December 26, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



1007 



achievemeut, stimulating to research, and 

 momentous in the history of scientific med- 

 icine. 



In the summer of 1886 it was my good 

 fortune to spend a few hours in the pres- 

 ence of this man in the rooms of the then 

 uewiy organized Pasteur Institute in Paris. 

 It was in the eai'ly days of the practical 

 application of the results of his long-con- 

 tinued, devoted experimentation regarding 

 the cause and treatment of hydrophobia. 

 In a large room there was gathered to- 

 gether a motley company of perhaps two 

 hundred persons, most of whom had been 

 bitten by rabid animals. Men, women and 

 children, from the aged to babes in the 

 arms of their mothers, richly dressed and 

 poorly dressed, gentle folk and rude folk, 

 the biirgher and the peasant; from the 

 boulevards and the slums of Paris, from 

 the north, south, east and west of Prance, 

 from across the Channel in England, from 

 the forests and steppes of Russia where 

 rabid wolves menace, from more distant 

 lands and even from across the seas — all 

 had ru.shed impetuously from the scene of 

 their wounding to this one laboratory to 

 obtain relief before it was too late. All 

 was done systematically and in order. The 

 patients had previously been examined and 

 classified, and each class passed for treat- 

 ment into a small room at the side : first, 

 the newcomers, whose treatment was just 

 beginning; then, in regular order, those 

 who were in successive stages of the cure ; 

 and, lastly, the healed, who were about to 

 be happily discharged. The inoculations 

 were performed by assistants. But Pas- 

 teur himself was carefully overseeing all 

 things, now assuring himself that the solu- 

 tions and the procedure were correct, now 

 advising this patient, now encouraging 

 that one, ever watchful and alert and sym- 

 pathetic, with that earnest face of his 

 keenly alive to the anxieties and sufferings 

 of his patients, and especially pained by 



the tears of the little children^ which he 

 tried to cheek by filling their hands from 

 a generous jar of bonbons. It was an 

 inspiring and instructive scene, and I do 

 not doubt that to Pasteur, with his impres- 

 sionable nature, it was an abundant reward 

 for years of hard labor, spent partly in 

 his laboratory with test-tubes and micro- 

 scopes, and partly in the halls of learned 

 societies, combating the doubts of unbe- 

 lievers and scofi'ers, and compelling the 

 medical world to give up its unscientific 

 traditions and accept what he knew to be 

 the truth. 



Modern Stirgery.— The earliest practical 

 application to human disease of the results 

 of Pasteur's labors, was made in the field 

 of surgery. The horrors of the early sur- 

 gery had been largely eliminated by the 

 discovery of the anesthetic effects of 

 chloroform and ether, and the possibility 

 of their safe employment with human be- 

 ings. But the successful outcome of an 

 operation was still uncertain. No one 

 could foretell when the dreaded septic 

 blood-poisoning might supervene and carry 

 off the patient in spite of the most watch- 

 ful care. Many hospitals were only death 

 traps, the surgical patient who was taken 

 to them being doomed to almost certain 

 death. The suffering of the wounded in 

 our. Civil War was extreme, and during 

 the Franco-Prussian War, the French mili- 

 tary hospitals were festering sources of 

 corruption, their wounded dying by tliou- 

 sands. To Pasteur, who realized only too 

 well that the cause of death lay in the 

 germs that were allowed to enter the 

 wounds from the outside, this unnecessary 

 sufl'ering and death of so many brave 

 French youths was a source of intense 

 grief. Yet, notwithstanding his protesta- 

 tions and the urging of his views upon 

 those who were immediately responsible, 

 little good was then accomplished, for the 



