December 29, 1892] 



NATURE 



205 



kind by his labours. After the Minister came 

 M. d'Abbadie, the President of the Academy, who, ex- 

 pressing the congratulations of the Institute, presented 

 to M. Pasteur the large gold medal which had been 

 struck in commemoration of the day. The medal bears 

 on the obverse a likeness of M. Pasteur, while on the 

 reverse is the following inscription : " To Pasteur, on his 

 seventieth birthday, from grateful science and humanity, 

 Dec. 27, 1892." M. Bertrand also spoke, and both 

 his speech and that of M. d'Abbadie were cordially 

 applauded. Sir Joseph Lister, one of the delegates sent 

 by the Royal Society, was warmly greeted. He read in 

 French the following address : — 



" M. Pasteur, the great honour has been accorded me 

 of offering you the homage of medicine and surgery. 

 There is certainly not in the entire world a single peison 

 to whom medical science is more indebted than to you. 

 Your researches on fermentation have thrown a flood of 

 light which has illuminated the gloomy shadows of sur- 

 gery, and changed the treatment of wounds frorn a 

 matter of doubtful and too often disastrous empiricism 

 into a scientific art, certain and beneficent. Owing to 

 you, surgery has undergone a complete revolution. It 

 has been stripped of its terrors, and its efficiency has been 

 almost unlimitedly enlarged. But medicine owes as 

 much to your profound and philosophic studies as does 

 surgery. You have raised the veil which had for cen- 

 turies covered infectious diseases. You have discovered 

 and proved their microbic nature, and, thanks to your 

 initiative, and in many cases to your own special labour, 

 there are already a host of these destructive disorders of 

 which we now completely know the causes. ' Felix 

 ■qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.' This know- 

 ledge has already perfected in a surprising way 

 the diagnosis of certain plagues of the human 

 race, and has marked out the course which must be 

 followed in their prophylactic and curative treatment. 

 In this way your fine discoveries of the attenuation and 

 reinforcement of virus and of preventive inoculations 

 serve, and will serve as a lode-star. As a brilliant illus- 

 tration. I may note your studies of rabies. Their 

 originality was so striking that, with the exception of 

 certain ignorant people, everybody now recognizes the 

 greatness of that which you have accomplished against 

 this terrible malady. You have furnished a diagnosis 

 which immediately dispels the anguish of uncertainty 

 which formerly- haunted him who had been bitten by a 

 dog mistakenly supposed to be suffering from rabies. If 

 this were your only claim on humanity, you would 

 •deserve its eternal gratitude. But, by your marvellous 

 system of inoculation against rabies, you have discovered 

 how to follow the poison after its entry into the system, 

 and to conquer it there. M. Pasteur, infectious maladies 

 constitute, as you know, the great majority of the maladies 

 which afflict the human race. You can therefore under- 

 stand that medicine and surgery are eager on this great 

 occasion to offer you the profound homage of their 

 admiration and of their gratitude." 



Among other addresses was a striking speech by the 

 Mayor of Dole, M. Pasteur's birthplace. After the pre- 

 sentation of gifts by foreign delegates, M.Pasteur rose and 

 spoke a few words, which, according to the Paris corre- 

 spondent of the Times, were " broken by sobs." A speech 

 was then read for him by his son. In this speech, as re- 

 ported in the Times, M. Pasteur said, after referring to M. 

 Carnot's presence :— " In the midst of this brilliant scene 

 my first thought turns with melancholy to the recollec- 

 tion of so many scientific men who have known nothing 

 but trials. In the past they had to struggle against the 

 prejudices which stifled their ideas. These prejudices 

 overcome, they encountered obstacles and difficulties of 

 all kinds. Even a few years ago, before the public 

 authorities and the Municipal Council had provided 

 science with splendid buildings, a man whom I 



NO- 1 209, VOL. 47] 



loved and admired, Claude Bernard, had for a 

 laboratory, a few steps from here, nothing but a low, 

 damp cellar. Perhaps it was there he was struck bv the 

 milady which carried him off. When I heard of the 

 reception intended for me, his memory rose first of all to 

 my mind. I hail that great memory. It seems that you 

 have desired by an ingenious and delicate idea to make 

 my entire life pass before my eyes. One of my Jura 

 countrymen, the Mayor of Dole, has brought me a photo- 

 graph of the humble house where my father and mother 

 lived under such difficulties. The presence of all the pupils 

 of the Polytechnic School reminds me of the glowing 

 enthusiasm with which I first entered on the pursuit of 

 science. The representatives of the Facultv of Lille recall 

 for me my first studies on crystallography and fermentations, 

 which opened quite a new world to me. What hopes filled 

 me when I discovered that there were laws behind so many 

 obscure phenomena ! You have witnessed, my dear col- 

 leagues, by what a series of deductions I have been 

 enabled as a disciple of the experimental method to arrive 

 at physiological results. If I have sometimes disturbed 

 our academies by somewhat livelier discussions, it is be- 

 cause I was passionately defending truth. 



" You, lastly, delegates of foreign nations, who have 

 come so far to give France a proof of sympathy, you afford 

 me the most profound gratification which can be ex- 

 perienced by a man who invincibly believes that science 

 and peace will triumph over ignorance and war ; that 

 peoples come to an agreement not to destroy, but to build 

 up, and that the future will belong to those who have done 

 most for suffering humanity. I appeal to you, my dear 

 Lister, and to you all, illustrious representatives 

 of science, medicine, and surgery. Young men, 

 trust those certain and powerful methods, only 

 the first secrets of which we yet know. And all of you, 

 whatever your career, do not allow yourselves to be 

 infected by vilifying and barren scepticism ; do not allow 

 yourselves to be discouraged by the gloom of certain 

 hours which pass over a nation. Live in the serene 

 peace of laboratories and libraries. Consider first of all, 

 ' What have I done for my education ? ' and then, as you 

 advance, ' What have I done for my country ?' until the 

 moment when you will perhaps have the immense happi- 

 ness of thinking that you have contributed in some way to 

 the progress and welfare of mankind. But whether your 

 efforts are more or less favoured in life you must, on 

 nearing the grand goal, be entitled to say, ' I have done 

 what I could.' I express to you my profoimd emotion 

 and warm gratitude. Just as, on the back of this medal, 

 the great artist Roty has concealed under roses the date 

 of birth which weighs so heavily on my life, so you have 

 desired, my dear colleagues, to give my old age the spec- 

 tacle which could most delight it— that of these eager and 

 loving young men." 



This closed the ceremony. M. Carnot, before quittmg 

 the building, walked over to M. Pasteur and embraced 

 him. The celebration was one of which France has 

 good reason to be proud ; and Englishmen may well re- 

 gret that such a demonstration, common to governors and 

 governed, would in this country be impossible. 



NOTES. 



This week the American Society of Naturalists has been 

 holding at Princeton, N.J., its eleventh annual meeting, 

 the chair being occupied by Prof. Henry F. Osborn, Columbia 

 College, New York. On Tuesday a lecture was to be delivered 

 by Dr. C. Hart Merriam on the Diak Valley Expedition 

 (illustrated). On Wednesday, after the transaction of general 

 business, the following reports on marine biological laboratories 

 were to be read:— The Sea Isle Laboratory, by Prof. J. A. Rider, 

 University of Pennsylvania ; a marine station in Jamaica, by 



