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

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Speaker 1: Section nine of Louis Pasteur by Albert Kaim and Louis Lumey,
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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 Andinagami chapter six, the
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Speaker 1: curative poison innovators, whether in the arts or the sciences,
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Speaker 1: are combated at the outset. Pasteur was not destined to
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Speaker 1: escape the general rule which demands that all truth shall
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Speaker 1: be forced upon us. In spite of the evidence which
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Speaker 1: he had obtained in support of his theories from long
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Speaker 1: and difficult experiments with fermentations a group of scientists, and they,
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Speaker 1: by no means the lesser lights refused to accept his conclusions.
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Speaker 1: He had to face a controversy with Trecoul, who maintained
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Speaker 1: that microscopic organisms could transform themselves one into another, and
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Speaker 1: he must needs demonstrate that, contrary to this opinion, they
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Speaker 1: remained fixed with a specific character. In the course of
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Speaker 1: the study necessitated by this discussion, he made experiments on
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Speaker 1: anaerobic without air and aerobic with air forms of life,
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Speaker 1: and he discovered that a certain number of these organisms
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Speaker 1: could pass from one mode of life to the other
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Speaker 1: with an accompanying change in form and function. But these
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Speaker 1: studies of fermentations through which he was destined to refute
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Speaker 1: Claude Bernard Berthlou et cetera, studies which he pursued with
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Speaker 1: unflagging energy, and which were shedding light upon phenomena that
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Speaker 1: had remained obscure until he had given the key to
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Speaker 1: their interpretation, did not prevent him from pondering over the
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Speaker 1: role played by microbes in infectious diseases, or from beginning
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Speaker 1: experiments concerning them. Pasteur had been elected to full membership
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Speaker 1: of the Academy of Medicine in eighteen seventy three, and
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Speaker 1: it was thenceforward there that he waged his battles against prejudice, hostility,
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Speaker 1: and unfairness in order to achieve the triumph of ideas,
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Speaker 1: which brought with them the most complete revolution that had
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Speaker 1: ever taken place in medicine. Along the curve of an
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Speaker 1: inspired path, and with no break in the continuity, he
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Speaker 1: had passed from crystals to fermentations, and from fermentations to
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Speaker 1: diseases of microbic origin. But these divisions were still in
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Speaker 1: a measure in exact, for within his vast brain there
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Speaker 1: was forever working all his projects for experimentation all his
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Speaker 1: ideas centered upon germs. Accordingly, he was able to say
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Speaker 1: before the Academy of Medicine in eighteen seventy three, is
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Speaker 1: it not evident that all the researches to which I
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Speaker 1: have devoted myself for seventeen years, regardless of the efforts
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Speaker 1: they have cost me, are the products of the same ideas,
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Speaker 1: the same principles, forced by incessant toil to yield constantly
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Speaker 1: new results. The best proof that an investigator is on
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Speaker 1: the road to truth is the uninterrupted fertility of his labors.
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Speaker 1: For years, Pastor was forced to fight his battles in
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Speaker 1: the very midst of the Academy of Medicine, and he
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Speaker 1: did so with a vigorous and dogged energy, so long
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Speaker 1: as he was defending the truth contained in his discoveries.
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Speaker 1: His work, for that matter, controverted, though it was, had
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Speaker 1: long since passed beyond the limits of scientific circles, And
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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy four, the National Assembly, wishing to pay
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Speaker 1: homage to his rare merit, awarded him a national recompense,
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Speaker 1: one which had been granted only twice before within the century,
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Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty nine to Daguerre and Niepps and in
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Speaker 1: eighteen forty five to the engineer Vica Paul Bert was
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Speaker 1: appointed to make the report. In the course of it,
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Speaker 1: he said, the discoveries of Monsieur Pasteur, after having shed
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Speaker 1: new light upon the obscure question of fermentations and of
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Speaker 1: the mode in which microscopic organisms make their appearance, have
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Speaker 1: revolutionized certain branches of business, industry, agriculture, and pathology. One
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Speaker 1: is struck with admiration when one realizes that so many results,
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Speaker 1: and such widely different ones, have all been derived through
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Speaker 1: an unbroken chain of facts followed up step by step,
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Speaker 1: leaving nothing to conjecture from an original theoretical study as
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Speaker 1: to the manner in which tartaric acid deflects polarized light.
