Page 114 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije
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DISEASES OF S I L K - W O R M S 1 1 1 —
first . . ." But, no doubt, realising that the Academy
Reports were destitute of any such proof, he demanded
the insertion of the full text of a Note that he claimed to
have sent on the ist June, 1868, to the Agricultural Society
of Alais. It was duly inserted with Pasteur's letter, and
was entitled: "Note on the Silk-Worm Disease commonly
known as Morts-Blanes or Moris-Flats."
The perusal of these Communications by Pasteur brings
home the marvel that he was able to impose upon the
world the idea that he had elucidated the diseases of silk-
worms. Just as he had been astray in regard to pebrine, so,
even now after all the time he had been at work, he had
nothing valuable to impart about flacherie. He referred to
the organisms associated with the disease, without any
allusion to the fact that M. Joly of the Faculty of Science of
Toulouse, as well as Professor Bechamp, had observed
them long before him. He thought there was nothing to
show that these organisms caused the complaint, but that
they were the result of digestive trouble. "The intestine,"
he wrote, "no longer functioning for some unknown
reason, the materials it encloses are situated as though in-
side an immovable vessel."
Bechamp, naturally, felt obliged to answer Pasteur; and
so, among the Reports ofthe French Academy of Science, 1
on the 13th July, 1868, we find a Note from the Professor
"On the Microzymian Disease of Silk-Worms, in Regard
to a Recent Communication from M. Pasteur." Here
Bechamp refers to his previous pamphlet, published on
the nth April, 1867, in which he and M. Le Ricque de
Monchy had drawn attention to the organisms associated
with morts-flats. He refers to his past Communication of
the 1 3th May, published among the Academy Reports of
the 20th May, and also to his Note of the 10th June, 1867.
He shows how again on the 28th March, 1868, he pub-
lished a second edition of his pamphlet, to which he added
further opinions on the microzymian complaint, other-
wise flacherie. He also draws attention to the fact that as
1
Comptes Rendus 67, p. 102.