PASTEUR AND FARMERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19433, 20 October 1925, Page 9

PASTEUR AND FARMERS

THE VALUE OF SCIENCE. Milk, or wine becomes sour on exposure to air. Pasteur showed that when organisms from the air are excluded, no change takes place. In the interior of the grape no germs exist. But crush the grape and expose it to ordinary atmospheric agencies, an’ fermentative and putrefactive changes run their course. The application of these facts to surgical operations in the, able hands of Lister revolutionised surgical practice. Pasteur’s discoveries in fermentation inaugurated a new era in wine-making and dairying indus- ’ tries. Empiricism, hitherto the only guide, was replaced by exact scientific knowledge, and the connection of the phenomena of disease with a controllable cause was thus established. After a study of the diseases of wines which had a most important practical bear ing, an opportunity came which .not, only changed the course of his career,

but had a great influence on the development of medical science. His friend Dumas urged him in 1865 to investigate an epidemic and fatal disease in siikworks in southern France —a disease which had almost ruined the French silk industry. He succeeded in determining the cause of the disease and in suggesting methods of preventing its recurrence. His work resuscitated the silkworm industry of France. It was the first of his victories in the application of tho experimental methods of tho trained chemist to the problems of biology.