278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



to France. He never fully recovered from the partial 

 paralysis which he suffered, so far as his body was con- 

 cerned ; but for nearly thirty years his mind remained un- 

 dimmed, and during these thirty years he discovered the 

 mode of curing those who are bitten by mad dogs, until his 

 institute at Paris became the centre to which afflicted people 

 resort from all parts of Europe for treatment. Another 

 important discovery wiiich he made was the cause of fowl or 

 chicken cholera, to which he also gave earnest attention and 

 found that this, too, was a parasitic disease. The disease 

 known as splenic fever or malignant 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 disease, and in less than two years he 

 had solved the question, and a day was appointed for a 

 pul)lic trial or test of its efficiency. I will let his biographer 

 tell the story in his own words : — 



Pasteur accepted. The experimonts were conducted at Melun, 

 May 5, 1881, a few miles above Paris, on the Seine. The Society 

 of Agriculture agreed to place at his disposal sixty sheep. The 

 results of these experiments were absolutely successful and con- 

 vincing to the most sceptical. 



There was a burst of enthusiasm at these truly marvellous re- 

 sults. The veterinary surgeons especiallj' 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 everywhere what 

 they had seen. One of those who had been most sceptical carried 

 his proselytising 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 agri- 

 cultui-al societies wished to repeat the celebrated experiment. The 

 breeders of cattle overwhelmed Pasteur with applications for vac- 

 cine. At the end of the year 1881 he had already treated 33,946 

 animals. In 1882 the number amounted to 399,102. 



