1882—1884 157 



the preoccupations of science is to inquire into the primary 

 cause of the scourge. Now the present state of knowledge 

 demands that attention should be drawn to the possible exist- 

 ence within the blood, or within some organ, of a micro- 

 organism whose nature and properties would account in all 

 probability for all the peculiarities of cholera, both as to the 

 morbid symptoms and the mode of its propagation. The proved 

 existence of such a microbe would soon take precedence over 

 the whole question of the measures to be taken to arrest the 

 evil in its course, and might perhaps suggest new methods of 

 treatment." 



Not only did the Committee of Hygiene approve of Pasteur's 

 project, but they asked him to choose some young men whose 

 knowledge would be equalled by their devotion. Pasteur only 

 had to look around him. When, on his return to the laboratory, 

 he mentioned what had taken place at the Committee of 

 Hygiene, M. Roux immediately offered to start. A professor 

 at the Faculty of Medicine who had some hospital practice, 

 M. Straus, and a professor at the Alfort Veterinary School, 

 M. Nocard, both of whom had been authorised to work in the 

 laboratory, asked permission to accompany M. Roux, Thuillier 

 had the same desire, but asked for twenty -four hours to think 

 over it. 



The thought of his father and mother, who had made a great 

 many sacrifices for his education, and whose only joy was to 

 receive him at Amiens, where they lived, during his short 

 holidays, made him hesitate. But the thought of duty over- 

 came his regrets ; he put his papers and notes in order and 

 went to see his dear ones again. He told his father of hie 

 intention, but his mother did not know of it. At the time when 

 the papers spoke of a French commission to study cholera, 

 his elder sister, who loved him with an almost motherly tender- 

 ness, said to him suddenly, " You are not going to Egypt, 

 Louis? swear that you are not ! " "I am not going to swear 

 anything," he answered, with absolute calm; adding that he 

 might some time go to Russia to proceed to some vaccination of 

 anthrax, as he had done at Buda-Pesth in 1881. When he left 

 Amiens nothing in his farewells revealed his deep emotion ; it 

 was only from Marseilles that he wrote the truth. 



Administrative difficulties retarded the departure of the 

 Commission, which only reached Egypt on August 15. Dr. 

 Koch had also come to study cholera. The head physician of 



