250 LOUIS PASTEUH. 



ETIOLOGY OF SPLENIC FEVER. 



M. PASTEUR had triumphed over splenic fever with as 

 much rigour as precision. But he considered that he 

 had still to make one further investigation. He had 

 established the effects of the pest ; he had discovered a 

 preventive method with which to combat it : he now 

 wished to know the origin of the evil. Whence comes 

 splenic fever ? Why is it endemic in certain depart- 

 ments of France, in certain parts of Eussia, Germany, 

 Austria, Italy, Spain, and America ? How is it sus- 

 tained ? It was for a long time believed that splenic 

 fever was born spontaneously under the influence of 

 various accidental causes. M. Bouley has related, in 

 his learned work on the ' Progress of Medicine by 

 Experimentation,' that in 1842 the Minister of Agri- 

 culture, M. Cunin-Gridaine, at the request of the 

 deputies of the departments that were ravaged by the 

 epidemic, entrusted to M. Delafond, a professor of the 

 school at Alfort, the task of investigating this malady, 

 commonly called the ' blood disease,' in the districts in 

 which it was raging. He was to search out its causes, 



