riiKSiDEXT’s APnnF.ss. 
Pasteur, Koclj, Lister, Tyndal, Dallinger, and a host of similar 
workers. 
To Pasteur especially are we indebted for a most laborious and 
painstaking series of observations on the behaviour of these 
organisms in certain (liseases, and in the fermentation ot vegetable 
Iluids. The details of many of these investigations and discoveries 
are as thrilling as any romance ; but they possess the merit of 
being sound and trustworthy in their deductions. 
I had the good fortune to pay a visit to the Ecolo Xormalo when 
in Paris in IM8.3; but though unfortunate in not seeing Pasteur, 
who was out for his annual holiday, 1 was introduced to his 
co-worker, M. Chainberlan, and had the opportunity of seeing the 
vast array of ilasks and bottles, all systematically labelled and dated, 
in which experiments wore being recorded, extending over months 
and years : also the menagerie of fowls and animals, kept in great 
number and variety, for experimental purposes. One could not 
but bo impressed with the feeling, that the patient laborious work 
of observation, undertaken wi^h infinite pains by this remarkable 
man, was a labour of love, and showed the characteristics of a 
master mind. 
The exact nature of these minute forms of life has given rise to 
a good deal of controversy, some authorities claiming them for 
the animal, and others the vegetable kingdom. The exact func- 
tions also of these bodies is to some extent a moot point; some 
contending that they are the direct agents of change, whether of 
growth, decay', health, disease, or putrefaction ; others, that they 
are merely the concomitants of these changes. Whatever doubt 
there may be about Koch’s Cholera Bacillus, I think the experi- 
ments of Pasteur in connection with fowl cholera and splenic fever 
settle the point, inasmuch as he was able to separate and purify 
the microbes from all surrounding material, and subsequently 
inoculate healthy' animals, and so reproduce the specific disease in 
all its virulence. 
With respect to the nature of these bodies, it is of course very 
difllcult to say whether they should be classed as animals or 
