DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN MEDICINE 185 



his friend and admirer Tyndall has so well extolled, 

 — the scientific imagination; but it was an imagi- 

 nation held down to facts with a strong tether. As 

 Poincare remarks, "he had sudden inspirations 

 which bore him on toward unexpected discoveries; 

 he had instincts of divination which pushed him 

 forward along unexplored paths; he had swift, 

 headlong rushes of thought that overleaped and 

 anticipated the establishment of truth, prepared 

 the way for it, made its attainment more rapid, and 

 more sure. But when a scientific problem had 

 taken shape before him, in one of those general 

 flashes of illumination, he never considered it solved 

 until he had questioned all nature, until he had 

 classified or eliminated all the facts; until he had 

 forced them each and every one to give him an 

 answer." 



Pasteur's remarkable series of discoveries brought 

 him many honors. In 1881 the Republic offered 

 him the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honor. 

 Feeling that much of the credit for his recent 

 achievements was due to his able collaborators, 

 Roux and Chamberland, he imposed one condition 

 upon which he would receive this mark of distinc- 

 tion; it was that the Red Ribbon of the Legion of 

 Honor should go to his two collaborators; and he 



