Page 107 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

104 BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
better make clear my opinion of silk-worm disease than by
comparing it to the effects of pulmonary phthisis. My
observations of this year have fortified me in the opinion
that these little organisms are neither animalcules nor
cryptogamic plants. It appears to me that it is chiefly the
cellular tissue of all the organs that is transformed into
corpuscles or produces them." Not a single proof did he
bring forward of a fact that would, if true, have been
marvellous: not a single suggestion did he give of any
experiment to determine the asserted absence of life in the
corpuscles or their relation to the disease. Finally he went
out of his way to contradict Bechamp and in so doing set a
definite seal on his blunder. "One would be tempted to
believe, especially from the resemblance of the corpuscles
to the spores of mucorina, that a parasite had invaded the
nurseries. That would be an error"
This intentional dig at another worker was singularly
unlucky, for it provides proof positive ofthe lie direct given
by Pasteur to a correct solution to which he afterwards laid
claim. Here was the man who had so utterly renounced
his former sponteparist views as to ascribe all fermentative
effects, all vital phenomena, to air-borne causes, now
denying the extraneous origin of a disease that was proved
by Bechamp to be undoubtedly parasitic.
The latter at once fortified his conclusions by an account
of the experiments upon which he had based them. On
the 13th August, 1866, he presented a Note to the
Academy of Science: "Researches on the Nature of the
Actual Disease of Silk-Worms." 1 In this he described a
process of washing the seeds and worms, which gave proof
that those affected had been invaded by a parasite. In
answer to M. Pasteur, he declared that the vibrant cor-
puscle "Is not a pathological production, something
analogous to a globule of pus, or a cancer cell, or to pul-
monary tubercles, but is distinctly a cell of a vegetable
nature."
Again, on the 27th August, another Note to the
1
Comptes Rendus 63, p. 31 1.