OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW DOCTRINE 245 



men of the time to have regarded these new ideas, ob- 

 hged as they were to reconcile their desire for the prog- 

 ress of science with scholastic traditions and the hatred 

 of innovation, so native to the practitioner. Objec- 

 tions occurred naturally. These remained vague to 

 medical men because for the most part they did not 

 have the laboratory spirit, but they were formulated 

 ^ore clearly in the mind of Pasteur, and behold the 

 result ! 



In the first place anthrax appeared clearly to be a 

 contagious, inoculable disease due to something which 

 taken in an infinitesimal quantity from a diseased 

 animal could produce the disease or kill a sound animal 

 after a period of incubation which was evidently a period 

 of development and of invasion of the organism. But 

 what was this something? Was it the anthrax bac- 

 teridium, as Delafond, Davaine and Koch said? Was 

 it a virus, as tradition would have it the tradition 

 created by what was known of smallpox, vaccine, and 

 sheeppox, and even by what was supposed to be known 

 about glanders? 



The question does not seem very important to us, 

 who have made a choice, and who, furthermore, with 

 our knowledge, and without being misunderstood, are 

 able to give the name of virus to the anthrax bacteridium 

 itself. But 20 years ago the domain of viruses and 

 that of parasites remained separate. M. Chauveau, who 

 was one of the first to make a remarkable study along 

 this line, defined virulent diseases as contagious diseases 

 which were neither caused nor transmitted by a parasite. 



This distinction not only seemed well founded, but 

 determined the direction which research was to take. 

 A virus could be cultivated only within the animal or- 

 ganism adapted to it. It could enter it in various ways 

 and produce in it different manifestations according 



