400 Address of Professor Huxley. 
have had to be paid for importing silkworm eggs, and that, after 
investing his money in them, in paying for mulberry-leaves and 
for attendance, the cultivator has constantly seen his aiksonas 
perish and himself plunged in ruin ; but it means that the looms 
of Lyons have lacked employment, and that for years enforced 
idleness and misery have been the portion of a vast population 
se in former days, was industrious and well to do. 
8 the gravity of the situation caused the French Acad- 
emy oa Sciences to appoint Commissioners, of whom a distin- 
guished naturalist, M. de spn rE ages, was one to inquire — 
so far is a more formidable disease, in being hereditary, and in 
os under some circumstances, contagious as well as in- 
fectious. 
sillkworms affected ee the strange disease a multitude of cylin- 
drical corpuscles, each about dog of an inchlong. These ze are 
some another ; and it was not until the French Government, 
larm, the continued ravages of the malady, and the in- 
efficiency of the remedies which had been suggested, dispatched 
. Pasteur to study it, that the question received its final settle- 
ment; at a great sacrifice, not only of the time and peace of 
mind of Mor eminent philosopher, but, I regret to have to add, 
of his health.+ 
But the sacrifice has not been in vain. It is now certain that 
this devastating, cholera-like Pébrine is the effect of the — 
and mutiplication of the Panhistophyton in the silkworm. It is 
phy ton nm pass away from the bodies of the diseased cate: rpillars 
directly or indirectly, to the bee Sonal of health silk 
worms in their neig Boo 
* Etudes sur les Maladies Actuelles des Vers a Soie, p. 5: 
: + In Na ture. No. xxxvi, p. 181, will be found a Anas: by Prof. Tyndall, of 
si itr ns of the silkworm disease 
