270 PASTEUR : THE HISTORY OF A MIND 



has been so well known. He found the same microbe, 

 made up of little agglomerated granules, in the pus of 

 an infectious osteomyelitis which M. Lannelongue had 

 submitted to him for examination, and we see him, 

 declaring immediately with a fine audacity that the 

 osteomyelitis and the boil are two forms of one and the 

 same disease, and that the osteomyelitis, which is a 

 suppuration of the marrow, is the boil of the bone. 

 What could be worse than to liken a grave malady 

 taking place in the depths of the tissues to a superficial 

 malady, which is generally trifling! To confound 

 internal and external pathology! When he launched 

 this opinion before the Academy of Medicine, I picture to 

 myself the physicians and surgeons present at the meet- 

 ing staring at him over their spectacles with surprise 

 and uneasiness. Nevertheless, he was right, and this 

 assertion, daring at the time, was a first victory of the 

 laboratory over the clinic. 



A second followed straightway: "In the puerperal 

 infections, the pus of the uterus, that of the peritoneum, 

 and the blood-clots in the veins contain a microbe 

 occurring in the form of rounded granules arranged in 

 chains. This chaplet-like aspect is especially apparent 

 in the cultures. Pasteur does not hesitate to declare 

 that this microscopic organism is the most frequent 

 cause of infections among women in confinement. One 

 day, in a discussion on puerperal fever at the Academy 

 of Medicine, one of the most renowned of his colleagues 

 made an eloquent dissertation on the causes of epidemics 

 in the maternity hospitals. Pasteur from his place 

 in the audience interrupted him: 'The cause of the 

 epidemic is nothing of the kind! It is the doctor and 

 his staff who carry the microbe from a sick woman 

 to a healthy woman!' And when the orator replied 

 that he was convinced that no one would ever find this 



