Page 16 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BECHAMP OR PASTEUR?

A Lost Chapter in the History of Biology

INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I
Antoine champ

At Villeneuve l'fitang, not far from Paris, on the 28th
September, 1895, the death took place of a Frenchman
who has been acclaimed as a rare luminary of science, a
supreme benefactor of humanity. World-wide mourning,
national honours, pompous funeral obsequies, lengthy
newspaper articles, tributes public and private, attended
the passing of Louis Pasteur. His life has been fully
recorded; statues preserve his likeness; his name has been
given to a system, and Institutes that follow his methods
have sprung into being all over the world. Never has
Dame Fortune been more prodigal with bounties than in
the case of this chemist who, without ever being a doctor,
dared nothing less than to profess to revolutionise medi-
cine. According to his own dictum, the testimony of
subsequent centuries delivers the true verdict upon a
scientist, and adopting Pasteur's opinion as well as, in all
humility, his audacity, we dare to take it upon ourselves to
search that testimony.
What do we find?
Nothing less than a lost chapter in the history of biology,
a chapter which it seems essential should be rediscovered
and assigned to its proper place. For knowledge of it
might tend, firstly, to alter the whole trend of modern
medicine, and, secondly, to prove the outstanding French
genius of the nineteenth century to have been actually
another than Louis Pasteur!
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