40 



cholera, to which he also gave earnest attention and found that this, too, 

 was a parasitic disease. The disease known as splenic fever or malig- 

 nant pustule next attracted his attention. A young veterinary surgeon 

 (Dr. Louvrier) had proposed a definite method for treating the disease, 

 which has always been very fatal to sheep and cows in France and 

 Russia. Pasteur immediately entered upon the investigation of this dis- 

 ease, and in less than two years he had solved the question, and a day 

 was appointed for a public trial or test of its efficiency. I will let his 

 biographer tell the story in his own words : — 



" Pasteur accepted. The experiments were conducted at Melun, May 

 5, 1881, a few miles above Paris, on the Seine. The Society of Agricult- 

 ure agreed to place at his disposal sixty sheep. The results of these 

 experiments were absolutely successful and convincing to the most 

 sceptical. 



"There was a burst of enthusiasm at these truly marvellous results. 

 The veterinary surgeons especially could not recover from the surprise. 

 They examined the dead, they felt the living. 



" ' Well,' said M. Bouley to one of them, ' are you convinced ? There 

 remains nothing for you to do but to bow before the master,' he added, 

 pointing to Pasteur, ' and to exclaim " I see, I know, I am undeceived." ' 



" Having suddenly become fervent apostles of the new doctrine, the 

 veterinary surgeons went about proclaiming everywhei'e what they had 

 seen. One of those who had been most sceptical carried his proselytis- 

 ing zeal to such a point that he wished to inoculate himself. 



" An extraordinary movement was everywhere produced in favor of 

 this method of preventive treatment. A great number of agricultural 

 societies wished to repeat the celebrated experiment. The breeders of 

 cattle overwhelmed Pasteur with applications for vaccine. At the end 

 of the year 1881 he had already treated 83,946 animals. In 1882 the 

 number amounted to 399,102." 



But Pasteur still lives in his works. He lives also in his pupils. To 

 one of these we owe the recent discovery of the most potent means 

 which have yet been found for diminishing the fatality of that terrible 

 scourge and destroyer of children, diphtheria. From the teaching of 

 this man there comes help to the agriculturist and to the physician ; 

 yes, to all mankind. 



Let me not close without commending to every farmer as an addition 

 to his library the biography of such a man as Pasteur, together with the 

 works of Thoreau, of John Burroughs, of Bolles and Bradford Torrey, 

 and of good old Gilbert White of Selborne. It is from the study of the 

 writings of such men that our eyes are opened to see the life that sur- 

 rounds us in the woods, the fields, the ponds and the streams, and to 

 learn from every living thing some new and useful lesson. 



