HEALTH AND DISEASE 30I 



1 86 1, was attacking the doctrine of spontaneous generation. He was dig- 

 ging the supposedly fecund Dirt away from the very base of the evolu- 

 tionists' precious Tree of Life, and leaving that Tree suspended as an eter- 

 nal mystery in the Divine air. Pasteur's investigations into the disease of 

 silkworms in the south of France were not begun until 1865, he did not 

 turn his attention to anthrax in sheep until 1877, and it was 1885 before 

 the first child was inoculated against hydrophobia. In 1861, Louis Pasteur, 

 too good a Catholic, and much too good a chemist, to tolerate materialistic 

 doctrines against the evidences of his senses, was attacking the "philosophic 

 necessity" of spontaneous generation. 



As a young man, in 1848, when he was only twenty-six, Pasteur made 

 his first, brilliant scientific discovery, and happily it received immediate 

 and full recognition by the greatest savants in France. This success fired 

 in him a consuming passion for research, and started him on his course 

 with an unbroken youthful ambition. His maiden discovery meant so much 

 more than an addition to knowledge of the properties of tartaric acid. A 

 minute difference, which he was the first to perceive, among the crystals 

 of the acid, the right and left handedness of certain of the crystal facets, 

 was associated with the power of their solutions to turn polarized light 

 to the right or to the left. What did it mean? It meant that some at least 

 of the molecules of which the whole universe was composed had the power 

 of assembling in tvvo ways, one of which was the mirror image of the 

 other. 



While the crystals of tartaric acid were still sparkling for Pasteur, with 

 all the magical brilliance of first discovery, he had not only traveled about 

 Europe collecting specimens of tartar from many sources, poking about in 

 the dregs of the wine vats where the tartar was found, he had also sought 

 for the phenomenon of optical dissymmetry in other substances. Pasteur 

 was happy when his appointment at Lille in 1854 took him into a district 

 where there were many distilleries. He would have to prepare lectures on 

 the chemistry of fermentation for the apprentices and technical workers of 

 the district, but, alongside his teaching work, he would be able to continue 

 his researches, and perhaps find some more dissymmetrical substances. The 

 distillers' vats were good places in which to look for them. 



He had not been studying fermentation for very long before he began 

 watching the yeast cells in the fermenting worts and liquors, with a very 

 particular attention. Under the microscope they appeared, normally, as 

 small globules, often with a smaller globule budding out at the side, like 

 a "dolly" on a potato. They multiplied in this way, by budding. In fer- 

 mentation that went well and gave good brews, the cells were all of this 

 kind: but in those that went wrong, and produced sour wine or inferior 

 beer there were present cells of a different shape, not globular, but elon- 

 gated or sausage-like. Could that abnormality make all the difference in 

 the brew? 



