Pasteur’s Benefactions to Soldiers

New Zealand Tablet, 15 April 1915, Page 13

Pasteur’s Benefactions to Soldiers

* At least one great victory is assured in tire war, and on© man has established an immortal reputation,' comments Home. Some months before the war a Paris newspaper asked its readers to name the greatest man that ever lived. Pasteur was the choice of the majority, Napoleon coming in ‘ a very poor second.' Rome goes on to prove the scientist’s claim to this distinction: It was Pasteur, the modest, Catholic man of science, who first impressed upon the world the inward meaning and importance of infection and disinfection. By teaching doctors ‘ to wash their hands ’ —in the phrase of Claude Bernardhe taught them the precious secret of medical antiseptics, which has ‘during these first six months of the war saved over a hundred thousand lives. Figures are given to show the great decrease in mortality after Pasteur’s teaching was introduced. In the Crimean war 15.21 per cent, of the French wounded died from their injuries; in* the Italian war of 1859-60 the percentage of deaths was still higher; the introduction of surgical antiseptics among the German wounded in the Franco-Prussian war reduced the mortality rate to 11.07. During the American and AngloBoer wars Pasteur’s science had come into almost universal application, and only five or six per cent, succumbed to their injuries. The figures for the present war show that of the wounded French soldiers treated in the hospitals 55 per cent, returned to the fighting line, 24 per cent, are on leave convalescing,' 17 per cent, are still under treatment and doing well ; H per cent, are permanently disabled : 21- per cent, have died. But this is only a part of the great change wrought by Pasteur’s science (says the Sacred Heart Review'). The mortality from sickness, especially infective maladies, during war times surpassed the mortality from wounds, but Pasteur antiseptics have reduced to very small proportions in the present war the death rate from tetanus, dysentery, and typhoid in particular. 1 Perhaps Pasteur was not the greatest man in history,’ adds Rome, ‘ but he will do until a greater is discovered, and he is one of ours.’