Page 67 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
6 4
pletely opposite standpoint, and ascribed almost all
phenomena to the influence of atmospheric germs.
His immediate opponent, meanwhile, experimented on
air on mountains, on plains, on the sea, and, as everybody
knows, Pasteur never succeeded in convincing M. Pou-
chet.
1—
Of these Pasteurian experiments, Bechamp writes:
"From his microscopic analysis, he comes to conclusions,
like Pouchet, without precision (sans rien preciser) ; there are
organised corpuscles in the collected dust, only he cannot
say "this is an egg, that is a spore," but he affirms that
there are a sufficient number to explain all the cases of the
generation of infusoria. Pasteur thus took up the position
of explaining by germs of the air all that he had explained
before by spontaneous generation."
He was naturally entitled to hold any opinions that he
chose, whether they were superficial or otherwise, and also
to change his opinions, but we think all will agree that
what he was not entitled to do was to claim for himself
discoveries initiated by another worker. Yet, in a dis-
cussion on spontaneous generation, which took place at
the Sorbonne, during a Meeting, on the 22nd Nov., 1861,
of the Societes Savantes, Pasteur, actually in the presence of
Professor Bechamp, took to himself the credit of the proof
of the appearance of living organisms in a medium devoid
of albuminoid matter. The Professor, with that distaste for
self-advertisement, which so often accompanies the highest
intellectuality, listened in amazed silence, until his own
turn came, when, instead ofputting forward the legitimate
seniority of his work, he merely gave an account of the
experiments described in his great Memoir and the con-
clusions that had resulted from them. On returning to his
seat, which happened to be next to Pasteur's, he asked the
latter to be so kind as to admit his knowledge of the work
that had just been under description. The Report of the
Meeting tells us of Pasteur's method of compliance. 2
1
Les Grands Problemes Midicaux, par A. Bkhamp, p. 13.
2
Revues des Sociitts Savantes I, p. 81 (1862).