360 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



That day of the 5th September was remembered in Geneva. 

 '*A11 the honour was for France,'^ wrote Pasteur to his son; 

 **that was what I had wished." 



He was already keen in the pursuit of another malady which 

 caused great damage, the ^'rouget" disease or swine fever. 

 Thuillier, ever ready to start when a demonstration had to be 

 made or an experiment to be attempted, had ascertained, in 

 March, 1882, in a part of the Department of the Vienne, the 

 existence of a microbe in the swine attacked with that disease. 



In order to know whether this microbe was the cause of the 

 evil, the usual operations of the sovereign method had to be 

 resorted to. First of all, a culture mediam had to be found 

 which was suitable to the micro-organism (veal broth was found 

 to be very successful) ; then a drop of the culture had to be 

 abstracted from the little phials where the microbe was develop- 

 ing and sown into other flasks; lastly the culture liquid had to 

 be inoculated into swine. Death supervened with all the 

 symptoms of swine fever; the microbe was therefore the cause 

 of the evil? Could it be attenuated and a vaccine obtained? 

 Being pressed to study that disease, and to find the remedy for 

 it, by M. Maucuer, a veterinary surgeon of the Department 

 of Vaucluse, living at Bollene, Pasteur started, accompanied 

 by his nephew, Adrien Loir, and M. Thuillier. The three 

 arrived at BoUene on September 13. 



*'It is impossible to imagine more obliging kindness than 

 that of those excellent Maucuers, " wrote Pasteur to his wife 

 the next day. *' Where, in what dark comer they sleep, in 

 order to give us two bedrooms, mine and another with two 

 beds, I do not like to think. They are young, and have an 

 eight-year-old son at the Avignon College, for whom they have 

 obtained a half -holiday to-day in order that he may be presented 

 to *]\L Pasteur.' The two men and I are taken care of in a 

 manner you might envy. It is colder here and more rainy 

 than in Paris. I have a fire in my room, that green oak-wood 

 fire that you will remember we had at the Pont Gisquet. 



*'I was much pleased to hear that the swine fever is far from 

 being extinquished. There are sick swine everywhere, some 

 dying, some dead, at Bollene and in the country around; the 

 evil is disastrous this year. We saw some dead and dying 

 yesterday afternoon. We have brought here a young hog who 

 is very ill, and this morning we shall attempt vaccination at a 



