14 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA 



laws that govern the diseases of wine govern the disease of beer 

 and vinegar, that they govern the diseases of silk worm, pebrine 

 and flacherie, and that they govern the diseases of animals as 

 anthrax and chicken cholera. They are the laws of disease and 

 apply to all communicable diseases whether in vegetable or animal 

 creation We therefore find him narrowing down his activities to 

 pathology. 



To understand the significance of Pasteur's, work in pathology 

 or medicine let us review the conception of disease prior to 1866. 

 As a speculative philosophy contagious diseases were said to be 

 due to contagium vivum — living virus. Just what this mysterious 

 virus really was, how it entered the body or how disease was 

 produced, could not be explained in any scientific way. Henle in 

 1840 had written his brilliant paper on contagious diseases and 

 had laid down some very specific laws, but as his conclusions were 

 not based on experimental work, they were not convincing and not 

 generally accepted. 



At the same time Virchow in Germany had brought forth cellu- 

 lar pathology and the famous principles of heterotopy and the 

 heterochomia. Disease was due to a chemical change in the cells 

 and not a living substance brought forth from without. 



Other illustrious scientists of the day, Helmholtz, Du Bois 

 Reymond, Ludwig, explained all physiological phenomena of the 

 living being by forces of physico-chemical order. 



Not only Pasteur but several other men of the time had begun 

 to see the similarity of the process of fermentation and diseases in. 

 animals and man. Pasteur with his twenty years of experimental 

 work on fermentation and silk worm disease was better prepared 

 from a technical point to work out the experiments on bacteria in 

 their relation to disease and to prove his conceptions. Although 

 Devine, Reyner and Koch had studied the anthrax bacillus and 

 apparently proven it to be the cause of anthrax diseases the labora- 

 tory experiments of Pasteur finally brought forth the final proof 

 that bacteria and not an invisable, intangible virus was the cause. 

 His experiment was simple. A drop of blood from an animal 

 sick with anthrax was placed in a SOc.c. of fresh, slightly alkaline 

 urine. A seri^s__oi-ciil±fLi-e=, te»i >" all, were Transferred. Each 

 flme^one drop of inoculated urine was transferred. The result 

 was that the original blood had been practically lost in the dilutions 

 but the anthrax bacillus which grew and multiplied remained and 

 a few drops from the last culture produced anthrax in animals. 

 However his real discovery with anthrax came when he showed 

 that by the use of attenuated cultures, immunity to the disease 



