Page 18 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

ANTOINE BfiGHAMP "5

In the year in which he died, eight pages of the Moniteur
Scientifique were required to set forth a list of his scientific
works. The mere mention of his titles may suggest an
idea of the stupendous labours of his long and arduous
career. They were as follows:
Master of Pharmacy.
Doctor of Science.
Doctor of Medicine.
Professor of Medical Chemistry and Pharmacy at the
Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier.
Fellow and Professor of Physics and of Toxicology at the
Higher School of Pharmacy at Strasbourg and Professor of
Chemistry of the same town.
Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Medi-
cine of France and of the Society of Pharmacy of Paris.
Member of the Agricultural Society of Herault and of the
Linnaean Society of the Department of Maine et Loire.
Gold Medallist of the Industrial Society of Mulhouse for
the discovery of a cheap process for the manufacture of aniline
and ofmany colours derived from this substance.
Silver Medallist of the Committee of Historic Works and of
Learned Societies for works upon the production of wine.
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Dean of the Faculty
of Medicine of Lille.
Honorary Titles
Officer of Public Instruction.
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
Commander of the Rose of Brazil.
Long though his life was, considerably outstretching the
rather arbitrary limit of the Psalmist, it can only seem in-
credibly short when compared with a list of discoveries
phenomenal for the life-span of one man. And as the
history of the foundations of biology, as well as the work of
Louis Pasteur, are both intricately connected with this
extended career of usefulness, we will try to sketch a faint
outline ofthe life-story ofPierre Jacques AntoineBechamp.
He was born during the epoch that had just witnessed
the finish of the Napoleonic wars, for it was on the 16th
October, 1816, that he first saw light at Bassing in Lor-
raine, where his father owned a flour mill. The boy was