THE DISEASE OF THE MORTS-FLATS [FLACHERIE] 173 



because the silkworm is not the sole host of the corpuscle, 

 and do what you will to make this source of contagion dis- 

 appear, there are others open. In vain M. Susani, for 

 example, eliminated for many kilometers around his 

 immense establishment of Rancate in the Brianza every 

 corpuscular egg: he still had corpuscular moths, and he was 

 obliged all his life to defend himself every year against 

 the contagion of the disease which he had tried in vain 

 to extirpate. Man cannot suppress an epidemic disease, 

 but he can keep it within bounds, and render it almost 

 inoffensive. A great lesson, which, from the silkworm 

 industry, has passed into pathology, and which we shall 

 recall later when we see Pasteur grappling with human 

 diseases ! 



VII 



THE DISEASE OF THE MORTS-FLATS [FLACHERIE] 1 



In what precedes, I have left out of consideration all 

 the propaganda which Pasteur undertook in order to 

 inspire and hasten confidence in his methods: visits, 

 correspondence, letters to the journals, he neglected 

 nothing; he distributed healthy eggs and diseased eggs, 

 sought public judgments on the results of the silkworm 

 cultures, prognosticated them so as to attract attention 

 and stir up curiosity, and every morning there was a 

 great mass of letters which he opened with emotion, 

 smiling at the good news, attentive to the bad. 



In 1867, Pasteur had distributed in small lots his 

 healthy eggs prepared in 1866, and the success, we knew, 

 had been general. However, as the letters came in 

 announcing the result of the cultures, we found our 



1 There are no English equivalents. Both words refer to the gaseous 

 condition of the feces, and mean death or disease due to flatulence. Trs. 

 14 



