60 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



farmers lost, each year, by anthrax alone, 5 per 

 cent, of their cattle and 10 per cent, of their 

 sheep, or more :* the loss to France ran into many 

 millions of francs. The germs of the disease, the 

 bacillus anthracis, in the blood, had been seen, 

 under the microscope, so long ago as 1839 ; but 

 had not been understood. In 1863, Davaine, by 

 the light of Pasteur's work, recognised them for 

 what they are. In 1876, Koch cultivated them 

 outside the body, and reproduced the disease, in 

 mice and rabbits, with this culture : he also noted 

 the presence of spores in the germs, such as Pasteur 

 had noted in the germs of flacherie. In 1877, 

 Pasteur set to work. He was opposed, not only 

 by the remnant of the old unbelievers, but by a 

 new array of critics. There was the argument, that 

 anthrax was due not to the germs, but to " some- 

 thing else/' some virus which the germs merely 

 accompanied. To refute this argument, he sowed 

 his cultures, from flask to flask, through a series of 

 forty flasks, infecting each flask with one drop 

 from the preceding flask : thus, he diluted the 



* "De 1867 a 1870, dans le seul district de Novogorod, 

 en Russie, on enregistra plus de 56,000 cas de mort par 

 Tinfection charbonneuse. Chevaux, boeufs, vaches, moutons, 

 tout avait succombe. Atteintes de la contagion sous des 

 formes di verses il suffit d'une piqure ou d'une ecorchure 

 pour que bergers, bouchers, equarrisseurs, tanneurs s'inoculent 

 la pustule maligne 528 personnes avaient peri." Vie de 

 Pasteur , ch. ix. 



