332 



DISCOVERY 



pared the vaccine, and proved how easy it was to render 

 the birds immune. 



Pasteur, his experiments and his microscope, next 

 invaded the maternity hospitals of Paris, determined 

 to find out the cause of puerperal fever. He soon 

 detected and isolated the microbe that was causing all 

 the trouble. In a discussion on the subject at the 

 Academy of Medicine, one of his colleagues was en- 

 larging on the causes of the fever, when Pasteur 

 interrupted him : " None of those things cause the 

 epidemic ; it is the nursing and medical staff who 

 carry the microbe from an infected woman to a healthy 

 one." Onjthc member replying that he feared the 

 microbe would never be found, Pasteur went to the 

 blackboard and drew a picture of the chain-like organ- 

 ism, saj'ing, " There, that is what it is like." After this 

 his suggestions as to sterilising the instruments, bed 

 linen, etc., were adopted, with astounding results ; 

 soon puerperal fever almost ceased to exist. 



Swine fever was next studied, the germ isolated and 

 the vaccine made, and Pasteur was now, in 1880, turning 

 his thoughts to the study of rabies, but it was not till 

 1884 that he seriously started his campaign against this 

 fearful scourge. The problem here was no simple one ; 

 in the first place it was not known where the offending 

 germ was localised, and the disease, hj^drophobia, 

 communicated to man through a bite was not the same 

 as that from which the animal was suffering. After 

 countless experiments on mad dogs, it became evident 

 that the virus had its seat in the nervous system and 

 particularly in the brain. Without entering into detail 

 as to these extremely delicate experiments, let it suffice 

 to say that the virus thus localised could be injected 

 into healthy animals, and all the symptoms of rabies 

 were reproduced. The problem now was how to pre- 

 pare the vaccine, how to attenuate its virulence. The 

 microbe had not been discovered, in fact it has not yet 

 been tracked down. After many failures, it was at 

 last found that a small portion of infected medulla 

 could be dried over potash for several days in a sterile 

 tube, and when dry could be powdered and mixed with 

 water. This solution, when injected into the healthy 

 animal, rendered it immune from the disease, as Pasteur 

 was able to demonstrate experimentally beyond all 

 doubt. Obviously it would be impossible to render 

 every dog immune from a possible attack of rabies. 

 Here was a fresh problem to be soh'ed, the problem of 

 obtaining prophylaxis of rabies after a bite. 



It was not till the summer of 1885 that Pasteur 

 began to feel sure of his ground. Monday, July 6, of 

 that year was a memorable day, for on this day the 

 little Alsatian boy Joseph Meister, who had been 

 bitten by a mad dog, was brought by his parents to 

 Pasteur's laboratory. After much deliberation, Pasteur 

 at last decided to try a series of inoculations of increas- 



ing strength. It was an anxious time, for though the 

 experiment had ofttimcs been repeated with success 

 on dogs, this was the first time he had dared to trj' it on 

 a human being. The experiment was a perfect success 

 and little Joseph was soon able to return home, his fife 

 saved by the antirabic vaccine. After this and other 

 successes, it became obvious that some sort of central 

 bureau would have to be established where treatment 

 could be given in cases of bites from dogs suffering from 

 rabies. 



It was for this purpose primarily that the Pasteur 

 Institute was founded, and_to this day patients from 

 this country have to journey there for treatment. 

 Pasteur lived to see operations in full swing in this new 

 establishment, although his health in his last years did 

 not admit of his taking as active a part as he could have 

 wished in the researches that were being carried on. 



Note. — The reader will find in The Life of Pasleur, by Rent 

 Vallery-Radot (English translation by Mrs. Devonshire, 

 Constable & Co., 1919, los. 6d.), a most intimate and readable 

 account of this great discoverer's life. 



Edw.vrd C.\HEN. 



New Interpretations of 

 Romanticism 



By J. G. Robertson, M.A., Ph.D. 



Prujessnr o/ German In the Universily ol London 



A HUNDRED years ago literarj- Europe was Romantic ; 

 Romanticism was the watchword of progress in poetry. 

 And yet, at the beginning of the twentieth century, we 

 are still very much in the dark as to what this Romanti- 

 cism really was. As early as 1824 a French critic 

 sighed that Romanticism had been so often defined ; 

 and we have not yet succeeded in defining it. In 

 recent j-ears a large number of books ha\'e appeared 

 in England, France, Germany, and Italy dealing with 

 this great period of literary history, and all trying, 

 more or less directly, to arrive at some kind of defini- 

 tion, trying to discover what were the really vital 

 and germinative elements in the movement. It is 

 something of an enigma that its doctrines should have 

 tinged the whole literary evolution of Europe and made 

 the nineteenth century — the century of apparently 

 un-Romantic material progress, although of scientific 

 discovery beyond the wildest dreams of the Roman- 

 tic generation itself — the most Romantic of all 

 centuries in poetry. A certain confusion as to the 

 meaning of the word existed from the very beginning ; 



