Pruparatokv to Ri'Staiu II (^ari:i;r 53 



the new methods of work would constitute a vast improvement 

 over the procedures employed by Brcfcld in the study of common 

 moulds and fungi, and, indeed, on the culture methods of Pasteur, 

 Klebs, and others.'" Duclaux reminds us that, nevertheless, 

 Pasteur, while isolating the bacterid ium of anthrax from the 

 "myriads of germs which accompany it in the soil," employed the 

 principle of securing his " pure cultures in the medium best fitted 

 to the physiological needs of the anthrax bacillus,"^'* and these 

 experiments date from the year 1881. This does not imply that 

 Pasteur did not accept Koch's better laboratory method. It is 

 fold '■' that at the International Medical Congress, when he saw 

 Koch demonstrate his plate cultures, Pasteur rushed forward, ex- 

 claiming, "C'est un grand progrcs! " It was about this time that 

 Koch and his assistants perfected steam sterilization as a pro- 

 cedure in laboratory investigations.^" In 1881, furthermore, John 

 Tyndall (1820-1893), an Englishman, friend of Pasteur, a physi- 

 cist and student of heat, light, sound, and fermentation, published 

 his Essays on the floating matter of the air, and **^ the study 

 included a consideration of air floating matter in relation to putre- 

 faction and infection.''- Smith accredited Tyndall ^^ with discover- 

 ing intermittent steam sterilization. " [H]e it was," Smith later 

 said, "who recommended discontinuous sterilization, another 

 superb simple procedure," and listed "Tyndall's discontinuous 

 moist sterilization " eighth among the " milestones " of progress in 

 bacteriology.^* 



The year 1881 was considered by Smith "the proper starting 

 point" for workers determining the systematic priority of bac- 

 terial species. Saying this in the first of his great three-volume 

 work. Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases,^^ he reasoned that 

 this year represented " the time when bacteriologists were first able 



" E. C. Large, The advance of the fungi, 210 f., N. Y., Henry Holt & Co., 1940. 



^' Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 286. 



'* F. H. Garrison, Introd. to the Hist, of Med., op. cit., 579. 



«" Idem. 



Idem. 858. See, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18. 

 Fift)' years of pathology, op. cit., 18. 



' See, " Annotated list of persons mentioned in this book," Pasteur: The history 

 of a mind, op. cit., 350. 



^* Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 1, op. cit., 153; Fifty years of pathology, 

 op. cit., 18. 



*■'• Published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (September, 1905), 

 op. cit., 155. 



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