446 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



In what obscurity were fermentation and infeciion enveloped 

 before his time, and with what light he had penetrated them! 

 "When he had discovered the all-powerful role of the infinites- 

 imally small, he had actually mastered some of those living 

 germs, causes of disease; he had transformed them from 

 destructive to preservative agents. Not only had he renovated 

 medicine and surgery, but hygiene, misunderstood and 

 neglected until then, was benefiting by the experimental 

 method. Light was being thrown on preventive measures. 



M. Henri Monod, Director of Hygiene and Public Charities, 

 one day quoted, a propos of sanitary measures, these words of 

 the great English Minister, Disraeli — 



** Public health is the foundation upon which rest the happi- 

 ness of the people and the power of the State. Take the most 

 beautiful kingdom, give it intelligent and laborious citizens, 

 prosperous manufactures, productive agriculture; let arts 

 flourish, let architects cover the land with temples and palaces; 

 in order to defend all these riches, have first-rate weapons, 

 3eets of torpedo boats — if the population remains stationary, if 

 it decreases yearly in vigour and in stature, the nation must 

 perish. And that is why I consider that the first duty of a 

 statesman is the care of Public Health.*' 



In 1889, when the International Congress of Hygiene met in 

 Paris, M. Brouardel was able to say — 



^*If echoes from this meeting could reach them . . . our 

 ancestors would learn that a revolution, the most formidable 

 for thirty centuries, has shaken medical science to its very 

 foundations, and that it is the work of a stranger to their 

 corporation; and their sons do not cry Anathema, they admire 

 him, bow to his laws. . . . We all proclaim ourselves disciples 

 of Pasteur." 



On the very day after those words were pronounced, Pasteur 

 ^aw the realization of one of his most ardent wishes, the 

 >nauguration of the new Sorbonne. At the sight of the won- 

 .^erful facilities for work offered by this palace, he remembered 

 Claude Bernard's cellar, his own garret at the Ecole Normals, 

 and felt a movement of patriotic pride. 



In October, 1889, though his health remained shaken, he 

 fnsisted on going to Alais, where a statue was being raised to 

 ■T. B. Dumas. Many of his colleagues tried to dissuade him 

 from this long and fatiguing journey, but he said: **I am 

 ilive, I shall go." At the foot of the statue, he spoke of his 



