76 
Pasteur and his Work, 
bladder is prevented by injecting a solution of borax, which 
causes no pain, into that organ. About this time, also, Lister, 
then a professor of surgery in Scotland, moved thereto by the 
researches of Pasteur, began his investigations into antiseptic 
measures in surgical operations, which he has since perfected 
to such an extent, that " Listerism " in the treatment of wounds 
is regarded throughout the civilised world as one of the greatest 
improvements in modern surgery : rendering the healing of 
formidable injuries more rapid and certain, and enabling the 
surgeon to boldly and successfully undertake operations which 
previously he would not have dared to venture upon, or which 
were in the great majority of cases fatal. Lister's method simply 
consists in excluding putrefactive and other germs from wounds, 
as well as from naturally closed cavities of the body which may 
have to be opened for the cure of disease. 
Pasteur was naturally reluctant to enter upon the study of 
contagious diseases, though, from his success in elucidating the 
causes of fermentation and the silkworm disease, he hoped to 
gain, and indeed felt certain of arriving at, an exact knowledge 
of their origin. " I am neither doctor nor surgeon," he repeated, 
when urged to undertake researches into the transmissible dis- 
orders of men and animals. But at length he was induced to 
begin, and he selected for his study one of the most widespread 
and fatal of animal diseases — that which is known to scientists 
as Anthrax, and to agriculturists and others in this country by 
various names, some of them local : such as Splenic Apoplexy, 
Splenic Fever, (Sec. ; and in France as " Charbon," and in 
Germany as " Milzbrand." 
This anthrax destroys wild as well as domesticated animals, 
herbivorous creatures and rodents being most susceptible, and it 
prevails, in one or more of its diversified forms, over probably 
the entire surface of the globe. It sometimes decimates the rein- 
deer herds in the Polar regions, and is only too well known fn the 
tropics and in temperate latitudes. The carefully-tended rumi- 
nants of the most highly civilised countries, suffer equally with 
the wandering herds and flocks of the Tartar Steppes ; and the 
scourge is as much dreaded by the Finns and Lapps, as it is by 
the Mexicans, the Arabs, the Annamites, or the South African 
and Australian colonists. It has been carefully described by 
travellers, veterinary surgeons, and others, as they have observed 
it in Siberia, Lapland, Russia, Central Asia, and Asia Minor, 
China, Cochin-China, the I'.ast and West Indies, Peru, Para- 
guay, Brazil, Mexico, North America, Australia, North and 
South Africa, and Egypt. Europe appears to be specially 
visited by it, and some parts sufter most seriously from its 
ravages. The books and papers which have been published 
