After visiting the products and agricultural implements, Pasteur was met in the street by a peasant who stopped and waved his large hat, shouting, “Long live Pasteur!”... “You have saved my cattle,” continued the man, coming up to shake hands with him.
Physicians in their turn desired to celebrate and to honour him who, though not a physician, had rendered such service to medicine. Thirty-two of them assembled to drink his health. The head physician of the Aurillac Hospital, Dr. Fleys, said in proposing the toast: “What the mechanism of the heavens owes to Newton, chemistry to Lavoisier, geology to Cuvier, general anatomy to Bichat, physiology to Claude Bernard, pathology and hygiene will owe to Pasteur. Unite with me, dear colleagues, and let us drink to the fame of the illustrious Pasteur, the precursor of the medicine of the future, a benefactor to humanity.”
This glorious title was now associated with his name. In the first rank of his enthusiastic admirers came the scientists, who, from the point of view of pure science, admired the achievements, within those thirty-five years, of that great man whose perseverance equalled his penetration. Then came the manufacturers, the sericicultors, and the agricultors, who owed their fortune to him who had placed every process he discovered into the public domain. Finally, France could quote the words of the English physiologist, Huxley, in a public lecture at the London Royal Society: “Pasteur’s discoveries alone would suffice to cover the war indemnity of five milliards paid by France to Germany in 1870.”
To that capital was added the inestimable price of human lives saved. Since the antiseptic method had been adopted in surgical operations, the mortality had fallen from 50 per 100 to 5 per 100.
In the lying-in hospitals, more than decimated formerly (for the statistics had shown a death-rate of not only 100 but 200 per 1,000), the number of fatalities was now reduced to 3 per 1,000 and soon afterwards fell to 1 per 1,000. And, in consequence of the principles established by Pasteur, hygiene was growing, developing, and at last taking its proper place in the public view. So much progress accomplished had brought Pasteur a daily growing acknowledgment of gratitude, his country was more than proud of him. His powerful mind, allied with his very tender heart, had brought to French glory an aureole of charity.
The Government of the Republic remembered that England had voted two national rewards to Jenner, one in 1802 and one in 1807, the first of £10,000, and the second of £20,000. It was at the time of that deliberation that Pitt, the great orator, exclaimed, “Vote, gentlemen, your gratitude will never reach the amount of the service rendered.”
The French Ministry proposed to augment the 12,000 fr. pension accorded to Pasteur in 1874 as a national recompense, and to make it 25,000 fr., to revert first to Pasteur’s widow, and then to his children. A Commission was formed and Paul Bert again chosen to draw up the report.
On several occasions at the meetings of the commission one of its members, Benjamin Raspail, exalted the parasitic theory propounded in 1843 by his own father. His filial pleading went so far as to accuse Pasteur of plagiarism. Paul Bert, whilst recognizing the share attributed by F. V. Raspail to microscopic beings, recalled the fact that his attempt in favour of epidemic and contagious diseases had not been adopted by scientists. “No doubt,” he said, “the parasitic origin of the itch was now definitely accepted, thanks in a great measure to the efforts of Raspail; but generalizations were considered as out of proportion to the fact they were supposed to rest on. It seemed excessive to conclude from the existence of the acarus of itch, visible to the naked eye or with the weakest magnifying glass, the presence of microscopic parasites in the humours of virulent diseases.... Such hypotheses can be considered but as a sort of intuition.”
“Hypotheses,” said Pasteur, “come into our laboratories in armfuls; they fill our registers with projected experiments, they stimulate us to research—and that is all.” One thing only counted for him: experimental verification.
Paul Bert, in his very complete report, quoted Huxley’s words to the Royal Society and Pitt’s words to the House of Commons. He stated that since the first Bill had been voted, a new series of discoveries, no less marvellous from a theoretical point of view and yet more important from a practical point of view, had come to strike the world of Science with astonishment and admiration.” Recapitulating Pasteur’s works, he said—