Fearon — Pasteur Centenary Celebration. 59 



treatment is really prophylactic, and not in any way curative. If the symptoms 

 of rabies have already set in, Pasteur's treatment is of no avail, and no 

 remedy has yet been found. The disease is invariably fatal. This fact is of 

 great importance in considering the applications and results of the Pasteur 

 method. 



Much doubt was expressed at first as to the value of Pasteur's treatment 

 for rabies ; partly owing to ignorance of the pathology of the disease, and 

 partly owing to faulty application of the treatment. At the present time 

 there can no longer be any doubt that it is efficacious and of vast service to 

 humanity. 



Such adverse criticism as survives has been estimated by Sir Almroth 

 Wright, who, in reply to a recent attack on Pasteur, has written : . . . " Presh 

 seeds of error will infallibly be sown so long as mankind accepts as instructors 

 in medicine those who are prepared to teach without adequate study, without 

 sense of responsibility, without equipment of intellectual morality, and with- 

 out reverence for the work of Pasteur, and gratitude for that of Jenner and 

 Lister." 



Long before Pasteur died eveiy civilized country was working along the 

 lines laid down by his teaching ; and when he died, in 1895, his name was 

 great upon the lips of men. But whether we honour him as a great chemist, 

 or as a biologist, or a bacteriologist, or an inspired teacher, or as a man of 

 noble character and lofty faith, we must always remember that Prance has 

 first claim to him, for " that which put glory of grace into all that he did," 

 as Bunyan says of Greatheart, '' was that he did it for pure love of his 

 country." 



VII. 



Many of the pupils of Pasteur are still with us. The schools that he 

 established and the methods that he introduced are part of our heritage. 



In our own country (Ireland) the principles of Pasteur have been applied 

 to medicine and agriculture with success. As an instance— you may read in 

 the records of the Department of Agriculture how, in the first year of its 

 existence in Ireland (1900), it was confronted by a disease causing extensive 

 mortality among the calves in the dairying districts of the south. This 

 disease, generally called wfdte scour, was of unknown origin, and yielded to 

 no remedy. 



M. Nocard, one of Pasteur's pupils and colleagues, then head of the 

 Veterinary College at Alfort, near Paris, was invited to Ireland by Mr. T. P- 

 Gill, the Secretary of the Department, and the consent of the Prench 

 Government was obtained. M. Nocard was installed in a farm-laboratory 

 in the centre of the affected district ; and he carried out the investigations 



