The life of Pasteur

by René Vallery-Radot

The Director of Fine Arts, M. Kaempfen, representing the Government at the ceremony, pronounced these simple words: “In the name of the Government of the Republic, I salute the inscription which commemorates the fact that in this little house, in this little street, was born, on December 27, 1822, he who was to become one of the greatest scientists of this century so great in science, and who has, by his admirable labours, increased the glory of France and deserved well of the whole of humanity.”

The feelings in Pasteur’s heart burst forth in these terms: “Gentlemen, I am profoundly moved by the honour done to me by the town of Dôle; but allow me, while expressing my gratitude, to protest against this excess of praise. By according to me a homage rendered usually but to the illustrious dead, you anticipate too much the judgment of posterity. Will it ratify your decision? and should not you, Mr. Mayor, have prudently warned the Municipal Council against such a hasty resolution?

“But after protesting, gentlemen, against the brilliant testimony of an admiration which is more than I deserve, let me tell you that I am touched, moved to the bottom of my soul. Your sympathy has joined on that memorial plate the two great things which have been the passion and the delight of my life: the love of Science and the cult of the home.

“Oh! my father, my mother, dear departed ones, who lived so humbly in this little house, it is to you that I owe everything. Thy enthusiasm, my brave-hearted mother, thou hast instilled it into me. If I have always associated the greatness of Science with the greatness of France, it is because I was impregnated with the feelings that thou hadst inspired. And thou, dearest father, whose life was as hard as thy hard trade, thou hast shown to me what patience and protracted effort can accomplish. It is to thee that I owe perseverance in daily work. Not only hadst thou the qualities which go to make a useful life, but also admiration for great men and great things. To look upwards, learn to the utmost, to seek to rise ever higher, such was thy teaching. I can see thee now, after a hard day’s work, reading in the evening some story of the battles in the glorious epoch of which thou wast a witness. Whilst teaching me to read, thy care was that I should learn the greatness of France.

“Be ye blessed, my dear parents, for what ye have been, and may the homage done to-day to your little house be yours!

“I thank you, gentlemen, for the opportunity of saying aloud what I have thought for sixty years. I thank you for this fête and for your welcome, and I thank the town of Dôle, which loses sight of none of her children, and which has kept such a remembrance of me.”

“Nothing is more exquisite,” wrote Bouley to Pasteur, “than those feelings of a noble heart, giving credit to the parents’ influence for all the glory with which their son has covered their name. All your friends recognized you, and you appeared under quite a new light to those who may have misjudged your heart by knowing of you only the somewhat bitter words of some of your Academy speeches, when the love of truth has sometimes made you forgetful of gentleness.”

It might have seemed that after so much homage, especially when offered in such a delicate way as on this last occasion, Pasteur had indeed reached a pinnacle of fame. His ambition however was not satisfied. Was it then boundless, in spite of the modesty which drew all hearts towards him? What more did he wish? Two great things: to complete his studies on hydrophobia and to establish the position of his collaborators—whose name he ever associated with his work—as his acknowledged successors.

A few cases of cholera had occurred at Damietta in the month of June. The English declared that it was but endemic cholera, and opposed the quarantines. They had with them the majority of the Alexandria Sanitary Council, and could easily prevent sanitary measures from being taken. If the English, voluntarily closing their eyes to the dangers of the epidemic, had wished to furnish a new proof of the importation of cholera, they could not have succeeded better. The cholera spread, and by July 14 it had reached Cairo. Between the 14th and 22nd there were five hundred deaths per day.

Alexandria was threatened. Pasteur, before leaving Paris for Arbois, submitted to the Consulting Committee of Public Hygiene the idea of a French Scientific Mission to Alexandria. “Since the last epidemic in 1865,” he said, “science has made great progress on the subject of transmissible diseases. Every one of those diseases which has been subjected to a thorough study has been found by biologists to be produced by a microscopic being developing within the body of man or of animals, and causing therein ravages which are generally mortal. All the symptoms of the disease, all the causes of death depend directly upon the physiological properties of the microbe.... What is wanted at this moment to satisfy the preoccupations of science is to inquire into the primary cause of the scourge. Now the present state of knowledge demands that attention should be drawn to the possible existence within the blood, or within some organ, of a micro-organism whose nature and properties would account in all probability for all the peculiarities of cholera, both as to the morbid symptoms and the mode of its propagation. The proved existence of such a microbe would soon take precedence over the whole question of the measures to be taken to arrest the evil in its course, and might perhaps suggest new methods of treatment.”