EXPERIMENTS IN CHEMISTRY 33 



tion to light and crystalline form consumed about 

 five years of very active investigation. During this 

 time Pasteur had changed his position from the 



r 



Ecole Normale, first to Dijon, where he remained 

 only a few months, and thence in 1849, to the Uni- 

 versity of Strasbourg, where he was made Professor 

 of Chemistry. Half of the 1500 francs prize he 

 received was spent in fitting up the chemical labo- 

 ratory of that institution. Scientific laboratories 

 at that time were rarely furnished with adequate 

 equipment. Claude Bernard, who made epoch- 

 making discoveries in physiology, worked in a sort 

 of cellar in the College de France. Deville, one of 

 the foremost organic chemists of his time, was lim- 

 ited to a miserable corner, and the room assigned 

 to Dumas at the Sorbonne was so unwholesome 

 that he supported a laboratory at his own expense 

 outside the University. When Pasteur began as 

 Professor at the Ecole Normale, he had to utilize, 

 as a laboratory, two attics close under the roof 

 with no laboratory attendant or assistant of any 

 kind. At a later period, he was given a small build- 

 ing in which he installed a drying oven under the 

 staircase, which he could reach only by crawling 

 on his knees. 

 Pasteur found Strasbourg a favorable place for 



