diff options
Diffstat (limited to '77842-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 77842-0.txt | 13541 |
1 files changed, 13541 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/77842-0.txt b/77842-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..079dce6 --- /dev/null +++ b/77842-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13541 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77842 *** + Transcriber’s Note: Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by + _underscores_. + + + + + MICROBE HUNTERS + + + + + MICROBE HUNTERS + + _by_ + PAUL DE KRUIF + + + “The gods are frankly human, sharing in the weaknesses of + mankind, yet not untouched with a halo of divine Romance.” + + E. H. BLAKENEY. + + + [Illustration: (colophon)] + + + _New York_ + HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY + + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY + HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. + + + PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. + + + + + TO + RHEA + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I LEEUWENHOEK: First of the Microbe Hunters 3 + + II SPALLANZANI: Microbes Must Have Parents! 25 + + III PASTEUR: Microbes Are a Menace! 57 + + IV KOCH: The Death Fighter 105 + + V PASTEUR: And the Mad Dog 145 + + VI ROUX AND BEHRING: Massacre the Guinea-Pigs 184 + + VII METCHNIKOFF: The Nice Phagocytes 207 + + VIII THEOBALD SMITH: Ticks and Texas Fever 234 + + IX BRUCE: Trail of the Tsetse 252 + + X ROSS VS. GRASSI: Malaria 278 + + XI WALTER REED: In the Interest of Science--and for + Humanity! 311 + + XII PAUL EHRLICH: The Magic Bullet 334 + + INDEX 359 + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACING PAGE + + ANTONY LEEUWENHOEK 16 + + LAZZARO SPALLANZANI 48 + + PASTEUR AT FORTY-FIVE 74 + + ROBERT KOCH 140 + + VACCINATING SHEEP FOR ANTHRAX 166 + + DR. ROUX 204 + + ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF 228 + + LAST PORTRAIT OF EHRLICH 354 + + + + + MICROBE HUNTERS + + + + + CHAPTER I + + LEEUWENHOEK + + FIRST OF THE MICROBE HUNTERS + + + I + +Two hundred and fifty years ago an obscure man named Leeuwenhoek +looked for the first time into a mysterious new world peopled with a +thousand different kinds of tiny beings, some ferocious and deadly, +others friendly and useful, many of them more important to mankind +than any continent or archipelago. + +Leeuwenhoek, unsung and scarce remembered, is now almost as unknown +as his strange little animals and plants were at the time he +discovered them. This is the story of Leeuwenhoek, the first of +the microbe hunters. It is the tale of the bold and persistent and +curious explorers and fighters of death who came after him. It is +the plain history of their tireless peerings into this new fantastic +world. They have tried to chart it, these microbe hunters and death +fighters. So trying they have groped and fumbled and made mistakes +and roused vain hopes. Some of them who were too bold have died--done +to death by the immensely small assassins they were studying--and +these have passed to an obscure small glory. + +To-day it is respectable to be a man of science. Those who go by the +name of scientist form an important element of the population, their +laboratories are in every city, their achievements are on the front +pages of the newspapers, often before they are fully achieved. Almost +any young university student can go in for research and by and by +become a comfortable science professor at a tidy little salary in +a cozy college. But take yourself back to Leeuwenhoek’s day, two +hundred and fifty years ago, and imagine yourself just through high +school, getting ready to choose a career, wanting to know-- + +You have lately recovered from an attack of mumps, you ask your +father what is the cause of mumps and he tells you a mumpish evil +spirit has got into you. His theory may not impress you much, but you +decide to make believe you believe him and not to wonder any more +about what is mumps--because if you publicly don’t believe him you +are in for a beating and may even be turned out of the house. Your +father is Authority. + +That was the world three hundred years ago, when Leeuwenhoek was +born. It had hardly begun to shake itself free from superstitions, it +was barely beginning to blush for its ignorance. It was a world where +science (which only means trying to find truth by careful observation +and clear thinking) was just learning to toddle on vague and wobbly +legs. It was a world where Servetus was burned to death for daring to +cut up and examine the body of a dead man, where Galileo was shut up +for life for daring to prove that the earth moved around the sun. + +Antony Leeuwenhoek was born in 1632 amid the blue windmills and +low streets and high canals of Delft, in Holland. His family were +burghers of an intensely respectable kind and I say intensely +respectable because they were basket-makers and brewers, and brewers +are respectable and highly honored in Holland. Leeuwenhoek’s +father died early and his mother sent him to school to learn to +be a government official, but he left school at sixteen to be +an apprentice in a dry-goods store in Amsterdam. That was his +university. Think of a present-day scientist getting his training +for experiment among bolts of gingham, listening to the tinkle of +the bell on the cash drawer, being polite