ANTHRAX 25 



to microscopic organisms. Yes, even many of the changes taking 

 place in the body and associated with old age are attributed by some 

 writers to the products generated by bacteria. 



The workers in this field are not satisfied with knowing the cause 

 of a disease, but they wish to know how they may ward off disease 

 and how to cure it when once it gains access to the body of an animal. 

 Pasteur soon announced that he had found a preventive for anthrax. 

 His statement was immediately challenged by the president of an 

 agricultural society in such a way that it was brought to the atten- 

 tion of the entire civilized world. He suggested that the subject be 

 submitted to a decisive public test and offered to furnish fifty sheep, 

 half of which should be protected by the attenuated virus prepared 

 by Pasteur. Later they were all to be infected by the disease- 

 producing organisms and if the vaccine were a success the protected 

 ones were to remain healthy, the unprotected ones to die of the dis- 

 ease. Pasteur accepted the challenge and suggested that for two 

 of the sheep there should be .substituted two goats, and that there 

 be added to the herd ten cows, but he stated that these latter animals 

 should not be considered as falling rigidly within the test, for his 

 experiments had not yet been extended to cattle. Before this time 

 the fame of Pasteur had been considered firmly established, but now 

 all the world looked on with doubt to think that any man should 

 make such a preposterous claim. On May 5 the animals to be pro- 

 tected received their first treatment with the vaccine and a second 

 two weeks later. Virulent cultures of the disease-producing organ- 

 ism were then inoculated into the animals. The results of the test 

 were indeed dramatic. 



"Two days later, June 2, at the appointed hour of rendezvous, a 

 vast crowd, composed of veterinary surgeons, newspaper corre- 

 spondents, and farmers from far and near, gathered to witness the 

 closing scenes of this scientific tourney. What they saw was one of 

 the most dramatic scenes in the history of peaceful science, a scene 

 which Pasteur declared afterward, ' amazed the assembly.' Scattered 

 about the enclosure, dead, dying, or manifestly sick unto death, lay 

 the unprotected animals, one and all, while each and every protected 

 animal stalked unconcernedly about with every appearance of per- 

 fect health. Twenty of the sheep and the one goat were already 

 dead; two other sheep expired under the eyes of the spectators; the 

 remaining victims lingered but a few hours longer. Thus, in a 

 manner theatrical enough, not to say tragic, was proclaimed the 

 unequivocal victory of science." 



It has been estimated by conservative writers that Pasteur's dis- 

 covery of the means of preventing or curing anthrax, silkworms' 

 disease, and chicken cholera, adds annually to the wealth of France 

 a sum equivalent to the entire indemnity paid by France to Germany 

 after the War of 1870. 



