CHAPTER X 



THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN MEDICINE 



The idea of conquering contagious diseases by 

 preventive inoculation filled Pasteur with an intense 

 ardor to apply to other maladies the methods 

 which he had found so successful in chicken 

 cholera and anthrax. What may not be hoped for 

 in the battle with contagious diseases in general? 

 It may even be possible some day, he thought, to 

 banish contagious diseases from the earth. The 

 secret of transmissible disease had now been re- 

 vealed. A method had been discovered by which 

 two of these diseases, the first two in which it had 

 been tried, could be checked. What wonderful 

 possibilities lay ahead! 



News that yellow fever had been brought by a 

 vessel into Bordeaux caused Pasteur to hasten to 

 that city in the hope of finding the microbe of this 

 disease. To the warnings he received of the 

 danger of infection he only replied, "What does 

 it matter? Life in the midst of danger is the life, 

 the grand life, the life of sacrifice, of example, of 



fruitfulness." The vessel had lost 18 persons, 



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