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06 - Louis Pasteur by Albert Keim, Louis Lumet · Louis Pasteur

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  Speaker 1: Section six of Louis Pasteur by Alberkaim and Louis Lumet,
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  Speaker 1: translated by Frederick Taber Cooper. This LibriVox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain recording by Pamel Nagami for the National
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  Speaker 1: Wealth Part One. The campaign which Pastor was conducting against
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  Speaker 1: spontaneous generation did not absorb his entire activity. He pursued
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  Speaker 1: his studies of fermentation, striving to penetrate the secrets of
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  Speaker 1: the infinitely small, the yeasts, the vibrions, the infusoria, that
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  Speaker 1: whole disquieting world, the universal and formidable activity of which
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  Speaker 1: was not even yet suspected. Perhaps he already discerned, although
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  Speaker 1: only vaguely, their presence in human diseases, and this was
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  Speaker 1: the object of his researches and profound meditations. Pastor used
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  Speaker 1: to arrive at his laboratory, walking slowly, sunk in thought
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  Speaker 1: and with his forehead lined with care. He gave orders
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  Speaker 1: to his assistance, pointing out the experiments which he wished
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  Speaker 1: to have made, but never revealing the idea behind them.
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  Speaker 1: Succeeding Roland, he had du Clo, who was still young
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  Speaker 1: and who was destined to become a great scientist. Duke
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  Speaker 1: clo admired the achievements of his master, and with his
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  Speaker 1: keen and lucid mind, followed his luminous trail, while he
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  Speaker 1: often added to his duties as assistant the humbler ones
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  Speaker 1: of a laboratory attendant, wiping the apparatus, the retorts and
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  Speaker 1: flasks a devoted servant in the Temple of Science, a
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  Speaker 1: rather sorry temple, by the way, for the laboratory was
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  Speaker 1: extremely inconvenient, with its five scanty rooms and a stove
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  Speaker 1: installed behind the staircase, where Pasteur could not even enter
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  Speaker 1: except on his knee. Duclou compared it to a rabbit cage.
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  Speaker 1: And yet it was from here he said, that the
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  Speaker 1: movement started which revolutionized science. Already at that epoch a
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  Speaker 1: large faction of the younger generation of scientists had come
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  Speaker 1: under the daily increasing influence of Pasteur. The normal school
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  Speaker 1: chemists of eighteen sixty, wrote Missus Duclou in her vs.
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  Speaker 1: De Mille. Ducloux believed in Pasteur as the Romantics of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty believed in Victor Hugo. They saw before them
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  Speaker 1: virgin lands and unimagined sources. Thanks to the genius, the faith,
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  Speaker 1: and the religious spirit that the Master infused into his work.
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  Speaker 1: He inspired these younger men with his own enthusiasm, and
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  Speaker 1: they believed themselves born to revolutionize the ideas which had
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  Speaker 1: served as dogmas for their predecessors. And such a belief
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  Speaker 1: is strangely intoxicating to young brains. Among the assistants and
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  Speaker 1: students who gathered around Monsieur Pasteur in the little laboratory
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  Speaker 1: in the Rudoume, there was a continual interchange of conceptions
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  Speaker 1: and of projects, very different ones from those that are
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  Speaker 1: born and die daily apropos of literature or philosophy. For
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  Speaker 1: these discussions dealt with the only form of truth that
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  Speaker 1: is capable of being verified, namely science. But while Pasteur
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  Speaker 1: kept secret the object he had in view during the
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  Speaker 1: course of his experiments that were often long, difficult, and
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  Speaker 1: countless times recommenced, when he at once obtained his results,
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  Speaker 1: he boldly and vigorously proclaimed them. He had a scorn
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  Speaker 1: of bad faith, routine and prejudice, and everyone knows the
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  Speaker 1: famous apostrophe which he addressed to his adversaries who were
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  Speaker 1: disputing his discoveries in relation to the crystals of tartrates.
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  Speaker 1: At a meeting of the Societe Philomatique on the eighth
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  Speaker 1: of December eighteen sixty two. If you have ever known
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  Speaker 1: anything of the subject, what have you done with your knowledge?
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  Speaker 1: And if you have not known, why do you interfere?
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  Speaker 1: He was a rough antagonist, but he fought only for
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  Speaker 1: the triumph of truth, putting all personal considerations aside. In
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  Speaker 1: the course of his studies of fermentations, Pasteur was led
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  Speaker 1: to study the phenomenon through which wine was transformed into vinegar.
