1895.] Scientific News. 1041 
unanimously, a perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences to re- 
place Vulpian, who died in 1887; but the state of his health and his 
personal scientific researches did not allow him to assume the duties of 
the position. He resigned after two years, and was made an honorary 
perpetual Secretary. 
He has received almost every distinction that the French Govern- 
ment could give him. By a decree of Napoleon III, not promulgated, 
he was made a Senator, and in 1885 became a member of the Legion 
of Honor, in which he was steadily promoted to the highest rank. 
M. Pasteur began his well-known series of investigations with the 
study of crystals while he was an assistant in the Ecole Normale. He 
had no allowance for the expenses of his studies, and so he worked in 
a laboratory of his own with no funds except what was supplied by his 
own slender resources. His success in this particular branch of inquiry 
was regarded as remarkable for so young a man, and it was only 
through the force of circumstances that his labors were led into another 
direction. 
He began the study of fermentation when he became connected with 
the Faculty of Sciences at Lille. It was a subject little understood at 
that time, and he speedily succeeded in bringing the scientific men of 
France to agree with his conclusions. 
In 1849 an epidemic threatened to destroy the entire silk worm ine 
dustry of France. Pasteur went to Alais where the plague was raging 
in its worst form to see what scientific measures could be taken to abate 
it. His investigations there proved that the disease was contagious, 
and the simple method suggested by Pasteur to separate the diseased 
eggs from the healthy ones has since been adopted to prevent a recur- 
rence of the epidemic. 
The discoveries which were to make him best known were yet to fol- 
low. In 1870 he commenced his studies in inoculation for diseases 
other than small-pox, with which his name is most associated. He 
achieved some remarkable results in the prevention of hydrophobia. 
Patients from all parts of Europe and America travelled to Paris to put 
themselves under his care, and his treatment has long been given at 
Pasteur institutes established in London and New York. 
The cholera epidemic of 1892 led him to begin experiments in anti- 
cholera vaccination which proved successful in the case of animals. 
Pasteur was one of the greatest men of science of the present century, 
but in one respect he disappointed his admirers. His refusal to 
accept recognition from Germany appears to have been a mistake. 
Science is cosmopolitan, and the attempt to localize its rewards is incon- 
sistent with the spirit of the age. 71 