to an eternal succession +of Dutch housewives who shopped with a penny-pinching dreadful +exhaustiveness--but that was Leeuwenhoek’s university, for six years! + +At the age of twenty-one he left the dry-goods store, went back to +Delft, married, set up a dry-goods store of his own there. For +twenty years after that very little is known about him, except that +he had two wives (in succession) and several children most of whom +died, but there is no doubt that during this time he was appointed +janitor of the city hall of Delft, and that he developed a most +idiotic love for grinding lenses. He had heard that if you very +carefully ground very little lenses out of clear glass, you would +see things look much bigger than they appeared to the naked eye.... +Little is known about him from twenty to forty, but there is no doubt +that he passed in those days for an ignorant man. The only language +he knew was Dutch--that was an obscure language despised by the +cultured world as a tongue of fishermen and shop-keepers and diggers +of ditches. Educated men talked Latin in those days, but Leeuwenhoek +could not so much as read it and his only literature was the Dutch +Bible. Just the same, you will see that his ignorance was a great +help to him, for, cut off from all of the learned nonsense of his +time, he had to trust to his own eyes, his own thoughts, his own +judgment. And that was easy for him because there never was a more +mulish man than this Antony Leeuwenhoek! + +It would be great fun to look through a lens and see things bigger +than your naked eye showed them to you! But _buy_ lenses? Not +Leeuwenhoek! There never was a more suspicious man. Buy lenses? He +would make them himself! During these twenty years of his obscurity +he went to spectacle-makers and got the rudiments of lens-grinding. +He visited alchemists and apothecaries and put his nose into their +secret ways of getting metals from ores, he began fumblingly to learn +the craft of the gold- and silversmiths. He was a most pernickety +man and was not satisfied with grinding lenses as good as those +of the best lens-grinder in Holland, they had to be better than +the best, and then he still fussed over them for long hours. Next +he mounted these lenses in little oblongs of copper or silver or +gold, which he had extracted himself, over hot fires, among strange +smells and fumes. To-day searchers pay seventy-five dollars for a +fine shining microscope, turn the screws, peer through it, make +discoveries--without knowing anything about how it is built. But +Leeuwenhoek-- + +Of course his neighbors thought he was a bit cracked but Leeuwenhoek +went on burning and blistering his hands. Working forgetful of his +family and regardless of his friends, he bent solitary to subtle +tasks in still nights. The good neighbors sniggered, while that man +found a way to make a tiny lens, less than one-eighth of an inch +across, so symmetrical, so perfect, that it showed little things +to him with a fantastic clear enormousness. Yes, he was a very +uncultured man, but he alone of all men in Holland knew how to make +those lenses, and he said of those neighbors: “We must forgive them, +seeing that they know no better.” + +Now this self-satisfied dry-goods dealer began to turn his lenses +onto everything he could get hold of. He looked through them at the +muscle fibers of a whale and the scales of his own skin. He went to +the butcher shop and begged or bought ox-eyes and was amazed at how +prettily the crystalline lens of the eye of the ox is put together. +He peered for hours at the build of the hairs of a sheep, of a +beaver, of an elk, that were transformed from their fineness into +great rough logs under his bit of glass. He delicately dissected +the head of a fly; he stuck its brain on the fine needle of his +microscope--how he admired the clear details of the marvelous big +brain of that fly! He examined the cross-sections of the wood of a +dozen different trees and squinted at the seeds of plants. He grunted +“Impossible!” when he first spied the outlandish large perfection of +the sting of a flea and the legs of a louse. That man Leeuwenhoek +was like a puppy who sniffs--with a totally impolite disregard of +discrimination--at every object of the world around him! + + + II + +There never was a less sure man than Leeuwenhoek. He looked at this +bee’s sting or that louse’s leg again and again and again. He left +his specimens sticking on the point of his strange microscope for +months--in order to look at other things he made more microscopes +till he had hundreds of them!--then he came back to those first +specimens to correct his first mistakes. He never set down a word +about anything he peeped at, he never made a drawing until hundreds +of peeps showed him that, under given conditions, he would always see +exactly the same thing. And then he was not sure! He said: + +“People who look for the first time through a microscope say now +I see this and then I see that--and even a skilled observer can +be fooled. On these observations I have spent more time than many +will believe, but I have done them with joy, and I have taken no +notice of those who have said why take so much trouble and what +good is it?