19i> THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



On Monday, July 6, Pasteur saw a little Alsatian boy, 

 Joseph Meister, enter his laboratory, accompanied by his 

 mother. He was only nine years old, and had been bill 

 two days before by a mad dog at Meissengott, near Schlestedt. 



The child, going alone to school by a little by-road, had 

 been attacked by a furious dog and thrown to the ground. Too 

 small to defend himself, he hail only thought of co%'ering his 

 face with his hands. A bricklayer, seeing the scene from a 

 distance, arrived, and succeeded in beating the dog off with an 

 iron bar; he picked up the boy, covered with blood and 

 The dog went back to his master, Theodore Vone, a grocer at 

 Meissengott, whom he bit on the arm. Vone seized a gun and 

 shot the animal, whose stomach was found to be full of ha v. 

 straw, pieces of wood, etc. When little Meister's parents 

 heard all these details they went, full of anxiety, to consult Dr. 

 Weber, at Ville, that same evening. After cauterizing the 

 wounds with carbolic, Dr. Weber advised Mme. Y to 



6tart for Paris, where she could relate the facts to one who v. 

 not a physician, but who would be the best judge of what could 

 be done in such a serious case. Theodore Vone, anxious on 

 his own and on the child's account, decided to come a! 



Pasteur reassured him ; his clothes had wiped off the d< 

 saliva, and his shirt-sleeve was intact. He might safely go 

 back to Alsaee, and he promptly did so. 



Pasteur's emotion was great at the Bight of the four* 

 wounds of the little boy, who suffered so much that he could 

 hardly walk. What should he do for this child? could he risk 

 preventive treatment which had been constantly successful 

 on his dogs? Tasteur v>as divided between his hopes and his 

 scruples, painful in their acnteness. Before deciding on a 

 course of action, he made arrangements for the comfort of this 

 poor woman and her child, alone in Paris, and gave them an 

 appointment for 5 o'clock, after the Institute meeting. 11. • did 

 not wish to attempt anything without having seen Vulpian 

 and talked it over with him. Since the Babies Commission 

 had been constituted, Pasteur had formed a growin em 



for the great judgment of Vulpian. who. in his lectures ->:i the 

 general and comparative physiology of the nervous system, 

 had already mentioned the profil to human climes to be drawn 

 from experimenting on animals. 



His was a most prudent mind, always seeing all the asp 

 of a problem. The man was worthy of the scientist : he was 



