DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN MEDICINE 199 



had died of this disease. Pasteur wrote immedi- 

 ately to the Director asking how long the sheep 

 had been dead before its blood was used for inocu- 

 lation. Upon learning that the animal died the 

 day before, Pasteur affirmed that the inoculated 

 animals probably died of septicemia instead of 

 anthrax. This led to a controversy more or less 

 drawn out and finally to a challenge from Pasteur 

 who offered to go to Turin and demonstrate publicly 

 that blood in sheep dying from anthrax would after 

 twenty-four hours give rise to septicemia in healthy 

 and in vaccinated sheep. Pasteur's challenge was 

 not accepted. The professors at Turin contented 

 themselves with continuing their arguments and in 

 publishing a pamphlet entitled On the Scientific 

 Dogmatism of the Illustrious Professor Pasteur. 



In a field requiring a refined and perfected tech- 

 nique and in which there lurk unexpected sources 

 of error it is easy for experimenters who are not 

 particularly well trained for their work to get dis- 

 cordant results. Pasteur, if he failed to convince 

 his opponents, pointed out many errors of proce- 

 dure which vitiated their conclusions. His strong- 

 est ally, however, was the growing evidence that 

 his methods were yielding tangible results. He 

 had the satisfaction of observing a remarkable de- 