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Speaker 1: Never before has that famous epigram genius is patience received
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Speaker 1: so splendid a confirmation. It is this admirable combination of
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Speaker 1: theoretical and practical work which the government proposes that you
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Speaker 1: should honor with a national recompense. Your Committee unanimously approves
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Speaker 1: this proposition. The recompense specified consists of a life pension
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Speaker 1: of twelve thousand francs. This sum represents very nearly the
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Speaker 1: salary attached to the professorship in the Sorbonne, from which
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Speaker 1: illness has obliged Monsieur Pasteur to resign. In this same report,
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Speaker 1: paul Bert paid tribute to the disinterestedness of Pasteur, whose
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Speaker 1: discoveries had enriched France to the extent of unnumbered millions,
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Speaker 1: without its having occurred to him to acquire any personal
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Speaker 1: benefit from them. The motion was carried by five hundred
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Speaker 1: and thirty two affirmative votes against twenty four negative ones.
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Speaker 1: It was an overwhelming majority. Having once turned his attention
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Speaker 1: to infectious diseases, Pastor assiduously frequented the Academy of medicine.
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Speaker 1: Becoming convinced that the majority of deaths were caused by
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Speaker 1: wounds coming in contact with external germs, he recommended to
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Speaker 1: the operating surgeons a method of antiseptic dressing, based upon
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Speaker 1: his discovery of microbes in the air. The great English
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Speaker 1: surgeon Lister employed a similar method and obtained excellent results.
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Speaker 1: The French physicians who accepted Pastor's methods saw the percentage
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Speaker 1: of deaths resulting from operations fall off with great rapidity.
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Speaker 1: It was not adopted without opposition, but its efficacy was
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Speaker 1: soon recognized, and today there is no surgeon who does
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Speaker 1: not follow out all of Pastor's careful injunctions, the heating
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Speaker 1: of the instruments, the sterilization of the dressings, antiseptic washing
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Speaker 1: of the wound, et cetera. It was in eighteen seventy
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Speaker 1: six that science escaped a real danger. Pasteur, yielding to
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Speaker 1: the solicitations of a number of electors, presented himself as
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Speaker 1: candidate at the election of senators from the Jurras. He
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Speaker 1: made his electoral campaign with the same seriousness that he
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Speaker 1: displayed in his laboratory, proclaiming in his sign bills and
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Speaker 1: circulars that his only reason for wishing to be elected
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Speaker 1: was that he might have further opportunity to serve France.
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Speaker 1: Monsieur Greville presented himself in opposition at lone Le Saunier,
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Speaker 1: and Pasteur received only sixty two votes. He cherished no
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Speaker 1: grudge because of this defeat, but he declared that his
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Speaker 1: incursion into the domain of politics had been a mistake,
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Speaker 1: and he promptly returned to his studies. He had, for
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Speaker 1: that matter, quite enough to do in defending his own
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Speaker 1: scientific work, which had been newly attacked, just as he
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Speaker 1: began to believe that it had been definitely established. Bastien,
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Speaker 1: for instance, despite the convincing nature of his experiments on
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Speaker 1: spontaneous generation, disputed his results, and Pastor, though he might
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Speaker 1: well have rested on his earlier labors, repeated them, if possible,
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Speaker 1: with even greater care, in order to be able to
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Speaker 1: answer him. This experimental method, this close scrutiny of facts,
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Speaker 1: which formed the basis of all Pastor's discoveries, this constant
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Speaker 1: anxiety to leave nothing doubtful or unfinished, has lately been
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Speaker 1: testified to by Monsieur Denny Cochin, a member of the
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Speaker 1: Academy Francaise and a deputy, on the occasion of the
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Speaker 1: discussion before the Chamber in regard to powder for the Navy.
