TRIUMPHS OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 241 



service as this that science has achieved one of her most bril- 

 liant modern victories, for an account of which we are 

 indebted to Mr. Huxley in his fascinating essay on the " Origin 

 of Life." A peculiar epizootic disease attacked the silkworms 

 in France, about the year 1853, and threatened to destroy the 

 great silk-producing industry of that country ; involving a loss 

 of thirty millions sterling to the silk-grower, and overwhelming 

 with poverty and distress, a vast population employed in the 

 most important manufacturing towns. After many unsuc- 

 cessful investigations into the cause of this disease, M. Pasteur 

 commenced a scientific exploration which determined the cause 

 and provided the remedy also ; and in the performance of 

 which Pasteur added his name to the long list of those who 

 have sacrificed themselves for the benefit of mankind. He dis- 

 covered that this devastating disease " is the effect of the growth 

 and multiplication of the panhistophyton in the silk-worm ; 

 that it is contagious and infectious, because the corpuscles of 

 the panhistophyton pass away from the bodies of the diseased 

 caterpillars, directly or indirectly, to the alimentary canal of 

 healthy silk-worms in their neighborhood ; that it is hereditary, 

 because the corpuscles enter into the eggs while they are being 

 formed, and consequently are carried with them when they are 

 being laid ; that it is an independent organism, which is no 

 more generated by the silk-worm than the mistletoe is gen- 

 erated by the oak, or the apple-tree, on which it grows, though 

 it may need the silk-worm for its development, in the same way- 

 as the mistletoe needs the tree." " Guided by this theory, he 

 devised a method of extirpating the disease, which has proved 

 to be completely successful, wherever it has been carried 

 out." 



Encouraged by this success of M. Pasteur, what may not the 

 agriculturist expect from that alliance between himself and 

 science which lias been established during the last quarter of a 

 century. Not that science will ever enable the farmer to shut 

 his eyes to those great influences of nature, which the hand of 

 man cannot reach, which no investigation can fathom, no human 

 power guide ; not that it will enable us to control the skies and 

 the seasons ; not that it will ever invade that unexplored region, 

 where lie the strange forces which we all, philosopher and 

 farmer alike, admire, obey, and leave with the good God who 



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