1873—1877 SI 



years ago — the details of which are set out in the article in the 

 British Medical Journal which I had the pleasure to send you — 

 I went over a large portion of the ground on which Dr. Bastian 

 had taken up his stand, and refuted, I think, many of the fal- 

 lacies which had misled the public. 



" The change which has taken place since then in the tone 

 of the English medical journals is quite remarkable, and I am 

 disposed to think that the general confidence of the public in 

 the accuracy of Dr. Bastian's experiments has been consider- 

 ably shaken. 



" In taking up these investigations, I have had the oppor- 

 tunity of refreshing my memory about your labours ; they have 

 reawakened in me all the admiration which I felt for them 

 when I first read of them. I intend to continue these investiga- 

 tions until I have dispersed all the doubts which may have 

 arisen as to the indisputable accuracy of your conclusions." 



And Tyndall added a paragraph for which Pasteur modestly 

 substituted asterisks in communicating this letter to the 

 Academy. 



" For the first time in the history of Science we have the 

 right to cherish the sure and certain hope that, as regards epi- 

 demic diseases, medicine will soon be delivered from quackery 

 and placed on a real scientific basis. When that day arrives, 

 Humanity, in my opinion, will know how to recognize that it is 

 to you that will be due the largest share of her gratitude." 



Tyndall was indeed qualified to sign this passport to immor- 

 tality. But in the meanwhile a struggle was necessary, and 

 Pasteur did not wish to leave the burden of the discussion even 

 on such shoulders as Tyndall' s ! Moreover he was interested 

 in his opponent. 



" Dr. Bastian," writes M. Duclaux, " had some tenacity, a 

 fertile mind, and the love, if not the gift, of the experimental 

 method." The discussion was destined to last for months. 

 In general (according to J. B. Dumas' calculation) " at the end 

 of ten years, judgment on a great thing is usually formed; it 

 is by then an accomplished fact, an idea adopted by Science or 

 irrevocably repudiated." Pasteur, on the morrow of the Milan 

 Congress, might feel that it had been so for the adoption of his 

 system of cellular seeding, but such was not the case in this 

 question of spontaneous generation. The quarrel had started 

 again at the Academy of Sciences and at the Academy of Medi- 

 cine; it was now being revived in Engiand, and Bastian pro- 



