192 Ohituary notice of M. Louis Pasteur. [Dec. 



Richard Burn, Esq., I.G.S., proposed by Dr. G. A. Grierson, seconded 

 by C. R. Wilson, Esq. 



G. Place, Esq., I.C.S., Judge, Cliapra, proposed by Dr. G. A. Grier- 

 son, seconded by C. R. Wilson, Esq. 



Dr. Arnold Caddy, proposed by Dr. W. J. Simpson, seconded by 

 Dr. G. Ranking. 



The following gentleman has expressed a wish to withdraw from 

 the Society. 



Dr. 0. C. Raye. 



The Natural Histoiy Secretary read obituary notices of the deaths 

 of Monsieur Louis Pasteur and Piof. T. H. Huxley. 



Louis Pasteur was born in 1822 at Dole, in the Jura. His education 

 commenced at the Communal College at Arbois, and he passed into the 

 E'cole Nornialein 1813. Here he studied chemistry under Balard, and at 

 theSorbonne under Dumas, showing remarkable application. It was in the 

 E'cole Normale, under Delafosse, that he commenced that study of mole- 

 cular physics, whicli led up to his first important work, tlie investigation 

 on the isomeric crystals of the tartrates and paratartrates of soda and 

 ammonia. This work was interrupted by his appointment as Dean of 

 the Faculty of Sciences at Lille ; here the chief industry of the town was 

 the manufacture of alcohol, and Pasteur, desiring to improve it by scienti- 

 fic methods, took up the study of fermentation. The change of subject 

 was not so great as it seems, for in his study of the tartaric salts he had 

 observed cases in which fermentation had seemed due to the presence of a 

 living organism. Now, combining chemistry and microscopy as they had 

 hardly ever been combined before, he succeeded in proving that fermen- 

 tation generally is due to the action of organisms living in the fermenting 

 substance. More, he showed that each method of fermentation, vinous, 

 putrefactive, or otherwise, was due to a specific micro-organism appro- 

 priate to that method. Most important of all, Pasteur's investigations 

 shewed that each species of ferment may be isolated and cultivated 

 separately, and in certain instances be so modified by cultivation as to 

 exert but relatively slight influence on substances which it would 

 naturally strongly affect. The most direct applications of these results 

 were, naturally, made in the manufacture of wine and vinegar and later 

 on of beer, the so-called diseases of which, being traced to the disturbing 

 influences of other micro-organisms mingled with those of the true 

 alcoholic ferment, pure yeast, could now be prevented, for instance by the 

 heating process known specially as Pasteurization. Hence accrued a great 

 gain to the wine and beer industries ; but the utility of the proof that 



