NINETEENTH-CENTURY MEDICINE 



make the public at large, lay or scientific, believe in the 

 possibility of what he proposed to accomplish. There 

 was time for all the world to be informed of the proced- 

 ure, for the first " preventive" inoculation or vaccina- 

 tion, as Pasteur termed it was made on May 5th, the 

 second on May i 7th, and another interval of two weeks 

 must elapse before the final inoculations with the unat- 

 tenuated virus. Twenty-four sheep, one goat, and five 

 cattle were submitted to the preliminary vaccinations. 

 Then, on May 3ist, all sixty of the animals were inocu- 

 lated, a protected and unprotected one alternately, 

 with an extremely virulent culture of anthrax microbes 

 that had been in Pasteur's laboratory since 1877. 

 This accomplished, the animals were left together in 

 one enclosure to await the issue. 



Two days later, June 2d, at the appointed hour of 

 rendezvous, a vast crowd, composed of veterinary sur- 

 geons, newspaper correspondents, and farmers from far 

 and near, gathered to witness the closing scenes of this 

 scientific tourney. What they saw was one of the most 

 dramatic scenes in the history of peaceful science a 

 scene which, as Pasteur declared afterwards, " amazed 

 the assembly." Scattered about the enclosure, dead, 

 dying, or manifestly sick unto death, lay the unpro- 

 tected animals, one and all, while each and every " pro- 

 tected" animal stalked unconcernedly about with ev- 

 ery appearance of perfect health. Twenty of the sheep 

 and the one goat were already dead; two other sheep 

 expired under the eyes of the spectators; the remain- 

 ing victims lingered but a few hours longer. Thus in a 

 manner theatrical enough, not to say tragic, was pro- 

 claimed thb unequivocal victory of science. Naturally 



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