430 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



In the evening, the dumb and resigned band of mujiks came 

 again to the laboratory door. They seemed led by Fate, heed- 

 less of the struggle between life and death of which they were 

 the prize. " Pasteur " was the only French word they knew, 

 and their set and melancholy faces brightened in his presence 

 as with a ray of hope and gratitude. 



Their condition was the more alarming that a whole fort- 

 night had elapsed between their being bitten and the date of 

 the first inoculations. Statistics were terrifying as to the results 

 of wolf -bites, the average proportion of deaths being 82 per 100. 

 General anxiety and excitement prevailed concerning the hap- 

 less Kussians, and the news of the death of three of them 

 produced an intense emotion. 



Pasteur had unceasingly continued his visits to the Hotel 

 Dieu. He was overwhelmed with grief. His confidence in his 

 method was in no wise shaken, the general results would not 

 allow it. But questions of statistics were of little account in 

 his eyes when he was the witness of a misfortune ; his charity 

 was not of that kind which is exhausted by collective generali- 

 ties : each individual appealed to his heart. As he passed 

 through the wards at the Hotel Dieu, each patient in his bed 

 inspired him with deep compassion. And that is why so many 

 who only saw him pass, heard his voice, met his pitiful eyes 

 resting on them, have preserved of him a memory such as the 

 poor had of St. Vincent de Paul. 



"The other Eussians are keeping well so far," declared 

 Pasteur at the Academy sitting of April 12, 1886. Whilst 

 certain opponents in France continued to discuss the three 

 deaths and apparently saw nought but those failures , the return 

 of the sixteen survivors was greeted with an almost religious 

 emotion. Other Russians had come before them and were 

 saved, and the Tsar, knowing these things, desired his brother, 

 the Grand Duke Vladimir, to bring to Pasteur an imperial gift, 

 the Cross of the Order of St. Anne of Russia, in diamonds. 

 He did more, he gave 100,000 fr. in aid of the proposed Pasteur 

 Institute. 



In April, 1886, the English Government, seeing the practical 

 results of the method for the prophylaxis of hydrophobia, 

 appointed a Commission to study and verify the facts. Sir 

 James Paget was the president of it, and the other members 

 were : Dr. Lauder-Brunton, Mr. Fleming, Sir Joseph Lister, 

 Dr. Quain, Sir Henry Roscoe, Professor Burdon Sanderson, and 



