62 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



profound significance : and, to the men of his time, 

 they came as a revelation. It is impossible to 

 imagine a set of experiments more absolutely 

 original. On April 30, flinging round to another 

 subject, he spoke on the aseptic method of surgery: 

 that magnificent address, which contains the passage 

 beginning Si favais fhonneur d'etre chirurgien. A 

 touch of irony here : for he was doing more for 

 surgery than any surgeon in all France. 



During 1878-80, he gave much time to the study 

 of the natural history of anthrax, travelling through 

 infected districts, and taking the farmers' points of 

 view. It was in the course of this work that he 

 discovered the germs of the disease in earthworms 

 which had fed on buried anthrax-carcases. This 

 discovery enabled him to understand how the 

 infection is conveyed up to the surface-soil and, as 

 it were, haunts this or that field.* It was in 1879 

 that he proved, by the mere examination of a drop 

 or two of blood, that a patient, supposed to have 

 died of puerperal fever, had died of anthrax : we 

 are accustomed to the routine of bacteriology 

 nowadays, but in 1879 this one case, of itself, was 

 more valuable than a lifetime of " bedside observa- 

 tions." By 1880, he had learned the whole natural 

 history of anthrax ; but had not yet found how to 

 protect animals against it. 



* Darwin's book, on The Formation of Vegetable Mould 

 through the Action of Worms, was published in 1881. 



