viii CONQUEST OF DISEASE 211 



It was arranged that believers and unbelievers in 

 Pasteur's views should meet on June 2, 1881, at the 

 farmyard where the sheep had been placed, there to 

 celebrate a victory or proclaim a failure. 



When Pasteur arrived at two o'clock in the afternoon, at the 

 farmyard of Pouilly le Fort, accompanied by his young col- 

 laborators, a murmur of applause arose, which soon became loud 

 acclamation, bursting from all lips. Delegates from the Agri- 

 cultural Society of Melun, from medical societies, veterinary 

 societies, from the Central Council of Hygiene of Seine et Marne, 

 journalists, small farmers, who had been divided in their minds 

 by laudatory or injurious newspaper articles all were there. 

 The carcasses of twenty- two un vaccinated sheep were lying side 

 by side ; two others were breathing their last ; the last survivors 

 of the sacrificed lot showed all the characteristic symptoms of 

 splenic fever (anthrax). All the vaccinated sheep were in perfect 

 health. . . . The one remaining un vaccinated sheep died that 

 same night. R. Vallery-Radot. 



Pasteur was an exact experimenter, and when the 

 effect of any treatment was under investigation always 

 had untreated or " control " cases side by side with the 

 others for the purpose of distinguishing the difference 

 between the two sets. Lady Priestley relates that on 

 one occasion she told Pasteur of apparently successful 

 experiments made by inoculating sporting dogs with 

 vaccine lymph against distemper. " Ah," said Pasteur, 

 " and the control experiments ? " This control or 

 proof of the efficacy of the inoculation had not been used, 

 and without it the results fall to the ground in the 

 estimation of the great experimenter. 



The method followed by Pasteur in the control and 

 treatment of anthrax were extended by him to that 

 terrifying disease rabies. By his discoveries in this 

 field alone, he earned the eternal gratitude of humanity. 

 He sought first for the specific microbe of the disease, 

 but unsuccessfully. The prevailing view was that the 



