Louis Pasteur : his life and labours / by his son-in-law ; tr. from the French by Lady Claud Hamilton ; with an introduction by John Tyndall.

  • Vallery-Radot, René, 1853-1933.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Louis Pasteur : his life and labours / by his son-in-law ; tr. from the French by Lady Claud Hamilton ; with an introduction by John Tyndall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    tory, where a temperature absolutely constant reigned, a circumstance •which permits of the deposit of all the parasitic filaments at the bottom of the tubes. Inoculating afterwards both with the clear upper liquid and with the deposit at the bottom, he found that the latter alone produced disease and death. It is, then, the bacteria which cause splenic fever. The proof was given and no further doubt remained. I. Yes, splenic fever is no doubt produced by bacteria just as itch is produced by acaries and trichinosis by trichinae. The only difference is that the para- site of splenic fever can only be seen by means of a rather powerful microscope. Here, then, is a disease in the highest degree virulent, due in its first cause to the infinitely little. Pasteur laid hold of and isolated this terrible vu'us. It was in a microscopic parasite, and in it alone, that the virulence of splenic fever re- sided. A great scientific fact had been gained. A virus might consist not of amorphous matter, but of microscopic beings. The virulence was due to their life. Liebig, and all the chemists and doctors who had Accepted and maintained his doctrine, totally repudi- ated all vital action in fermentation as well as in con- tagious and infectious diseases. Dominated by their