XVI INTRODUCTION 



are very amiable to say so many good things about my 

 book * * * but physicians are those I would wish to 

 lay hold of and I begin to believe that I shall not suc- 

 ceed! I know very well that old physicians do not read 

 any more, and when they do read do not understand. I 

 know that students think only of their examinations, 

 when they think at all; but among the population of 

 hospital internes or externes and that of physicians who 

 have not yet obtained a clientele, I thought I should 

 find attentive readers possessed of good will. Experience 

 begins to demonstrate that I shall not have them." 

 Again he writes: ''When I read one of those byzantine 

 discussions of the Academy of IVIedicine always I ask 

 myself whether the speakers do not wish to understand 

 or simply cannot understand." In 1885 his book "Le 

 Microbe et la Maladie^' was completed and was published 

 the following year. This year he writes, ''My dear friend, 

 jMedicine is a strange terrain. It is an edifice where 

 nothing remains standing. Tradition still maintains 

 the plan and general arrangement, but it would be best 

 that everything should come down, because there is no 

 good to be derived from what exists except from the 

 materials. If I were a physician I believe I should give 

 the mattock blow which would make all crumble. Since 

 my manuscript is finished I have become more intimately 

 aware of the fragility of medical notions even those in 

 appearance best founded. Who knows? Perhaps a 

 section of wall will blow up somewhere and a little light 

 penetrate through the opening thus made." 



From 1877 to 1896 Duclaux's time was largely de- 

 voted to a profound study of milk and dairy products. 

 These studies led him to attribute a preponderating role 

 to microbes in all the industries based upon milk. His 

 work in Cantal led to a revolution in cheesemaking and 

 to a great extension of the industry, due to tlie better 



