. pasteur, a large portrait which may be called an official one. pasteur is standing in rather an artificial attitude, which might be imperious, if his left hand was not resting on the shoulder of his granddaughter, a child of six, with clear pensive eyes. in that same year, edelfeldt, the finnish painter, begged to be allowed to come into the laboratory for a few sketches. pasteur came and went, attending to his work and taking no notice of the painter. one day that edelfeldt was watching him thus, deep in observation, his forehead lined with almost painful thoughts, he undertook to portray the savant in his meditative attitude. pasteur is standing clad in a short brown coat, an experimental card in his left hand, in his right, a phial containing a fragment of rabic marrow, the expression in his eyes entirely concentrated on the scientific problem.
during the year 1888, pasteur, after spending the morning with his patients, used to go and watch the buildings for the pasteur institute which were being erected in the rue dutot. 11,000 square yards of ground had been acquired in the midst of some market gardens. instead of rows of hand-lights and young lettuces, a stone building, with a louis xiii fa?ade, was now being constructed. an interior gallery connected the main building with the large wings. the pasteur institute was to be at the same time a great dispensary for the treatment of hydrophobia, a centre of research on virulent and contagious diseases, and also a teaching centre. m. duclaux’s class of biological chemistry, held at the sorbonne, was about to be transferred to the pasteur institute, where dr. roux would also give a course of lectures on technical microbia. the “service” of vaccinations against anthrax was entrusted to m. chamberland. (the statistics of 1882—1887 gave a total of 1,600,000 sheep and nearly 200,000 oxen.) there would also be, under m. metchnikoff’s direction, some private laboratories, the monkish cells of the pastorians.
at the end of october, the work was almost completed; pasteur invited the president of the republic to come and inaugurate the institute. “i shall certainly not fail to do so,” answered carnot; “your institute is a credit to france.”
on november 14, politicians, colleagues, friends, collaborators, pupils assembled in the large library of the new institute. pasteur had the pleasure of seeing before him, in the first rank,{441} duruy and jules simon; it was a great day for these former ministers of public instruction. like them, pasteur had all his life been deeply interested in higher education. “if that teaching is but for a small number,” he said, “it is with this small number, this élite that the prosperity, glory and supremacy of a nation rest.”
joseph bertrand, chairman of the institute committee, knowing that by so doing he responded to pasteur’s dearest wishes, spoke of the past and recalled the memories of biot, senarmont, claude bernard, balard, and j. b. dumas.
professor grancher, secretary of the committee, alluded to the way in which not only vulpian but breuardel, charcot, verneuil, chauveau and villemin had recently honoured themselves by supporting the cause of progress and preparing its triumph. these memories of early friends, associated with that of recent champions, brought before the audience a vision of the procession of years. after speaking of the obstacles pasteur had so often encountered amongst the medical world—
“you know,” said m. grancher, “that m. pasteur is an innovator, and that his creative imagination, kept in check by rigorous observation of facts, has overturned many errors and built up in their place an entirely new science. his discoveries on ferments, on the generation of the infinitesimally small, on microbes, the cause of contagious diseases, and on the vaccination of those diseases, have been for biological chemistry, for the veterinary art and for medicine, not a regular progress, but a complete revolution. now, revolutions, even those imposed by scientific demonstration, ever leave behind them vanquished ones who do not easily forgive. m. pasteur has therefore many adversaries in the world, without counting those athenian french who do not like to see one man always right or always fortunate. and, as if he had not enough adversaries, m. pasteur makes himself new ones by the rigorous implacability of his dialectics and the absolute form he sometimes gives to his thought.”
going on to the most recently acquired results, m. grancher stated that the mortality amongst persons treated after bites from rabid dogs remained under 1 per 100.