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  Speaker 1: The celebrated chemist Liebic had established a theory which did
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  Speaker 1: not altogether agree with his own observations, and he proceeded
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  Speaker 1: victoriously to advance his own theory and opposition, the manufacturers
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  Speaker 1: of vinegar at Orleon pursued the following method. In two
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  Speaker 1: groups of stationary barrels, they poured a mixture of two
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  Speaker 1: thirds ripened vinegar and one third wine. On the surface
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  Speaker 1: of this mixture there was formed a thin film of
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  Speaker 1: which no one knew the composition, but which was necessary
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  Speaker 1: in order to obtain a prompt and thorough acetification or
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  Speaker 1: transformation into vinegar. The manufacturers took great care of this film,
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  Speaker 1: for if it was thuslodged, or if it sank to
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of the barrels. The whole operation had to
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  Speaker 1: be done over what was this film, which, in order
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  Speaker 1: to work well, required a current of fresh air that
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  Speaker 1: was furnished by drilling and opening in the barrels a
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  Speaker 1: little above the level of the liquid. Pastor worked for
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  Speaker 1: nearly a year on this problem, and he proved that
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  Speaker 1: a setification was caused by a microbe which lived on
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  Speaker 1: the surface of the liquid, obtained oxygen from the air,
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  Speaker 1: and transferred a part of it to the liquid below, which,
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  Speaker 1: in this way was oxidized. He gave this microbe the
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  Speaker 1: name of Mycoderma aceti or Mycoderma vinegar. This ferment is
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  Speaker 1: endowed with an extraordinary power of prolificness. The individual cells,
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  Speaker 1: twice as long as they are wide, are so minute
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  Speaker 1: that it requires four hundred of them placed end to end,
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  Speaker 1: and eight hundred placed side by side to measure a
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  Speaker 1: millimeter in length. That thirty million can find space in
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  Speaker 1: the square centimeter, and three hundred billion are formed in
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  Speaker 1: twenty four hours upon a square meter of liquid. What
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  Speaker 1: is the weight of these three hundred billions of cells
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  Speaker 1: One gram, and this gram is capable of transforming ten
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  Speaker 1: kilograms of alcohol into vinegar in the space of five days.
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  Speaker 1: It follows that a single cell consumes in the course
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  Speaker 1: of one day a quantity of nourishment equal to two
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  Speaker 1: thousand times its own weight. From these fabulous figures, one
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  Speaker 1: can form some conception of the activity of these infinitely
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  Speaker 1: small organisms and of their formidable power in the economy
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  Speaker 1: of universal life. Pasteur discovered that the mycoderm of wine
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  Speaker 1: could become ill, and that it produced either good or
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  Speaker 1: bad vinegar, as the case might be. Through proper cultivation,
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  Speaker 1: he obtained perfect cells, which, when placed in a mixture
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  Speaker 1: of wine and vinegar, produced an excellent and regular acidification.
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  Speaker 1: Up to this time, the industry of the vinegar makers
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  Speaker 1: of Orleon was subject to all sorts of losses due
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  Speaker 1: to ignorance and to chance. Pasteur furnished them with a
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  Speaker 1: method which never failed. He saved them from the daily
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  Speaker 1: anxiety of obtaining bad products, and he helped them to
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  Speaker 1: gain millions. At the same time that he was occupied
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  Speaker 1: with vinegars, Pasteur had been investigating, even as far back
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  Speaker 1: as eighteen sixty three, the origin of different maladies which
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  Speaker 1: affect wines. The Municipal Council of Accubois, priding themselves on
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  Speaker 1: this illustrious compatriot offered him a laboratory where he might
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  Speaker 1: pursue these studies that were of interest to all the
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  Speaker 1: wine growers of France. Pasteur preferred to be installed in
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  Speaker 1: independent quarters, and Ducloux, who on several occasions directed the
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  Speaker 1: experiments made at Acubois, has given a most picturesque description
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  Speaker 1: of the place. The laboratory had been established in a
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  Speaker 1: former cafe. The traditional sign board had been left above
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  Speaker 1: the entrance, in consequence of which it often happened to
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  Speaker 1: us to have customers enter and ask for food and drinks. Generally,
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  Speaker 1: they halted at the door, surprised at the strangeness of
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  Speaker 1: the furnishings, and took themselves off without a word, assuredly
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  Speaker 1: carrying with them visions of the almanac of Nostrodamis. It
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  Speaker 1: must be said in their defense that if the room
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  Speaker 1: no longer resembled the cafe, it resembled a laboratory quite
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  Speaker 1: as little. There was no gas. The heating was done
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  Speaker 1: with coal, the flames of which were made more active
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  Speaker 1: at the required moment with the help of fans. There
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  Speaker 1: was no water, we ourselves went, like Rebecca to draw
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  Speaker 1: it at the public fountain, or like Noska, to wash
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  Speaker 1: our utensils by the river bank. Our tables were trestles,
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  Speaker 1: And as for our apparatus, since nearly all of it
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  Speaker 1: came from the local carpenter, tinsmith or blacksmith of Acbois,
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  Speaker 1: it may be imagined that they did not have the
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  Speaker 1: canonical forms, and that when we walked through the streets
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  Speaker 1: on our way to the wine cellars to get the
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  Speaker 1: wine for the purpose of analysis, we did not pass
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  Speaker 1: by without calling forth some sarcastic comments from the somewhat
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  Speaker 1: hostile inhabitants of the little town. Whatever this haphazard workshop
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  Speaker 1: may have been, Pastor's experiments, methodically and perseveringly continued, were
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  Speaker 1: decisive what was the cause of the maladies of wines.
