FOREWORD 



L'homme en ce sieele a pris une connaissance toute nouvelle des ressources de 

 la nature et, par l'application de son intelligence il a commence a les faire 

 fructifier. II a refait, par la geologie et la paleontologie, l'histoire de la terre, 

 entraintie elle-meme par la grande loi de revolution. II connait mieux, grace a 

 Pasteur surtout, les conditions d'existence de son propre organisme et peut entne- 

 prendre d'y combattre les causes de destruction. — Monod L'Europe Cov- 

 temporaine. 



Whether to admire more the man or his method, the life or 

 the work, I leave for the readers of this well-told story to 

 decide. At the request of my friend, Mr. Henry Phipps, a 

 munificent supporter of science, and a man with a keen appre- 

 ciation of its value in the progress of humanity, I write an 

 introduction to this edition of Mrs. Devonshire's translation 

 of Eadot's Life. Among the researches that have made the 

 name of Pasteur a household word in the civilised world, three 

 are of the first importance — a knowledge of the true nature 

 of the processes in fermentation — a knowledge of the chief 

 maladies which have scourged man and animals— a knowledge 

 of the measures by which either the body may be protected 

 against these diseases, or the poison neutralised when once 

 within the body. 



I. 



Our knowledge of disease has advanced in a curiously 

 uniform way. The objective features, the symptoms, natur- 

 ally first attracted attention. The Greek physicians, Hippo- 

 crates, Galen, and Aretaeus, gave excellent accounts of many 

 diseases; for example, the forms of malaria. They knew, too, 

 very well, their modes of termination, and the art of prognosis 

 was studied carefully. But of the actual causes of disease they 

 knew little or nothing, and any glimmerings of truth were 



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