THE CURATIVE POISON 123 



As in the case of the fermentation of grapes, 

 this was a side issue of his theory of germs, but 

 at this epoch he was studying them mainly 

 from the pathological point of view, and we 

 know that he was interested above all in dis- 

 eases of a microbic origin. There again he was 

 destined to wage stout battles against routine 

 and prejudice, even within the walls of the 

 Academy of Medicine. 



It was the disease of anthrax, which annually 

 decimated the herds and flocks of France, that 

 Pasteur chose as the first point of attack. Da- 

 vaine had previously discovered that the blood 

 of animals infected with this disease contained 

 little rectilinear, stick-like organisms, a species 

 of vibrion which he named from their form 

 bacterides, and which were the cause of the dis- 

 ease : but he had been unable to defend his con- 

 clusions against Messrs. Gaillard and Leplat, 

 professors at Val-de-Grace, and Paul Bert, who 

 all maintained, after making experiments, that 

 anthrax came from a virus, and not from the 

 bacterides themselves. It was precisely at this 