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Speaker 1: I have studied chemistry to some extent, he said, And
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Speaker 1: I recall a remark once made to me by one
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Speaker 1: of our most illustrious scientists. I had finished small research,
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Speaker 1: the report on which I submitted to Monsieur Pasteur. It
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Speaker 1: began with a phrase that is common enough in manuals
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Speaker 1: of chemistry. We know that what do we know? Pastor
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Speaker 1: said to me, we know nothing at all. I replied,
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Speaker 1: excuse me, Monsieur, But the fact I cited was taken
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Speaker 1: from one of your own writings. I thought I had
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Speaker 1: the best of it, but Pastor merely rejoined that has
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Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. You ought to have verified me.
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Speaker 1: Therein lies Pastor's whole secret. He always repeated his experiments
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Speaker 1: over and over until he was certain of the truths
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Speaker 1: that they contained, and it was by this means that
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Speaker 1: he triumphed over his adversaries. His controversy with Bastien, together
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Speaker 1: with a posthumous paper by Clothe Bernard on fermentations, led
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Speaker 1: him to investigate the fermentation of grapes, having constructed a
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Speaker 1: hot house on a small property that he owned near Arbois.
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Speaker 1: Pastors succeeded in demonstrating that the fermentation was due exclusively
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Speaker 1: to germs which made their appearance on the surface of
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Speaker 1: the grapes and on the bark of the vines at
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Speaker 1: the moment of maturity, and that neither verir juice nor
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Speaker 1: the must of the grape isolated from the skins and
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Speaker 1: stems can undergo fermentation. But although he was still disputed,
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Speaker 1: he had the keen pleasure of seeing certain of his
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Speaker 1: methods eagerly adopted by the big industries. During a visit
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Speaker 1: to a vast Italian silk worm establishment. On the occasion
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Speaker 1: of a congress of silk producers held at Milan, he
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Speaker 1: beheld his own name inscribed across the pediment of the building,
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Speaker 1: in conspicuous homage to the services he had rendered to
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Speaker 1: that industry. On this same occasion they showed him the
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Speaker 1: marvelous results obtained by his process of cellular culture, practically
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Speaker 1: carried out by young girls who had acquired great expertness
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Speaker 1: in the use of the microscope for detecting corpusculous moths,
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Speaker 1: as in the case of the fermentation of grapes. This
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Speaker 1: was the side issue of his theory of germs, but
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Speaker 1: at this epoch he was studying them mainly from the
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Speaker 1: pathological point of view, and we know that he was
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Speaker 1: interested above all in the diseases of a microbic origin.
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Speaker 1: There Again, he was destined to wage stout battle against
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Speaker 1: routine and prejudice, even within the walls of the Academy
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Speaker 1: of medicine. It was the disease of anthrax, which annually
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Speaker 1: decimated the herds and flocks of France, that pest chose
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Speaker 1: as the first point of attack. Davan had previously discovered
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Speaker 1: that the blood of animals infected with this disease contained
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Speaker 1: little rectilinear stick like organisms, a species of which he
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Speaker 1: named from their form bac to redis, and which were
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Speaker 1: the cause of the disease. But he had been unable
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Speaker 1: to defend his conclusions against Messieur Gaillard and Laplain, Professors
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Speaker 1: at Valdegras, and Paulbert, who all maintained, after making experiments,
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Speaker 1: that antrax came from a virus and not from the
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Speaker 1: Bactridis themselves. It was precisely at this point in the discussion,
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Speaker 1: with the two sides steadfastly maintaining contradictory opinions, each supported
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Speaker 1: equally by facts, that Pasteur, in collaboration with Messieur Joubert,
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Speaker 1: Chamberlin and Roue, intervened, in his accustomed manner, quite simple,
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Speaker 1: quite clear, and rigorously scientific. Having obtained a fresh drop
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Speaker 1: of blood from an animal infected with anthrax, Pasteur cultivated
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Speaker 1: the bactor redes and artificial mediums by impregnaty each new
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Speaker 1: medium with the drop taken from the preceding culture, so
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Speaker 1: that by the time of the tenth culture he obtained
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Speaker 1: pure bacterides. When these were used for inoculation, they produced
