OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 15 



could be produced. The final proof of this experiment was 

 dramatic. The Society of Agriculture of Melun had proposed to 

 Pasteur a public trial of his new method. Twenty-five sheep were 

 to be vaccinated and later inoculated with anthrax. Another twen- 

 ty-five sheep unvaccinated, were inoculated at the same time. On 

 April 2Sth and May 17th, 1881 the twenty-five sheep were vacci- 

 nated against anthrax and on May 31st the entire lot of sheep, 

 fifty in all, were inoculated with anthrax On June 2nd the results 

 were recorded. Imagine the anxiety of Pasteur during these two 

 days, but as he predicted the 25 vaccinated sheep remained well 

 while the other died. He had convinced the skeptics and a new 

 doctrine in the control of diseases was born. 



From anthrax in sheep he turned to rabies in dogs and man, 

 Although he did not succeed in isolating an organism for this 

 disease, and no one since liis time has succeeded, he did discover a 

 successfvil method of preventable inoculation against the disease — - 

 the well-known Pasteur treatment. The technical difficulties on 

 the study of rabies seemed at that date unsurmountable. After 

 many failures Pasteur finally hit upon the idea of inoculating spinal 

 cord siiJistance of a rabied animal into the brain of a dog. This 

 established a sure method of inoculation and a short incubation 

 period. Then the problem of attenuating the virus arose and 

 v/as solved by serial inoculation of rabbits and the dehydration of 

 the cord. The results were that the virus could be attenuated to 

 any desired degree and gradually increasing doses used. 



In closing let me quote from an address by Stephen Paget, 

 "To change the whole outlook of medicine and surgery Heaven took 

 and trained a 'Pure Scientist' — ^who had never done an operation 

 or written a prescription: a man who had to screw up courage even 

 to look at some of the ordinary sights of a hospital — took this non- 

 medical man of science and set him to be the head of. all heads 

 of the medical profession, to have them all obedient to his teachings 

 and proud of the very sound of his beloved name." 



II. LOUIS PASTEUR— THE MAN 

 L. B. Nice 

 Department of Physiology, University of Oklahoma 



Louis Pasteur is being honored by scientific societies the world 

 over as perhaps the greatest scientific genius of all times. He is 

 rightly considered the master of his environment. To him is 

 attributed the distinction of being the founder of bacteriology, the 

 science, which permeates every phase of health and disease in 

 plants and animals. The far reaching effects of his researches in 