“if those figures are indeed eloquent,” said m. christophle, the treasurer, who spoke after m. grancher, “other figures are touching. i would advise those who only see the dark side of humanity,” he remarked, before entering upon the statement{442} of accounts—“those who go about repeating that everything here below is for the worst, that there is no disinterestedness, no devotion in this world—to cast their eyes over the ‘human documents’ of the pasteur institute. they would learn therein, beginning at the beginning, that academies contain colleagues who are not offended, but proud and happy in the fame of another; that politicians and journalists often have a passion for what is good and true; that at no former epoch have great men been more beloved in france; that justice is already rendered to them during their lifetime, which is very much the best way of doing so; that we have cheered victor hugo’s birthday, chevreul’s centenary, and the inauguration of the pasteur institute. when a frenchman runs himself down, said one of m. pasteur’s colleagues, do not believe him; he is boasting! reversing a celebrated and pessimistic phrase, it might be said that in this public subscription all the virtues flow into unselfishness like rivers into the sea.”
m. christophle went on to show how rich and poor had joined in this subscription and raised an amount of 2,586,680 fr. the french chambers had voted 200,000 fr., to which had been added international gifts from the tsar, the emperor of brazil, and the sultan. the total expenses would probably reach 1,563,786 fr., leaving a little more than a million to form an endowment for the pasteur institute, a fund which was to be increased every year by the product of the sale of vaccines from the laboratory, which pasteur and messrs. chamberland and roux agreed to give up to the institute.
“it is thus, sir,” concluded the treasurer, directly addressing pasteur, “that public generosity, practical help from the government, and your own disinterestedness have founded and consolidated the establishment which we are to-day inaugurating.” and, persuaded that the solicitude of the public would never fail to support this great work, “this is for you, sir, a rare and almost unhoped for happiness; let it console you for the passionate struggles, the terrible anxiety and the many emotions you have gone through.”
pasteur, overcome by his feelings, had to ask his son to read his speech. it began by a rapid summary of what france had done for education in all its degrees. “from village schools to laboratories, everything has been founded or renovated.” after acknowledging the help given him in later years by the public authorities, he continued{443}—
“and when the day came that, foreseeing the future which would be opened by the discovery of the attenuation of virus, i appealed to my country, so that we should be allowed, through the strength and impulse of private initiative, to build laboratories to be devoted, not only to the prophylactic treatment of hydrophobia, but also to the study of virulent and contagious diseases—on that day again, france gave in handfuls.... it is now finished, this great building, of which it might be said that there is not a stone but what is the material sign of a generous thought. all the virtues have subscribed to build this dwelling place for work.
“alas! mine is the bitter grief that i enter it, a man ‘vanquished by time,’ deprived of my masters, even of my companions in the struggle, dumas, bouley, paul bert, and lastly vulpian, who, after having been with you, my dear grancher, my counsellor at the very first, became the most energetic, the most convinced champion of this method.
“however, if i have the sorrow of thinking that they are no more, after having valiantly taken their part in discussions which i have never provoked but have had to endure; if they cannot hear me proclaim all that i owe to their counsels and support; if i feel their absence as deeply as on the morrow of their death, i have at least the consolation of believing that all that we struggled for together will not perish. the collaborators and pupils who are now here share our scientific faith....” he continued, as in a sort of testament: “keep your early enthusiasm, dear collaborators, but let it ever be regulated by rigorous examinations and tests. never advance anything which cannot be proved in a simple and decisive fashion.
“worship the spirit of criticism. if reduced to itself, it is not an awakener of ideas or a stimulant to great things, but, without it, everything is fallible; it always has the last word. what i am now asking you, and you will ask of your pupils later on, is what is most difficult to an inventor.
“it is indeed a hard task, when you believe you have found an important scientific fact and are feverishly anxious to publish it, to constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, to fight with yourself, to try and ruin your own experiments and only to proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all contrary hypotheses.
“but when, after so many efforts, you have at last arrived at a certainty, your joy is one of the greatest which can be felt{444} by a human soul, and the thought that you will have contributed to the honour of your country renders that joy still deeper.
“if science has no country, the scientist should have one, and ascribe to it the influence which his works may have in this world. if i might be allowed, m. le président, to conclude by a philosophical remark inspired by your presence in this home of work, i should say that two contrary laws seem to be wrestling with each other nowadays; the one, a law of blood and of death, ever imagining new means of destruction and forcing nations to be constantly ready for the battlefield—the other, a law of peace, work and health, ever evolving new means of delivering man from the scourges which beset him.
“the one seeks violent conquests, the other the relief of humanity. the latter places one human life above any victory; while the former would sacrifice hundreds and thousands of lives to the ambition of one. the law of which we are the instruments seeks, even in the midst of carnage, to cure the sanguinary ills of the law of war; the treatment inspired by our antiseptic methods may preserve thousands of soldiers. which of those two laws will ultimately prevail, god alone knows. but we may assert that french science will have tried, by obeying the law of humanity, to extend the frontiers of life.{445}”
