268 



PASTEUR: THE HISTORY OF A MIND 



which consequently does not affect the hands of the 

 operator, or cause him trouble in breathing, could be 

 advantageously substituted for a caustic phenic acid." 



It was in this way, scarcely raising the tone of his 

 voice, and without any high sounding phrases but 

 merely by following rigorously and patiently the thread 

 of his thought that Pasteur compelled surgeons to per- 

 fect the methods for dressing wounds which had been 

 employed by Lister, and which had themselves been 

 such a great discovery. These methods had been in- 

 spired by an inexact idea as to the true state of affairs, 

 an idea which Pasteur had shared, as we have seen, but 

 from which he detached himself, more and more. 

 This idea was that the air, especially, was to be feared 

 as the conveyor of germs. In this memorable note, 

 we have Pasteur laying the blame upon the sponges, 

 the lint, and, without wishing to put it into so many 

 words, upon the surgeon himself. 



To make this idea acceptable to the illustrious prac- 

 titioners, his colleagues in the Academy of Medicine, 

 that they were responsible for the accidents which oc- 

 curred to their patients, and that when there was a 

 case of death by purulent infection in their service, or 

 even merely a case of operative fever it was their fault, 

 was a task that Pasteur had not ventured to assume, 

 and yet one which he accomplished; because the new was 

 certain to destroy the old, because it was only necessary 

 to leave to itself the idea lodged in this Note in order 

 to see it invade and overthrow everything. Modern 

 surgery has arisen full fledged from this Note of 1878, 

 the general outlines of which we have just traced. 



"Some weeks ago," said Pasteur in conclusion, "one 

 of the members of the Section of Medicine and Surgery 

 of the Academy of Sciences, M. Se*dillot, after long 

 meditation on the things he had learned in the course 