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Speaker 1: anthrax without the aid of the original drop of blood,
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Speaker 1: which it disappeared through being deluded to such a degree
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Speaker 1: as to be imperceptible in the later cultures. This amounted
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Speaker 1: to a complete conformation of Devane's opinion that these bactides
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Speaker 1: were the cause of the disease of anthrax. In order
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Speaker 1: to render his experiment more decisive, Pasteur established a counterproof
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Speaker 1: by inoculating his medium with the culture from which he
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Speaker 1: had eliminated the bacteriades by means of filtering it through plaster,
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Speaker 1: and the resulting liquid failed to produce anthrax. Pursuing his
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Speaker 1: studies further, he demonstrated that Messia, Gallad and Lupla, who
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Speaker 1: asserted that they had produced antras in animals by means
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Speaker 1: of blood which contained no bacterides, had been mistaken, and
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Speaker 1: that what they had really done was to produce a
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Speaker 1: different disease by inoculating with a new species of microbe,
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Speaker 1: which he named the septic vibrion. In like manner, he
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Speaker 1: refuted Paul beat who, after having destroyed the bacteria of
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Speaker 1: antras by means of compressed oxygen, claimed that the blood
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Speaker 1: thus deprived of them could nevertheless cause antrax. Pastors showed
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Speaker 1: that this blood still contained the germs or spores of bacterides,
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Speaker 1: which had greater resistant powers than the bacterides themselves, and
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Speaker 1: that it was from them that these cases of antrax came,
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Speaker 1: so that in any case it was caused either by
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Speaker 1: the bacterides or by their sphores. This amounted to a
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Speaker 1: definite proof of the parasitic character of this infectious disease.
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Speaker 1: But how was antraq communicated to animals and was there
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Speaker 1: any hope of protecting them from it? Again, as in
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Speaker 1: the case of the silkworms, the Minister of Agriculture commissioned
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Speaker 1: Pastor to make a study of this evil, which ravaged
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Speaker 1: the cattle raising districts, causing losses which amounted annually to
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Speaker 1: tens of millions. Nothing was known beyond the fact that
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Speaker 1: the animals who were pastured in certain fields that were
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Speaker 1: known as bad fields became infected with anthrax. Pastor installed
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Speaker 1: himself in the environs of Schart and began his researches.
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Speaker 1: He was accompanied by Monsieur rou who bears witness to
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Speaker 1: the perspicacity of his observations. Conducted on the spot the
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Speaker 1: harvest had been gathered, he wrote, and nothing remained but
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Speaker 1: the stubble. Pastor's attention was drawn to a certain portion
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Speaker 1: of the field because of the different coloring of the earth.
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Speaker 1: The owner explained that this was the spot where they
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Speaker 1: had buried the sheep who died of anthrax the preceding year. Pasteur,
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Speaker 1: who always examined things closely, noticed on the surface of
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Speaker 1: the soil a multitude of little lumps of earth thrown
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Speaker 1: up by earthworms. The idea then occurred to him that
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Speaker 1: in their continuous journeyings from the lower depths to the surface,
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Speaker 1: the worms carried above ground some of the soil rich
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Speaker 1: in the humans that surrounded the dead bodies, and along
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Speaker 1: with it some of the spores of anthrax which it contained.
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Speaker 1: But Pasture never stopped short at conjectures. He immediately passed
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Speaker 1: on to experiments. These justified his expectations. The earth contained
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Speaker 1: in one of the worms, when used to inoculate guinea pigs,
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Speaker 1: produced antras in them rue leuever medical de Pasteur, Agenda
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Speaker 1: du Chemiste, eighteen ninety six. Pastorer had studied first the
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Speaker 1: active cause of the disease and next its mode of propagation,
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Speaker 1: and found that the spores penetrated into the organism of
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Speaker 1: the animals sheep or cattle through the mucous membranes of
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Speaker 1: their mouths, where they were torn by the dry and
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Speaker 1: prickly grass. How were the flocks and herds to be preserved?
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Speaker 1: It was through his study of chicken cholera, carried on
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Speaker 1: simultaneously with that of antrax, that he was set upon
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Speaker 1: the right path. He had noticed that the cholera microbes.
