OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 13 



reduction of organic matter, etc. were caused each one by a specific 

 germ. Not satisfied with mere speculation and arguments he 

 went to work to prove his contentions by elaborate pains-taking 

 and convincing experiments. 



No man in the history of the world ever stirred up as much 

 opposition to himself. He stood on the threshhold of a new 

 chemistry and he directed the thought of the world in another 

 direction by his explanation of fermentation. He stood at the 

 dividing of the ways in medicine — the medicine of the past, mysteri- 

 ous, empirical — and that of the future. Old opinions and traditions 

 die hard. Leibig and his chemical theory of fermentation must 

 give way to facts as pointed out by Pasteur. The speculative phil- 

 osophies as to the nature and cause of disease as well as the 

 cure of disease must give way to facts. 



The practical side of science always appealed to Pasteur. In 

 his studies on buteric and alcoholic fermentations he applied his 

 knowledge in a practical way. Having discovered the cause of 

 fermentation, yeasts and bacteria, he learned how to control these 

 fermentations and saved two of the important industries of France 

 • — wine and beer making. It was only a step to a disease that was 

 devastating another of France's principal industries, the silk worm 

 industry that was hopelessly groping for relief. When M". Dunas 

 implored Pasteur to take up the study of this disease he refused, 

 saying he knew nothing about silk worms — but a sense of patriotism, 

 impelled him to begin the study and in a year he had learned that 

 the death of the silk worms was due to bacterial diseases which 

 could be controlled by proper selection of healthy worms and 

 the destruction of the germs that caused the disease. 



The practical side of the study of anthrax among cattle in 

 France led Pasteur to another of his great discoveries. Pollander 

 had discovered the anthrax bacillus in 1R50 but had never suc- 

 ceeded in convincing the scientific world that the bacillus was the 

 real cause of the disease. Not even the studies of Koch were 

 convincing as he was unable to explain how the disease was trans- 

 mitted. Twenty-six years after Pollander's first discovery Pasteur 

 not only convinced the world that the anthrax bacillus was the 

 cause of anthrax in cattle but showed how it was transmitted, and 

 also that the disease could be prevented by immunirfng- a^H^«w ^iti:L_ 

 attenuated cultures of anthrax bacilli. For the first time in 

 history the way was opened to vaccination and immunization on a 

 scientific basis. 



To a man like Pasteur these were not isolated facts, they 

 were laws, part of a great universal system. He saw that the same 



