xv.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 377 



may have commented on the waste of their high abili- 

 ties in toiling at the solution of problems which, though 

 curious enough in themselves, could be of no conceiv- 

 able utility to mankind. 



Nevertheless, you will have observed that, before we 

 had travelled very far upon our road, there appeared, on 

 the right hand and on the left, fields laden with a har- 

 vest of golden grain, immediately convertible into those 

 things which the most sordidly practical of men will 

 admit to have value — viz., money and life. 



The direct loss to France caused by the Pebrine in 

 seventeen years cannot be estimated at less than fifty 

 millions sterling ; and if we add to this what Eedi's 

 idea, in Pasteur's hands, has done for the wine-grower 

 and for the vinegar-maker, and try to capitalise its 

 value, we shall find that it will go a long way towards 

 repairing the money losses caused by the frightful and 

 calamitous war of this autumn. And as to the equi 

 valent of Redi's thought in life, how can we over-esti- 

 mate the value of that knowledge of the nature of epi- 

 demic and epizootic diseases, and consequently of the 

 means of checking, or eradicating them, the dawn of 

 which has assuredly commenced % 



Looking back no further than ten years, it is possible 

 to select three (18G3, 1864, and 1869) in which the 

 total number of deaths from scarlet-fever alone amount- 

 ed to ninety thousand. That is the return of killed, 

 the maimed and disabled being left out of sight. 

 Why, it is to be hoped that the list of killed in the 

 present bloodiest of all wars will not amount to more 

 than this ! But the facts which I have placed before 

 you must leave the least sanguine without a doubt 

 that the nature and the causes of this scourge will, one 

 day, be as well understood as those of the Pebrine are 



