LOUIS PASTEUR 141 



worms by contact with the food in which sick worms 

 have fed. It is not so important that Pasteur taught 

 France how to save her silk industry as it is that he 

 proved that the small organisms produce the diseases; 

 that transmission of the organisms may transmit the 

 Disease; and that prevention of transmission prevents 

 disease. We are not likely to over-estimate the im- 

 portance of these discoveries to modern public and 

 individual health. 



. Meantime the cattle and sheep industry of France 

 and of other countries was suffering from a disease 

 known as anthrax. So deadly was anthrax to human 

 beings that when once it was clear that a person had 

 the disease, it was regarded almost as a death warrant. 

 Fortunately and for reasons then unknown, the disease 

 did not often attack human beings. Its destruction of 

 cattle and sheep was enormous. 



Other students had discovered the nature of the 

 bacterium which causes anthrax and had definitely 

 proved the causal relation of the organism. But since 

 no preventive or cure had been discovered, people 

 appealed publicly to Pasteur to attack the problem. 

 No less than 3600 public officers and prominent citizens 

 signed petitions to Pasteur to undertake to find a means 

 of preventing the ravages of this dreaded disease."* He 

 responded and began the study. It is interesting and 

 important to know that the so-called anthrax bacteria 

 cause the disease anthrax; but if they cannot be kept 

 from causing the disease what does the knowledge profit 

 us? If cattle and sheep and men must die, there 

 really isn't large comfort in mere knowledge of what 



