LEWIS PASTEUR

Otago Witness, Issue 3596, 13 February 1923, Page 27

LEWIS PASTEUR

GREAT SCIENTIST'S CENTENARY. • h “ een m y P l 'o u d privilege to see in the flesh two famous men—Brownin the poet, and Louis Pasteur, the scientist. He was born at Dole in December, 1822. • he died in September, 1895. His career was one steady rise from obscurity to tame, from humble beginnings to worldvviue influence for the good of humanity, and as such should be specially stimulate to young men. Nothing daunted him; he possessed n a high degree the virtues of courage, perseverance, and enthusiasm. He frequently met with bitter opposition and jealous carping, but he always emerged triumphant, for he never asserted what he could not prove, and never advanced a theory which he had not rigidly tested by experiment. Pasteur’s forefathers were tanners; and his father, after leaving the army (wneie he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour), entered on the family business. Ihe father was a man of remarkable character. His distinguished son afterwards said of him: “For many yea s I have been his. first and almost his oniy interest in life. I owe everything to mm. When I was young he kept”me out of bad company, made me acquire a habit of industry, and gave me the example of an upright and well-filled life. He was in distinction and character far above Uls position as judged from a worldly point of view. He made no mistake about it; lie knew that it is the man who dignifies the position, and not the position the man. ’ Thoughtful and Conscientious.— As a boy Pasteur was only an average scholar, his only distinction being in drawing. But he was attentive, thoughtful, and conscientious, with a strong will, ana capable of enthusiasm. He attended ihe Colleges of Arbois and Besaneon, vnd graduated in Science at the Ecole Normaie in Paris. His first achievement was a discovery in crystallography. In 1849 he was appointed to the Chair of Chemist; y in Strasbourg, and in the same year he married. His marriage was a happy one. Aladame Pasteur knew her hsuband’s charaetei thoroughly, and from the first made it her business to keep him free of suefl material worries and cares as might distract him from his scientific investigations, and not only so, but she took a keen and intelligent interest in his researches and became his best collaborator. In 1854 Pasteur was made Professor and Dean of the E acuity of Science at Lille. The staple industry of Lille was the manufacture of alcohol from beetroot, and Pasteur was asked to advise as to the occasional failures in the processes, and also the causes of certain defects m making wine and beer. He made an exhaustive study of all kinds of fermentation, shed a new light on the life and* growth of germs, and demolished for ever the absurd idea of spontaneous generation. After three years at Lille he returned to his beloved Ecole Normaie as administrator of the school and director of science studies. Here he fitted up at his own expense two little attic rooms as a laboratory for himself and his assistants, and in. these he began and carried out for years many of his famous experiments and investigations. He spent six years in an investigation into the disease of silk worms, and as the result propounded remedies whicn have been adopted in all countries where sericulture is carried on, and which saved

immense sums of money to those who carried on the silk industry in France.

Pioneer in Antiseptics.— Pasteur had a passion for facts. He faithfully and reverently followed the light wherever it led, and never despised any new light however humble it seemed. To those who asked, “Of what use it it? lie was always readv to quote the rej 'v of Franklin : “Of what use b a new-oo n baby?” You can never te r i to what it will grow. And so steadily, slowly, but o”e might say inevitably and providentially Pasteur wa« led from his studv of ferments to that of germ life, and then from the diseases cf the lower animals (anthrax, swine-fever, chicken cholera, and so m) to the diseases of the human frame; and so it became his unexpected and great privilege to become a world-renowned benefactor of the human species. 1 n the cultivation and use of vaccines for dilative purposes he became the great pioneer of antiseptic surgery, which nowadays accomplishes such marvels. It was Joseph Lister, afterwards Lord Lister, who was one of the first to see and appreciate what Pasteur’s achievements meant; and on a certain occasion, when Pasteur .was being publicly honoured, Lord Lister used these words. “Theve does not exist in tho whole world an individual man to whom medical science owes more than to you. Your reoearehes threw a nowerfnl light on tne dark places of surgery, and changed me treatment of wounds from an uncertain and often disastrous business to a certain and scientific beneficial art.” And wall all this it must be remembered that Pasteur was no doctor, nor ever n-rofessed to he one; he was only a scientist who. by faithfully following the light, had been led to marvellously unexpected results and achievements. His success excited iealousy and opposition: but while ne bated controversy be did not avoid it when necessary, and he did not allow it to embitter him. —Honoured by the State.— In his fortieth year Pasteur had attained to such eminence that ne was elected a member of the French Academy. In 1868, however, he suffered the penalty of the too unremitting worker, being seized suddenly with apoplexy, whr.n necessitated a rest for a year, and which to some extent permanently crippled him. Five years later he was made a member of the Academy of Medicine, and in 1874 he was awarded by the State a pension of £SOO, which was afterwards increased to £IOOO. It was in 1877 that Pasteur began the study of the bacillus of anthrax, and he wag successful in showing how the disease could be prevented, or its ravages lessened. He applied his methods also to swinefever and other diseases of aaimals, ami then to puerperal and other human ail ments. His experiment* in germ-cultuie taught him how to attenuate the virus of disease and how to use vaccines lor curative inoculation or prevention against epidemics. His last studv was the cure of rabies, that most dreaded scourge. In 1885 he gave to the world the rault of ms investigations, and in 1888 the Pasteur Institute was founded in Paris as a curecentre, and since then by Pasteur's methods hundreds of lives have been saved from a horrible death by hydrophobia. In 1892 Pasteur’s seventieth birthday was celebrated at the Sorbonne, when many distinguished men attended 13 delegates from all civilised countries to pay honour to the great French scientist. —A Great Benefactor. — Pasteur is now looked upon as one who will take his place in history as one of the great benefactors of the human race. And it is a great satisfaction to all who study his career to find that he \ Us a great man as well as a great scciantist. He was thoroughly disinterested in all hit researches; so much so that he took steps at his own expense to prevent clever manufacturer* from turning his discoveries to their own profit to the detriment of the public. He could have made an immense fortune for himself if he had so chosen, but he preferred to give freely to the world all he knew. He was also a true patriot and lover of his country. And. strange though it may seem, he was so tender-hearted and sensitive to suffering that it gave him nausea to attend operations, and when he had to perform operation* on animals or children it caused him great pain and distress, and he had a perfect horror of vivisection, although he had himself occasionally to practise ltAnd, finally, he was a reverent and religious man, who was faithful to the end to the Church in which he had been brought up, and who never concealed his religious convictions. He profoundly reverenced human reason, but held HMv there were human intuitions which :vere equally important, and which lead us tc believe in individual responsibility and in the immortalitv of the soul. It is an insult to the heart of man to say with the materialists that death is extinction.”—A. S. in the AA'eeklv Scotsman.

The following appeared in our Second tMition last -wavl: >■-