PASTEUR: A STUDY IN GREATNESS 13 



continuously being spontaneously generated about us is very ancient in 

 origin. It originated in the superficial observations and non-scientific 

 explanations of our ancestors, and was perpetuated by the authority of 

 great leaders, such as Aristotle and Augustine. Aristotle, whose ideas 

 dominated the world for two thousand years, states explicitly that liv- 

 ing beings are generated spontaneously from decomposing carcases. 

 St. Augustine fulminates against the atheism of any who dare deny 

 the doctrine, and cites what he considers irrefutable proofs of it. The 

 alchemists gave recipes for the creation of various animals. Thus, Yan 

 Helmont gravely tells us, " You need only close up a dirty shirt with a 

 measure of wheat in order to see mice engendered in it — the strange 

 offspring of the smell of the wheat and the animal ferment attached to 

 the shirt." 



However, the more careful observation of a later period had cast 

 discredit upon the traditional view. Thus, it had been shown irre- 

 futably that the stock-proof of the spontaneous generationists — the ap- 

 pearance of maggots in decaying organic matter — was due to the hatch- 

 ing of flies' eggs. But the invention of the microscope, with its revela- 

 tion of millions of minute forms hitherto unsuspected, revived the 

 doctrine. 



The lapse of a year after the letters cited above enabled Pasteur 

 to announce, " Of gases, fluids, electricity, magnetism, ozone, things 

 known or things occult — there is nothing, in the air, conditional to life 

 except the germs it carries." 



This dictum was at once fiercely attacked by the generationists who 

 included in their party savants of European fame, the most notable 

 being Bastian, of London. The discussion held the almost breathless 

 attention of the newspaper-reading world, and ended some years later 

 in Pasteur's triumphant demonstration of his thesis. 



You can readily imagine that this research was not prosecuted by 

 Pasteur because of its mere academic interest. He appended to his first 

 paper, quoted above, this query — " What could be more desirable than 

 to push these studies far enough to prepare the road for a series of re- 

 searches into the origin of various diseases ? " 



In 1861 Pasteur discovered the ferment of butyric acid. In the fol- 

 lowing year he discovered the ferment of acetic acid, and showed that 

 microbes could be distinguished into two grand classes — aerobes and 

 anaerobes. The Academy of Sciences, which had rejected his name 

 when offered for membership upon several previous occasions, could not 

 longer refuse to honor a man whose fame was now world-wide. He was 

 elected a member at the end of 1862. 



The manufacturers and dealers in fermented liquors had always 

 been subjected to annoyance and loss by their inability to make wines 

 and beers of uniform standard and to keep them in the condition in 



