116 PASTEUR 



Along the curve of an inspired path, and with 

 no break in the continuity, he had passed from 

 crystals to fermentations, and from fermenta- 

 tions to diseases of microbic origin. But these 

 divisions are still in a measure inexact, for, 

 within his vast brain that was forever working 

 all his projects for experimentation, all his ideas 

 centred upon germs. Accordingly he was able 

 to say before the Academy of Medicine in 1873 : 

 "Is it not evident that all the researches to 

 which I have devoted myself for seventeen 

 years, regardless of the efforts they have cost 

 me, are the products of the same ideas, the 

 same principles, forced by incessant toil to yield 

 constantly new results? The best proof that 

 an investigator is on the road to truth is the 

 uninterrupted fertility of his labours." 



For years Pasteur was forced to fight his bat- 

 tles in the very midst of the Academy of Medi- 

 cine, and he did so with a vigorous and dogged 

 energy so long as he was defending the truth 

 contained in his discoveries. His work, for that 

 matter, controverted though it was, had long 