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  Speaker 1: Contrary to the widely accepted opinions, Pastor proved that oxygen
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  Speaker 1: was not injurious to wine, but that, on the contrary,
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  Speaker 1: it was oxygen which aged it and gave it flavor,
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  Speaker 1: and bouquet wine hermetically sealed without contact with oxygen, remained
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  Speaker 1: forever young. This prejudice having been overcome by experiments, Pasteur
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  Speaker 1: showed further that each malady of wine had its own
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  Speaker 1: special microbe, and that under the microscope, it was possible
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  Speaker 1: to distinguish those of Latoune, of La mayer A la Gresse,
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  Speaker 1: all of them well known maladies of wine, but by
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  Speaker 1: no means the only ones. How was it possible to
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  Speaker 1: combat these microbes the terrors of wine growers and epicures,
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  Speaker 1: For no barrel and no bottle was surely safe. Pastor
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  Speaker 1: tried at first to use antiseptics tasteless and odorless, but
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  Speaker 1: without obtaining good results. It was through the application of
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  Speaker 1: heat that he finally solved the problem, and it was
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  Speaker 1: well worth the solving, since the vineyards of France produce,
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  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, fifty million hecto leaders of
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  Speaker 1: an average value of five hundred million francs, and suffer
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  Speaker 1: enormous losses through the occurrence of diseases. Pastor heated the
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  Speaker 1: wines in a closed vessel to one hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, and by thus destroying the microbes, put them
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  Speaker 1: in a condition to be kept without danger of spoiling.
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  Speaker 1: But this process of heating had to contend with many prejudices.
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  Speaker 1: It was believed that it altered the quality of the wines,
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  Speaker 1: and the growers were reluctant to adopt this method of preservation.
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  Speaker 1: A commission was appointed to try the effect of the
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  Speaker 1: pasture method upon wines to be transported by sea. They
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  Speaker 1: put on board the jen Bards at Breast samples of
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  Speaker 1: wine that had been heated and other samples that had
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  Speaker 1: not been heated. After ten months of ocean travel, the
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  Speaker 1: former samples were declared by the commission to be excellent
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  Speaker 1: in all respects, while the latter samples had turned sour.
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  Speaker 1: The experiment was repeated on board the frigate La Sibille
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  Speaker 1: and gave the same results. The wine that had been
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  Speaker 1: heated preserved all its characteristic qualities and escaped all injury.
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  Speaker 1: For that matter, the protection of liquids by heating has
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  Speaker 1: now become general, and we passed deisturized milk, beer, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon the Third became interested in Pastor's study of wines,
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  Speaker 1: for it involved the question of safeguarding one of the
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  Speaker 1: principal sources of the wealth of France. Accordingly, during one
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  Speaker 1: of the sojourns of the court at Compienne, both he
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  Speaker 1: and the Empress Eugenie were initiated into the details of
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  Speaker 1: the experiments. It was in eighteen sixty five that Pasteur,
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  Speaker 1: armed with his microscope and his samples of wine, delivered
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  Speaker 1: a lecture on the subject before the Emperor and Empress,
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  Speaker 1: and taught them to distinguish with their eye at the
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  Speaker 1: lens the microbes of the turn from those of the Amayer.
