240 MEDICINE AND 



the study of anthrax and rabies to the still more 

 direct benefit of humanity. All this time the 

 theoretical bearing of his experiments was greatly 

 enriching science and medicine. 



When at last he was in possession of his great 

 Institute in Paris he was surrounded by medical 

 men of all countries and for a time personally 

 inspired their labours. Vallery-Radot, his bio- 

 grapher, uses words concerning Pasteur which may 

 well close our reference to his work. "He felt 

 that nothing could arrest the course of his doctrine, 

 of which he said ' the breath of Truth is carrying it 

 towards the fruitful fields of the future.' He had 

 that intuition which makes a great poet of a great 

 scientist. The innumerable ideas surging through 

 his mind were like so many bees all trying to issue 

 from the hive at the same time. So many plans 

 and preconceived ideas only stimulated him to 

 further researches; but when he was once started 

 on a road he distrusted each step, and only pro- 

 gressed in the train of precise, clear, and irrefutable 

 experiments." 



"Precise, clear, and irrefutable experiments"; 

 such were the starting point of modern bacteriology, 

 and by the continuation of such experiments carried 

 out in laboratories all over the world it has pro- 

 gressed. It now forms a remarkable body of 

 knowledge, and as a formal science it is possessed 

 of a highly developed and ingenious experimental 

 technique. Its chief need, perhaps, in order to 



