APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 87 



number of people engaged in silk growing are 

 some thirty millions sterling poorer than they might 

 have been ; it means not only that high prices have 

 had to be paid for imported silkworm eggs, and 

 that, after mvesting his money in them, in paying 

 for mulberry-leaves and for attendance, the culti- 

 vator has constantly seen his silkworms perish and 

 himself plunged in ruin ; but it means that the looms 

 of Lyons have lacked employment, and that, for 

 years, enforced idleness and misery have been the 

 portion of a vast population which, in former days, 

 was industrious and well-to-do. 



In reading the Report made by M. de Quatrefages 

 in 1859, it is exceedingly interesting to observe that 

 his elaborate study of the Pebrine forced the convic- 

 tion upon his mind that, in its mode of occurrence 

 and propagation, the disease of the silkworm is, in 

 every respect, comparable to the cholera among 

 mankind. But it differs from the cholera, and so 

 far is a more formidable malady, in being hereditary, 

 and in being, under some circumstances, contagious 

 as well as infectious. 



The Italian naturalist, Filippi, discovered in the 

 blood of the silkworms affected by this strange 

 disorder a multitude of cylindrical corpuscles, each 

 about ^^Vuth of an inch long. These have been 

 carefully studied by Lebert, and named by him 

 Panhistophytcn ; for the reason that in subjects in 

 which the disease is strongly developed, the cor- 

 puscles swarm in every tissue and organ of the 

 body, and even pass into the undeveloped eggs of 

 the female moth. But are these corpuscles causes, 

 or mere concomitants, of the disease ? Some natura- 

 lists took one view and some another ; and it was 

 not until the French Government, alarmed by the 

 continued ravages of the malady, and the inefficiency 

 of the remedies which had been suggested, des- 

 patched M. Pasteur to study it, that the question 

 received its final settlement ; at a great sacrifice, 

 not only of the time and peace of mind of that 



