172 MODERN SCIENCE READER 



to refer the latest opinions of biologists to the direct and 

 logical result of reasoning which was primarily suggested 

 by research on the mechanism of the yeast cell. " Physi- 

 ology's present answer to the old question," says a recent 

 writer, "is, very simply, life is a series of fermentations." 

 And, if it be urged that we do not yet know what is fermen- 

 tation, that we know as little of the working of the house- 

 wife 's barm, or the brewer 's malt, as of the life itself, there 

 will be no one to gainsay. For, curiously enough, they 

 seem one and the same thing. 



There is a plate let in above the doorway of a house at 

 Dole, in the Rue des Tanneurs, on which is inscribed this 

 simple phrase : " Ici est ne Louis Pasteur, le 27 Decembre, 

 1822." And, while I may unhesitatingly say that few 

 more momentous events have occurred in the annals of 

 science, I am tempted to add that Pasteur's birth was of 

 equal moment to the whole of humanity. For what man- 

 ner of man was this lowly-born tanner's son? And what 

 was the outcome of his labors? Let Lord Lister tell us in 

 his own grateful words. He said: "Pasteur's researches 

 on fermentation have thrown a powerful beam which has 

 lightened the baleful darkness of surgery, and has trans- 

 formed the treatment of wounds from a matter of uncer- 

 tain, and too often disastrous, empiricism into a scientific 

 art of sure beneficence. ' ' Pasteur 's life has been laid bare 

 to us by several writers, among them his son-in-law Bom- 

 pas, and, in a clever little monograph, by Mrs. Percy 

 Frankland. From the latter work we gather how Pasteur, 

 in his youth, was much addicted to the gentle Waltonian 

 art. Indeed, for some years he took no heed whatever of 

 books or other dry-as-dust learning. It was not until dire 

 necessity forced him that fishing-rod, paint-box, and other 

 profitless joys were forsaken, and our student at the 

 Sorbonne discovered his God-given gifts. And then a cer- 

 tain old woman of Arbois, in her rural wisdom, made this 

 odd remark: "What a pity," said she, "that Louis should 

 bury himself in a muck-heap of chemistry, for in truth he 



