424 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



de Medecine the next day to enjoy the echo of the great sitting 

 of the Academic des Sciences. He died on November 29. 



The chairman of the Academy of Medicine, M. Jules 

 Bergeron, applauded Pasteur's statement all the more that he 

 too had publicly deplored (in 1862) the impotence of medical 

 science in the presence of this cruel disease. 



But while M. Bergeron shared the admiration felt by Vulpian 

 and Dr. Grancher for the experiments which had transformed 

 the rabic virus into its own vaccine, other medical men were 

 divided into several categories : some were full of enthusiasm, 

 others reserved their opinion, many were sceptical, and a few 

 even positively hostile. 



As soon as Pasteur's paper was published, people bitten by 

 rabid dogs began to arrive from all sides to the laboratory. The 

 ' ' service ' ' of hydrophobia became the chief business of the 

 day. Every morning was spent by Eugene Viala in preparing 

 the fragments of marrow used for inoculations : in a little room 

 permanently kept at a temperature of 20 to 23 C., stood rows 

 of sterilized flasks, their tubular openings closed by plugs of 

 cotton-wool. Each flask contained a rabic marrow, hanging 

 from the stopper by a thread and gradually drying up by the 

 action of some fragments of caustic potash lying at the bottom 

 of the flask. Viala cut those marrows into small pieces by 

 means of scissors previously put through a flame, and placed 

 them in small sterilized glasses ; he then added a few drops of 

 veal broth and pounded the mixture with a glass rod. The 

 vaccinal liquid was now ready ; each glass was covered with 

 a paper cover, and bore the date of the medulla used, the 

 earliest of which was fourteen days old. For each patient 

 under treatment from a certain date, there was a whole 

 series of little glasses. Pasteur always attended these opera- 

 tions personally. 



In the large hall of the laboratory, Pasteur's collaborators, 

 Messrs. Chamberland and Roux, carried on investigations into 

 contagious diseases under the master's directions ; the place was 

 full of flasks, pipets, phials, containing culture broths. Etienne 

 Wasserzug, another curator, hardly more than a boy, fresh 

 from the Ecole Normale, where his bright intelligence and 

 affectionate heart had made him very popular, translated (for 

 he knew the English, German, Italian, Hungarian and Spanish 

 languages, and was awaiting a favourable opportunity of learn- 

 ing Russian) the letters which arrived from all parts of the 



