198 LOUIS PASTEUR, HIS LIFE AND LABOURS. 



dependent for their interpretation and application upon 

 the sagacity of the physician. How does England stand 

 in relation to the great work now going on around 

 her? She is, and must be, behindhand. Scientific 

 chauvinism is not beautiful in my eyes. Still, one can 

 hardly see, without deprecation and protest, the English 

 investigator handicapped in so great a race by short- 

 sighted and mischievous legislation. 



A great scientific theory has never been accepted 

 without opposition. The theory of gravitation, the 

 theory of undulation, the thecry of evolution, the 

 dynamical theory of heat all had to push their way 

 through conflict to victory. And so it has been with 

 the Germ Theory of communicable diseases. Some 

 outlying members of the medical profession dispute it 

 still. I am told they even dispute the communica- 

 bility of cholera. Such must always be the course of 

 things, as long as men are endowed with different de- 

 grees of insight. Where the mind of genius discerns 

 the distant truth, which it pursues, the mind not so 

 gifted often discerns nothing but the extravagance, 

 which it avoids. Names, not yet forgotten, could be 

 given to illustrate these two classes of minds. As 

 representative of the first class, I would name a man 

 whom I have often named before, who fought, in Eng- 

 land, the battle of the germ theory with persistent 

 valour, but whose labours broke him down before he 

 saw the triumph which he foresaw completed. Many 

 of my medical friends will understand that I allude 

 here to the late Dr. William Budd, of Bristol. 



The task expected of me is now accomplished, and 

 the reader is here presented with a record, in which 

 the verities of science are endowed with the interest of 

 romance. 