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon the Third expressed surprise that it had not occurred
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  Speaker 1: to Pasteur to make a pecuniary profit out of his discoveries,
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  Speaker 1: which were worth tens of millions to the wine industry,
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  Speaker 1: and Pastor made this fine response. In France, a scientist
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  Speaker 1: would think that he had demeaned himself if he did
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  Speaker 1: such a thing. According to his standards, they must content
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  Speaker 1: themselves with glory and with the satisfaction of a duty
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  Speaker 1: fulfilled in Pasteur. Napoleon the Third liked both the man
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  Speaker 1: and the scientist, and many a time he invited him,
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  Speaker 1: either to the tuileries or to Compienne. Arrangements were made
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  Speaker 1: to conduct some experiments in the apartments of the Empress,
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  Speaker 1: and in the presence of the ladies of honor, Pastor
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  Speaker 1: expounded the mysteries of the world of infinitely little things. Incidentally,
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  Speaker 1: he met with a singular adventure which might have banished
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  Speaker 1: him from the court if the affection which the Empress
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  Speaker 1: bore him had been less genuine. For the purposes of
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  Speaker 1: a certain demonstration, Pasteur had needed some live frogs, which
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  Speaker 1: he obtained from the head gardener of the parks at Compienne.
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  Speaker 1: When the experiment was ended, the apsen minded scientists left
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  Speaker 1: the frogs behind him, imprisoned in an insecure bag. They
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  Speaker 1: invaded the bedchamber of the Empress, and the latter, arising
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  Speaker 1: during the night, set her foot upon a cold and
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  Speaker 1: slimy frog. She experienced a terrible fright and very nearly fainted. Afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: she laughed at her own fear, but although she bore
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  Speaker 1: no grudge against Pasteur, she could never again bear even
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  Speaker 1: the sight of the poor offensive frog. In eighteen sixty seven,
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  Speaker 1: Pasteur received from the jury of the Exposicion Universelles a
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  Speaker 1: grand prize for his services in behalf of Wines. But
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  Speaker 1: even before these researches were fully completed, he had prepared
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  Speaker 1: to undertake a new series of studies that were destined
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  Speaker 1: to enhance his fame still further. For fifteen years, a
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  Speaker 1: veritable scourge had ravaged the departments of southern France. The
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  Speaker 1: industry of rearing silkilkworms, formerly so prosperous that the mulberry
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  Speaker 1: tree had come to be called a tree of gold,
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  Speaker 1: had fallen off alarmingly, with an annual loss of more
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  Speaker 1: than fifty million francs. The people were reduced to dire poverty,
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  Speaker 1: and the sorely tried land owners, helpless to combat the
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  Speaker 1: cause of their ruin appeal to the government. Strange maladies
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  Speaker 1: were spreading among the silkworms, which died in countless numbers,
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  Speaker 1: and there was no remedy that seemed to help them. Duma,
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  Speaker 1: commissioned to present to the Senate the petition from the
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  Speaker 1: affected district, having confidence in the genius of Pasteur, begged
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  Speaker 1: him to consent to go and study on the spot
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  Speaker 1: this disease of the silkworms, which was proving so fatal
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  Speaker 1: to a national industry that in the single district of Alais,
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  Speaker 1: it had caused within five years a loss of nearly
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty million francs. Pastor of the subject,
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  Speaker 1: but in the face of such a permanent menace, which
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  Speaker 1: condemned a whole section of France to the blackest misery,
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  Speaker 1: he consented to absent himself from his beloved laboratory in
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  Speaker 1: the Rudolme, and to accept the commission from the Ministry
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  Speaker 1: of Agriculture. It was in the midst of sorrow and
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  Speaker 1: mourning that he was destined to carry on this new study,
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  Speaker 1: a long and difficult one, lasting from eighteen sixty five
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  Speaker 1: to eighteen seventy, for within a few years he lost
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  Speaker 1: his father and two of his daughters. His father, we
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  Speaker 1: know the profound affection that he felt for the old
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  Speaker 1: soldier of the Empire, to whom he owed his love
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  Speaker 1: for work, and that steadfast conscience that guided him so
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  Speaker 1: straightly through the path of life. His daughters, the joy
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  Speaker 1: and hope of his home circle. These intimate tragedies traced
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  Speaker 1: a few additional lines upon his austere face. But it
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  Speaker 1: was with the same valiant heart, the same unbiased mind,
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  Speaker 1: the same tenacious will, that he continued to pursue his
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  Speaker 1: great task on behalf of humanity. End of Section six