October 5, 1895 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST 
527 
since that period that some of his most arduous labours 
have been accomplished. 
Pasteur’s father was a tanner at Dole, in the Jura, who 
passionately desired that his son should figure as a learned 
man. “ If you could only one day become professor in the 
College of Arbois, I should be the happiest man on earth,” 
was one of the sayings which his son remembered with filial 
pride. After receiving his early education at the Commercial 
School of Arbois, Louis Pasteur was sent to the College of 
Besangon, and in his 19th year was admitted to the College 
Normale at Paris. Here he worked hard at chemistry under 
Dumas and Balard, and in 1847 he published his first scientific 
memoir, which was a study of symmetry and dissymmetry 
in molecular construction, in connection with an examination 
of dextro and Imvo tartaric acid, Pasteur believed then, 
and he reaffirmed his faith not long ago, that the study of 
molecular optics offered a grand horizon, and regretted that 
he had not had the time to return to it. It was in that 
year, 1847, that Pasteur took his doctor’s degree, and the 
next year he was appointed Professor of Physics at Stras- 
burg University. From there he went to Lille in 1854, and 
three years later got back to Pari-, as Director of the Ecole 
Normale, and in 1867 was appointei Professor of Chemistry 
at the Sorbonne. 
Pasteur’s work on the tartaric acids led to the labours 
and triumphs which made his name famous. A German 
chemical-manufacturer had observed that the impure tar- 
trate of lime if contaminated with organic matter and 
permitted to remain under water in summer will ferment 
and yield various products. Pasteur undertook the investi- 
gation of this phenomenon, and it brought him to the 
consideration of the great subject of ferments. He found 
the turbidity was due to multiplication of a microscopic 
organism, which found in the liquid its proper aliment. He 
recognised in this organism a living ferment. He found it 
had the power of selecting its food. He found that it 
would take the right-handed tartrate from the solution and 
avoid the other ; and, as Tyndall says, he closed with the 
conception that ferments are in all cases living things, and 
that the substances formerly regarded as ferments are, in 
i^ality, the food of the ferments.” His theory was pro- 
pounded ; he devoted some years to its establishment, before 
which he had to overthrow the almost overpowering in- 
fluence of Liebig, who treated the notion of “ animalcule ” 
as producers of fermentation with contempt. 
Once having gained a clear conception of the process of 
fermentation, Pasteur was not long in turning his knowledge 
to account for the benefit of his country, for he presented 
the result of all his work freely to the world. The pro- 
duction of vinegar from wine was his first study, and he 
showed, in direct opposition to Liebig’s authority, that the 
agent of conversion was the “flower of vinegar,” or 
derma aceti ; that this abstracted oxygen from the air, fixed 
it on the alcohol of the wine, and thus converted it into 
acetic acid. By sowing the Mycoderma aceti in the vats he 
reduced the time occupied in the conversion of wine into 
vinegar from four or fiv^e months to eight or nine days. He 
next did a great service to the wine-producers by investigating 
a fungoid disease which affected the bottled wines. This 
he proved could be prevented by heating the wines after 
they had been bottled for one minute to 140° F. There was 
•at first a prejudice against this heating of the wine, but 
Pasteur satisfied the experts that no injury whatever was 
caused to the flavour or quality of the wines so treated. It 
was during his residence at Lille that he studied the subject 
-of beer-making and the action of yeast. These investiga- 
tions were of immense value to beer-producers in all parts 
of the world, and placed the beer-industry on a scientific 
basis. 
In 1865 a silkworm epidemic had become a national 
calamity in the South of France. A Commission was ap- 
pointed, with Dumas at its head ; but, at the earnest 
request of that chemist, Pasteur accepted a position on the 
Commission, and became the sole worker. His long and 
patient labour on this work was one of the most distinctive 
proofs of his genius. He and his wife resided in the 
district, reared silkworms, and watched them hourly. He 
discovered that the disease in the blood of the moth was a 
fermentive one ; he learned how to distinguish the infected 
from the healthy egg, and how to separate the one from the 
other ; and his ultimate triumph was complete, and of the 
utmost value. In recognition of his services over this long 
investigation, Napoleon III. made Louis Pasteur a senator of 
the Empire; but we believe he never took his seat. 
Out of his silkworm investigation grew his studies of 
anthrax, and, in a definite shape, the germ-theory of disease, 
and subsequently the method of inoculation, which has, per- 
haps, been carried since to extravagant lengths. The story 
of the dramatic episode at Melon in 1881 has been recorded 
in all the papers within the past few days. A flock of fifty 
sheep had been taken, and twenty-five of these had been 
inoculated with the anthrax germ, and twenty-five left un- 
inocu^ated. All had been fed on infected herbage, and on a 
certain day — four days after the vaccination — a large 
scientific company was invited to Melon to see the result. 
Twenty- one of the uninoculated sheep were already dead 
when the company arrived, and the other four died a little 
later. Twenty-four of the inoculated sheep were perfectly 
healthy, and one which had had an extra dose of the virus 
was a little ailing, but soon recovered. A similar experiment 
was made on a dozen cows with exactly similar results. 
Such a record of great services is almost unprecedented, 
and the French Republic cannot pay too high honour to this 
great but modest, simple-minded man. To many people the 
crowning work of his life will appear to have been his com- 
bat with hydrophobia. The Pasteur Institute and the work 
done there have attracted more of the world’s attention, 
perhaps, than any of the famous chemist’s previous labours, 
but it cannot be said by any impartial inquirer that 
conclusive results have been attained. The theory of 
the inoculations after the introduction of the hydrophobic 
poison has never been clear to the scientific mind, and it 
would never have received a moment’s serious attention if it 
had come from a source of lower eminence. There is no 
profession of rendering a body immune to the poison by 
previous inoculation. The scheme is to set an attenuated to 
counteract a strong virus, days and perhaps weeks after the 
latter has been absorbed. Glowing statistics have been 
published, it is true, which seem to prove a great saving of 
life, bub unless all the previous mortality records are erro 
neous, the actual number of deaths from hydrophobia is 
much the same as it was for years before the Pastaur Insti- 
tute had been established. Pasteur’s fame rests on more 
enduring foundations than the Institute to which his name 
was attached, and both in the science of chemistry and the 
art of medicine, his discoveries will for ever mark an epoch. 
PROFESSOR ROBERTS ON 
PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION. 
Professor Frederick Roberts, who opened the new 
session of the School of Pharmacy on Wednesday, is a well- 
known authority on materia medica and therapeutics, and 
the professor of these subjects at University Hospital. As 
such, he may be regarded as a connecting-link between 
