284 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



of the splenic fever country, and we sometimes met M. Tous- 

 saint, who was studying the same subject as we were. We 

 have kept a pleasant memory of that campaign against charbon 

 in the Chartres neighbourhood. Early in the morning, we 

 would visit the sheepfolds scattered on that wide plateau of the 

 Beauce, dazzling with the splendour of the August sunshine; 

 then necropsies took place in M. Kabourdin's knacker's yard 

 or in the farmyards. In the afternoon, we edited our experi- 

 ment notebooks, wrote to Pasteur, and arranged for new 

 experiments. The day was well filled, and how interesting 

 and salutary was that bacteriology practised in the open 

 air! 



"On the days when Pasteur came to Chartres, we did not 

 linger over our lunch at the Hotel de France ; we drove off to 

 St. Germain, where M. Maunoury had kindly put his farm 

 and flocks at our disposal. During the drive we talked of the 

 week's work and of what remained to be done. 



" As soon as Pasteur left the carriage he hurried to the folds. 

 Standing motionless by the gate, he would gaze at the lots 

 which were being experimented upon, with a careful attention 

 which nothing escaped ; he would spend hours watching one 

 sheep which seemed to him to be sickening. We had to remind 

 him of the time and to point out to him that the towers of 

 Chartres Cathedral were beginning to disappear in the falling 

 darkness before we could prevail upon him to come away. He 

 questioned farmers and their servants, giving much credit to 

 the opinions of shepherds, who on account of their solitary life, 

 give their whole attention to their flocks and often become 

 sagacious observers." 



When again at Arbois, on September 17, Pasteur began to 

 write to the Minister of Agriculture a note on the practical 

 ideas suggested by this first campaign. A few sheep, bought 

 near Chartres and gathered in a fold, had received, amongst 

 the armfuls of forage offered them, a few anthrax spores. 

 Nothing had been easier than to bring these from the labora- 

 tory, in a liquid culture of bacteria, and to scatter them on the 

 field where the little flock grazed. The first meals did not give 

 good scientific results, death was not easily provoked. But 

 when the experimental menu was completed by prickly plants, 

 likely to wound the sheep on their tongue or in their pharynx , 

 such, for instance, as thistles or ears of barley, the mortality 

 began. It was perhaps not as considerable as might have 



