388 LOUIS PASTEUR 



crobe over the bacteridium. If the microbe be associated 

 with the latter in sufficient amount it may crowd it out 

 completely prevent it from growing in the body at all. 

 Anthrax does not appear, and the infection, entirely local, 

 becomes merely an abscess whose cure is easy. The mi- 

 crobe-producing pus and the septic vibrio (not) 7 being both 

 anaerobes, as we have demonstrated, it is evident that 

 the latter will not much disturb its neighbor. Nutrient 

 substances, fluid or solid, can scarcely be deficient in the tis- 

 sues from such minute organisms. But the anthrax bacteri- 

 dium is exclusively aerobic, and the proportion of oxygen 

 is far from being equally distributed throughout the tissues: 

 innumerable conditions can diminish or exhaust the supply 

 here and there, and since the microbe-producing pus is 

 also aerobic, it can be understood how, by using a quan* 

 tity slightly greater than that of the bacteridium it might 

 easily deprive the latter of the oxygen necessary for it. 

 But the explanation of the fact is of little importance: 

 it is certain that under some conditions the microbe we 

 are speaking of entirely prevents the development of the 

 bacteridium. 



Summarizing it appears from the preceding facts that 

 it is possible to produce at will, purulent infections with no 

 elements of putrescence, putrescent purulent infections, an- 

 thracoid purulent infections, and finally combinations of 

 these types of lesions varying according to the proportions 

 of the mixtures of the specific organisms made to act on 

 the living tissues. 



These are the principal facts I have to communicate to 

 the Academy in my name and in the names of my collabora- 

 tors, Messrs. Joubert and Chamberland. Some weeks ago 

 (Session of the nth of March last) a member of the Sec- 

 tion of Medicine and Surgery, M. Sedillot, after long medi- 

 tation on the lessons of a brilliant career, did not hesitate 

 to assert that the successes as well as the failures of Sur- 

 gery find a rational explanation in the principles upon 

 which the germ theory is based, and that this theory would 



7 There is undoubtedly a mistake in the original. Pasteur could not hare 



meant to say that both bacteria are anaerobes. The word " not is mtro< 



o correct the error. Translator. 





