288 PASTEUR : THE HISTORY OF A MIND 



or sharp substances, capable of injuring in places the 

 epidermis of the intestinal canal, and of thus breaking 

 the natural barrier opposed to the invasion of the germs. 

 The symptoms of the disease thus provoked are those 

 of the disease as it occurs naturally, so that, as Koch 

 had conjectured, it is especially through the food that 

 contagion takes place. And it is thus that the disease 

 may be at the same time endemic and epidemic, and 

 may render certain regions and certain fields dangerous, 

 without causing any trouble in their vicinity. 



All these researches, as the reader divines, had been 

 carried on for the sake of establishing a prophylaxis 

 for anthrax, and already a certain number of practical 

 conclusions could be drawn regarding precautions to 

 be taken in burying an animal affected with anthrax. 

 These were abruptly broken off as soon as there ap- 

 peared the first intimations of the possibility of a vaccina- 

 tion for anthrax. Was, then, anthrax also a virus 

 disease, not prone to recur? 



This question was solved for Pasteur as soon as it 

 was stated. Furthermore, his solution was published 

 without anyone's having observed it in the Note in 

 which it was inserted. In this Note of July 12, 1880, 1 

 devoted to the etiology of anthrax, Pasteur had in 

 reality introduced, almost in parenthesis, and without 

 explaining at all its place in this question, a phrase in 

 which he had incidentally pointed out this fact: When 

 8 sheep, which had been subjected to a prolonged so- 

 journ on a spot where an anthrax victim had been buried 

 and had proved resistant, were inoculated at the close 

 of the experiment with a culture of virulent anthrax, 

 several of them survived, whereas fresh sheep of the same 

 race succumbed almost without exception to the same in- 



1 Sur l'6tiologie du charbon (en collaboration avec MM. Chamberland 

 et Roux). Comptes rendus de 1'Ac. des Sciences, t. XCI, 1880, p. 86. 



