372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



made.to disappear from the face of the earth " ; and as a fine ex- 

 ample of the way in which mind kindles mind, we will cite the 

 way in which Pasteur's study of pebrine in silkworms, and his 

 formulation of the germ theory of disease, put into Lister's hand 

 the true key to the havoc of bacteria in wounds, and enabled him 

 to lay the foundation of modern antiseptic surgery which annu- 

 ally saves its thousands from death. 



He noted that when a man broke a rib he had no " surgical 

 fever/' but made a safe and rapid recovery, unless the bone had 

 penetrated the lung, when he died of pneumonia ; but that other 

 surgical wounds behaved very differently that some exterior sub- 

 stance got into them ; and Pasteur's studies taught him what was 

 the element of mischief, so that we are justified in drawing out a 

 certified pedigree as follows : 



It was Lady Mary's observation of the difference in its conse- 

 quences whether that which she called " matter," but which we 

 now know to be the infinitesimal seeds of microscopical plants, 

 came into the human system unconsciously through the lungs 

 and stomach, or whether it was deliberately inserted artificially, 

 of course making its way through the lymph-channels, that led 

 Jenner to ask himself whether the seeds of the disease as modified 

 by passing through the tissues of the cow might not also be in- 

 serted artificially. Fifty years after his death Pasteur, inaugu- 

 rated the science of " microscopical botany," and had convinced 

 himself that all the contagious diseases are the result of parasitic 

 growths, and in his original papers, read before the French Acad- 

 emy, says he was put upon thinking whether the Jennerian appli- 

 cation of a modified, " attenuated," less virulent virus could not 

 be made in other diseases by the success in vaccination, and like a 

 true knight of science he did not rest till he had produced and 

 used such a remedy, saving millions of animals annually from the 

 ravages of anthrax and thousands of men from hydrophobia. 

 Continental flocks and herds are now as regularly " inoculated " 

 as our children are vaccinated, but the greatest result of all is 

 Lister's establishment of what is known as antiseptic surgery. In 

 the thousand laboratories where splendid work for humanity is 

 to-day progressing a picture of the Lady Mary, as inspiring 

 genius, ought to be hung up ; and it certainly is pleasant to the 

 wide-awake women of the last decade of this nineteenth century 

 to find, as we follow the unbroken chain backward, its first link 

 in the delicate hand of an intelligent and courageous woman who 

 dared to confer a priceless benefit, at the risk of obloquy, in the 

 first quarter of the last. 



