252 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



beneficent. Owing to you surgery has undergone a complete 

 revolution. It has been stripped of its terrors, and its effi- 

 ciency has been almost unlimitedly enlarged. But medicine 

 owes as much to your profound and philosophic studies as 

 surgery. You have raised the veil which had for centuries 

 covered infectious diseases. You have discovered and 

 proved their microbic nature ; and thanks to your initia- 

 tion, and in many cases to your own special labour, there 

 are already a host of these destructive diseases of which 

 we now completely know the causes. This knowledge has 

 already perfected in a surprising fashion the diagnosis of 

 certain plagues of the human race, and has marked out the 

 course which must be followed in their prophylactic and 

 curative treatment. Medicine and surgery are eager on 

 this great occasion to offer you the profound homage of 

 their admiration and their gratitude." 



Whatever may be Pasteur's claim to honour, and how 

 fully that claim is accepted Lister's words convey, it will in 

 future perhaps, even more definitely than it does at present, 

 undoubtedly rest upon the work which he has done in eluci- 

 dating the questions connected with the aetiology and pro- 

 phylaxis of specific infective disease. This one idea is the 

 root from which his work branches out in all directions. One 

 line of thought, work, and reasoning was followed through- 

 out. Each step in this path was carefully probed and tested 

 before any further advance was made, and once gained, was 

 never left until it had been made thoroughly sound as a 

 point from which the next step might be made. This it 

 is that makes his work so reliable, and assures for it the 

 immortality to which only truth can attain. 



Pasteur was a patriot, and France is to-day poorer than 

 when her great son was alive ; but the loss that science of 

 all nations has to bear is infinitely greater, not because his 

 work will perish, for that can never come to pass, but be- 

 cause he can no longer work except through those who 

 during his lifetime have been his pupils, friends, and assis- 

 tants. They, however, have already given proof that we 

 may not look in vain to them for the continuation of the 

 noble work that their master commenced. 



German Sims Woodhead. 