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Speaker 1: At this time, the word microbe as a generic term
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Speaker 1: for vibrions bacter Redi's et cetera, had just been coined
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Speaker 1: by Sadio, a surgeon at Strasbourg, approved by Litree, and
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Speaker 1: generally adopted by scientists. If left exposed to the air
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Speaker 1: and then used for a new culture, lost their virulence
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Speaker 1: to the point of becoming actually harmless. This attenuation was
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Speaker 1: due to the oxygen in the air. This discovery was
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Speaker 1: destined to revolutionize the science of medicine and to lead
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Speaker 1: Pasteur to the employment of vaccines, which he obtained after
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Speaker 1: several years of extremely delicate experiments. It was on the
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Speaker 1: twenty eighth of February eighteen eighty one that Pasteur made
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Speaker 1: his communication to the Academy of Sciences regarding the vaccine
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Speaker 1: of antrax. It was received by some with enthusiasm and
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Speaker 1: by others with mistrust. Pasteur himself was certain of the
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Speaker 1: effects of his discovery. Healthy animals inoculated with the attenuated
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Speaker 1: virus would surely be rendered immune to anthrax. He consented
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Speaker 1: to make a test on a large scale, and this
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Speaker 1: test justly remained celebrated. It began on the fifth of
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Speaker 1: May eighteen eighty one on a farm near pull Lefort,
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Speaker 1: near Mello, under the auspices of the Society of Agriculture
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Speaker 1: of that town. The conditions imposed were most rigorous, but
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Speaker 1: Pasteur was confident of victory. Fifty sheep and ten cows
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Speaker 1: were turned over to him. Of the former lot, twenty
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Speaker 1: five were to be vaccinated with an attenuated virus, and
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Speaker 1: then to receive, together with the other twenty five which
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Speaker 1: had not been vaccinated, an inoculation of extremely virulent anthrax microbes,
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Speaker 1: while for the second lot, the experiment was to be
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Speaker 1: tried upon six vaccinated animals and four not vaccinated. Pasteur
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Speaker 1: asserted that all those which had been vaccinated would resist
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Speaker 1: the disease of anthrax, while those which had not been
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Speaker 1: vaccinated would all die. This claim had the audacity of genius,
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Speaker 1: and Throughout the duration of the experiments, the illustrious scientists
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Speaker 1: underwent alterations of joyous hope and feverish anxiety. But on
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Speaker 1: the second of June, the day fixed by Pasteur for
20:06
Speaker 1: judging the results after the inoculation with virulent bacterides which
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Speaker 1: took place on May thirty first, it proved to be
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Speaker 1: a triumphant occasion for him. On the farm at puill
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Speaker 1: le Fot, the prefect of Saint Emarn, several deputies and
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Speaker 1: senators that Nery's and journalists were present, all quivering with impatience,
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Speaker 1: and Pasteur's predictions were realized in every particular. Amid the
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Speaker 1: congratulations of an enthusiastic throng. Every one of the animals
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Speaker 1: which had been inoculated but not vaccinated had contracted antrax
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Speaker 1: and died, while all the animals that had been both
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Speaker 1: inoculated and vaccinated escaped all symptoms of illness. On the
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Speaker 1: thirteenth of June, Pastor communicated to the Academy of Sciences
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Speaker 1: the result of his experiments at puill le Fote, which
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Speaker 1: was henceforth to be known as the past Tur Farm.
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Speaker 1: In view of their success, which had made an enormous sensation,
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Speaker 1: he was able to say we now possess virus vaccines
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Speaker 1: against anthrax capable of warding off the deadly disease without
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Speaker 1: ever proving fatal themselves. Living vaccines that may be cultivated
21:23
Speaker 1: at will and transported anywhere without suffering harm. Vaccines, in short,
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Speaker 1: that are prepared by a method which we have reason
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Speaker 1: to believe is susceptible of being generalized, because it has
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Speaker 1: once already been put into practice for the purpose of
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Speaker 1: obtaining vaccine against chicken cholera. Because of the character of
21:44
Speaker 1: the conditions which I have here enumerated, and looking at
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Speaker 1: the question only from the scientific point of view, I
21:51
Speaker 1: may say that the discovery of vaccine for antrax constitutes
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Speaker 1: a perceptible progress in advance of Jenner vaccine. Because the
22:01
Speaker 1: latter was not obtained as a result of experiments. Pastor
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Speaker 1: no longer met with the same obstacles that had confronted
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Speaker 1: his method for the culture of silkworms. His vaccines for
22:13
Speaker 1: antrax were in demand in every cattle raising district of France.
