CHAPTER IX 



ANTISEPTIC SURGERY, FOWL CHOLERA 



AND ANTHRAX 



We have now come to a turning point in Pasteur's 

 career. For several years Pasteur had pondered 

 over the possible relation of his researches to the 

 spread of human infections. He had often recalled 

 to mind the prophetic remark made over two hun- 

 dred years ago by the English chemist Robert 

 Boyle, that "He that thoroughly understands the 

 nature of ferments and fermentations shall prob- 

 ably be much better able than he that ignores them 

 to give a fair account of the diverse phenomena of 

 several diseases." Pasteur's work on spontaneous 

 generation, the diseases of wine and beer, and the 

 diseases of silk worms, naturally disposed him to 

 look with favor upon the idea, which had gradually 

 been growing more clearly defined in his mind, that 

 contagion might be caused by micro-organisms, and 

 in 1863 he remarked to Napoleon III, in the 

 course of an interview at the Tuileries, that it was 



his great ambition to arrive at the cause of putrid 



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