How often was Pasteur obliged to return to facts already proved, not only at the Academy of Sciences, but at the Academy of Medicine, where M. Jules Guérin, at the age of eighty, challenged him to a duel as his scientific ultimatum! If M. Pasteur at times pleaded his cause with too much passion, it was the passion of truth, the burning desire to convince, which lent such power and defiance to his vibrating voice. He could not endure his work to be attacked—not from pride, none was more modest than he—but from irritation at the denial of positive facts; facts of which he was a thousand times assured, and which all the world might verify. No one now remembers these discussions. Time has passed, and opposition has been overthrown. It has been granted to Pasteur to see, everywhere around him, the beneficent results of his discoveries. From all parts, from his own as well as from foreign countries, such proofs of admiration and gratitude have been showered upon him as are usually granted only to those whose death has atoned for their genius. He has opened up such sources of wealth to industry and agriculture that, as the learned English professor Huxley has truly said, 'Pasteur's discoveries suffice, of themselves, to cover the war indemnity of five milliards of francs paid by France to Germany.' His investigations of contagious diseases have revealed immense possibilities in prophylaxy. But Pasteur considered these marvellous discoveries as a mere beginning. 'You will see,' he often said, 'how it will all grow by-and-by. Would that my time were longer!'
THE LABORATORY OF THE ÉCOLE NORMALE.
VARIOUS STUDIES. HYDROPHOBIA.
Since the day when a minister told Pasteur, that there were not 1,500 francs in the budget to allow for the expenses of his laboratory, science has obtained a little more consideration. At the present time she has nothing to complain of: her sovereignty is recognised; her schools are becoming palaces; she has an amply sufficient civil list: she is rich enough, in short, to pay for her researches. M. Pasteur's laboratory has had its full share of the well-bestowed generosity of the State. The municipal council of Paris even wished to attach vast dependencies to this laboratory. The old garden of the ancient Collège Rollin was placed at the disposal of Pasteur; who at once hastened to build stables for lodging horses attacked by glanders, stalls for sheltering splenic fever sheep, and kennels for the reception of mad dogs. But, while taking advantage of these hospitable premises, Pasteur still retained, in the basement of his laboratory in the Rue d'Ulm, a whole population of animals under experiment. Isolated in round cages which impart some sense of security, are the rabid dogs; some attacked with furious madness, biting their bars, devouring hay, uttering doleful howls which those who have once heard can never forget; others carrying the germ of this terrible disease, still fawning with a humble look of tenderness, as if imploring attention. Hens and chickens pass their heads through the wooden bars of their coops. From time to time a cock from the bottom of his den crows 'a gloomy dawn.' Rabbits eat peaceably, while little families of guinea-pigs cluster together, and at the least alarm utter a frightened cry. All these animals are destined to be shortly inoculated. Each morning a round of inspection is made in this little hospital of condemned animals. The dead are taken out, carried to one of the upper rooms, and placed on the dissecting-boards.
It is also to such boards that living animals are fastened when it is necessary to experiment upon them. Certainly when one sees a dog lying with a forlorn look, its feet tied, its body trembling from fright, on the point of undergoing, though in full health, a bloody operation, one cannot suppress the feelings of pity. But a single visit to a physiological laboratory suffices to reveal vivisection in its only and true light; that of the interest it offers to science, and the results it may have in store for the benefit of humanity. Moreover, in Pasteur's laboratory, every dog subjected to vivisection is chloroformed. The persons who take up the controversy about vivisection are careful that the outside world shall see only the suffering and anguish of the animal, where the solution of a problem should be the object kept in view. Would the English physiologist Harvey have discovered the circulation of the blood, if he had not practised vivisection on deer in the park of Charles I.? Would Claude Bernard have been able, without vivisection, to demonstrate the glycogenic function of the liver? If Pasteur had not sacrificed some fowls and sheep, would the great scientific fact of the attenuation of virus have been discovered? If 500 dogs had to perish, what would that be, compared with the discovery tomorrow of the cause of hydrophobia, and of the means of protecting humanity against this frightful scourge?
On one occasion, in presence of a large assembly, Pasteur made an experiment on atmospheric oxygen. He placed under a glass bell a bird, which in a short time, after having consumed the oxygen contained in the bell, gathered itself up into a ball, opened its beak, and shut its eyes, as if it were going to die. At this moment Pasteur introduced a second sparrow, which, passing directly from the ordinary air into the bell, without any gradual preparation, immediately fell, asphyxiated. There was a little exclamation of horror and a movement of pity in the audience. While the first sparrow, which had gone through the ordeal unharmed, was set free, and gradually revived, Pasteur turned towards the assembly and said—
'I never had the courage to kill a bird in sport, but when it is a question of experiment I am deterred by no scruple. Science has the right to assert the sovereignty of its aims.'