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Speaker 1: Within one year after the above mentioned experiments, the number
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Speaker 1: of animals vaccinated had risen to six hundred and thirteen thousand,
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Speaker 1: seven hundred and forty sheep and eighty three thousand, nine
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Speaker 1: hundred and forty six cattle. But before this triumph, which
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Speaker 1: had even been questioned in certain circles, he had to
22:40
Speaker 1: answer numerous criticisms at the Academy of Medicine, where too
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Speaker 1: many of the dear masters refused to recognize him as
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Speaker 1: anything more than a chemist. He was forced to fight
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Speaker 1: on behalf of his germ theory against the adherents of
22:54
Speaker 1: the Old School, who refused to accept not only the
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Speaker 1: novelty of the theory, but even the very existence of germs.
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Speaker 1: He was forced to defend his experiments when they were
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Speaker 1: called in question, and one day he actually brought some
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Speaker 1: chickens into a meeting at the Academy of Medicine in
23:12
Speaker 1: order to convince Colin that he could infect them with anthrax.
23:17
Speaker 1: Pastor was an energetic adversary and sometimes a violent one
23:21
Speaker 1: if anyone affected not to understand him, and he defended
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Speaker 1: what he believed to be the truth with crude and
23:28
Speaker 1: caustic eloquence. It very nearly led him into a duel
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Speaker 1: with Jule Guerin in October of eighteen eighty one because
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Speaker 1: of his rather rough treatment of him on the subject
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Speaker 1: of smallpox. This whole epoch of Pastor's life, extending from
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven to eighteen eighty two, was extremely prolific.
23:50
Speaker 1: He was possessed by what amounted to a fever for work,
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Speaker 1: and his idea is radiated in all directions. His laboratory
23:58
Speaker 1: was a veritable hive. Together with his anthrax vaccine, he
24:03
Speaker 1: found that of chicken cholera, and his pupil Touillier, discovered
24:08
Speaker 1: the microbe of rouge in swine. But in the midst
24:13
Speaker 1: of all his polemics and his diverse other duties, Pasteur's
24:17
Speaker 1: chief preoccupation was that of human diseases. He turned his
24:22
Speaker 1: attention to porporal fever, and, having demonstrated that it was
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Speaker 1: due to a microbe, he outlined for doctors a whole
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Speaker 1: series of measures of precaution and cleanliness that were destined
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Speaker 1: to save many a mother. He collected notes on the plague,
24:40
Speaker 1: He made a study of boils. He haunted the hospitals
24:44
Speaker 1: and company of his students. Notwithstanding his sensitiveness and physical repugnance,
24:50
Speaker 1: the sight of corpses, the sad necessity of autopsies caused
24:55
Speaker 1: him actual repulsion, writes Monsieur Roux how many times we
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Speaker 1: have seen him hastily leave the amphitheater of the hospitals
25:03
Speaker 1: because he was actually ill. But his love of science,
25:07
Speaker 1: his curiosity to know the truth were even stronger. He
25:11
Speaker 1: always came back on the morrow, after having conquered himself.
25:16
Speaker 1: In order to bring to humanity effective remedies against infectious diseases.
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Speaker 1: Pasteur was destined to conquer the doctors themselves, bound though
25:25
Speaker 1: they were to the old formulas, the antiquated conceptions, and
25:29
Speaker 1: who could not, without some vexation and alarm, behold the
25:33
Speaker 1: overthrow of their tranquility and peaceful routine. But the excitement
25:39
Speaker 1: aroused by the discovery of Anthrax's vaccine, which opened such
25:43
Speaker 1: great hopes for the future, was confirmed by the learned
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Speaker 1: societies and the ruling powers. The Society of the Agriculturalists
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Speaker 1: of France awarded Pastor on the twenty first of February
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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one a medal of Honor, and the government
26:00
Speaker 1: bestowed upon him the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honor.
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Speaker 1: In this connection we meet with a typical manifestation of
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Speaker 1: Pastor's character. He sent word that he would not accept
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Speaker 1: this elevation to a higher rank unless his two collaborators,
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Speaker 1: Chamberlain and Roue, were each to receive the Red ribbon
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Speaker 1: and of Section nine