Page 147 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

CHAPTER XII

A Plagiarism Frustrated
A marked contrast between Bechamp and Pasteur lay in
the fact that the former demanded a logical sequence
between his ideas, while the latter was content to put for-
ward views that were seemingly contradictory one to
another. For instance, according to him the body is
nothing more than an inert mass, a mere chemical com-
plex, which, while in a state of health, he maintained to be
immune against the invasion of foreign organisms. 1 He
seems never to have realised that this belief contradicts the
germ-theory of disease originally put forward by Kircher
and Raspail, which he and Davaine had been so quick in
adopting. How can foreign organisms originate disease in
a body when, according to Pasteur, they cannot find
entry into the self-same body until after disease has set in?
Anyone with a sense of humour would have noticed an
amusing discrepancy in such a contention, but though
Pasteur's admirers have acclaimed him as a wit, a sense of
the ludicrous is seldom a strong point with anyone who
takes himself as seriously as Pasteur did or as seriously as
his followers take their admiration of him.
On the 29th June, 1 863, he read a Memoir on the subject
2
of putrefaction before the Academy of Science.
—
In this he said 3 : "Let a piece of meat be wrapped up
completely in a linen cloth soaked in alcohol" (here he
copied Bechamp in an earlier experiment) "and placed in
a closed receptacle (with or without air matters not) in
order to obstruct the evaporation of the alcohol. There
will be no putrefaction, neither in the interior, because no
1
"Le corps des animaux est ferme', dans Us cas ordinaires, d l'introduction des
germes des etres infirieurs" Comptes Rendus de VAcad&mie des Sciences 56, p. 1 193.
2
ibid. pp. 1 1 89-1 194.
3
ibid. p. 1 194.
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