Pasteur

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt: ...attention at the time of its publication. In fact, the discovery by Rayer and Davaine of these filiform bodies in anthrax blood, like the previous revelations of Latour and Schwann concerning the yeast cells in fermenting liquids, fell upon irresponsive soil. Both were opposed to the scientific Zeitgeist prevailing when they were published, and both announcements were stifled and prevented from bearing fruit for many years, through the opposition which they encountered from the leaders of science of the time. This indifference is perhaps not so astonishing if we remember, that at this period leading scientific men, like Helmholtz, Ludwig, Briicke, Dubois Reymond, and their numerous followers, regarded the complete explanation of the phenomena of life on a physico-chemical basis as assured, and merely a question of time. Observations, therefore, which tended to shift the weighty responsibility of such complex phenomena as infection and disease upon minute parasitic organisms in the blood and tissues, appeared not only inadequate but almost ridiculous. It was the particular mission of Pasteur, with his well directed and irresistible energy, to remodel this Zeitgeist, to overthrow the oligarchical sway of these captains of science, and so clear the way for a new order of things. Notwithstanding the unsympathetic attitude of the leaders of science, this new line of research was silently proceeding. These filiform bodies, discovered by Rayer and Davaine, were again seen and emphasised in 1855 by Pollender, but immediately afterwards brought into discredit by Brauell, only to be again rehabilitated in 1860 by Delafond, who first succeeded in cultivating them in blood outside the body. We have seen (see p. 123) how Rayer and Davaine were themselves unconscious of ...