--but I do not write for such people but only for the +philosophical!” He worked for twenty years that way, without an +audience. + +But at this time, in the middle of the seventeenth century, great +things were astir in the world. Here and there in France and England +and Italy rare men were thumbing their noses at almost everything +that passed for knowledge. “We will no longer take Aristotle’s +say-so, nor the Pope’s say-so,” said these rebels. “We will trust +only the perpetually repeated observations of our own eyes and the +careful weighings of our scales; we will listen to the answers +experiments give us and no other answers!” So in England a few of +these revolutionists started a society called The Invisible College, +it had to be invisible because that man Cromwell might have hung them +for plotters and heretics if he had heard of the strange questions +they were trying to settle. What experiments those solemn searchers +made! Put a spider in a circle made of the powder of a unicorn’s horn +and that spider can’t crawl out--so said the wisdom of that day. But +these Invisible Collegians? One of them brought what was supposed +to be powdered unicorn’s horn and another came carrying a little +spider in a bottle. The college crowded around under the light of +high candles. Silence, then the hushed experiment, and here is their +report of it: + +“A circle was made with the powder of unicorn’s horn and a spider set +in the middle of it, but it immediately ran out.” + +Crude, you exclaim. Of course! But remember that one of the +members of this college was Robert Boyle, founder of the science +of chemistry, and another was Isaac Newton. Such was the Invisible +College, and presently, when Charles II came to the throne, it rose +from its depths as a sort of blind-pig scientific society to the +dignity of the name of the Royal Society of England. And they were +Antony Leeuwenhoek’s first audience! There was one man in Delft +who did not laugh at Antony Leeuwenhoek, and that was Regnier de +Graaf, whom the Lords and Gentlemen of the Royal Society had made +a corresponding member because he had written them of interesting +things he had found in the human ovary. Already Leeuwenhoek was +rather surly and suspected everybody, but he let de Graaf peep +through those magic eyes of his, those little lenses whose equal did +not exist in Europe or England or the whole world for that matter. +What de Graaf saw through those microscopes made him ashamed of his +own fame and he hurried to write to the Royal Society: + +“Get Antony Leeuwenhoek to write you telling of his discoveries.” + +And Leeuwenhoek answered the request of the Royal Society with all +the confidence of an ignorant man who fails to realize the profound +wisdom of the philosophers he addresses. It was a long letter, it +rambled over every subject under the sun, it was written with a +comical artlessness in the conversational Dutch that was the only +language he knew. The title of that letter was: “A Specimen of some +Observations made by a Microscope contrived by Mr. Leeuwenhoek, +concerning Mould upon the Skin, Flesh, etc.; the Sting of a Bee, +etc.” The Royal Society was amazed, the sophisticated and learned +gentlemen were amused--but principally the Royal Society was +astounded by the marvelous things Leeuwenhoek told them he could see +through his new lenses. The Secretary of the Royal Society thanked +Leeuwenhoek and told him he hoped his first communication would be +followed by others. It was, by hundreds of others over a period +of fifty years. They were talkative letters full of salty remarks +about his ignorant neighbors, of exposures of charlatans and of +skilled explodings of superstitions, of chatter about his personal +health--but sandwiched between paragraphs and pages of this homely +stuff, in almost every letter, those Lords and Gentlemen of the Royal +Society had the honor of reading immortal and gloriously accurate +descriptions of the discoveries made by the magic eye of that janitor +and shopkeeper. What discoveries! + +When you look back at them, many of the fundamental discoveries of +science seem so simple, too absurdly simple. How was it men groped +and fumbled for so many thousands of years without seeing things that +lay right under their noses? So with microbes. Now all the world has +seen them cavorting on movie screens, many people of little learning +have peeped at them swimming about under lenses of microscopes, the +greenest medical student is able to show you the germs of I don’t +know how many diseases--what was so hard about seeing microbes for +the first time? + +But let us drop our sneers to remember that when Leeuwenhoek was +born there were no microscopes but only crude handlenses that +would hardly make a ten-cent piece look as large as a quarter. +Through these--without his incessant grinding of his own marvelous +lenses--that Dutchman might have looked till he grew old without +discovering any creature smaller than a cheese-mite. You have read +that he made better and better lenses with the fanatical persistence +of a lunatic; that he examined everything, the most intimate things +and the most shocking things, with the silly curiosity of a puppy. +Yes, and all this squinting at bee-stings and mustache hairs and +whatnot were needful to prepare him for that sudden day when he +looked through his toy of a gold-mounted lens at a fraction of a +small drop of clear rain water to discover-- + +What he saw that day starts this history. Leeuwenhoek was a maniac +observer, and who but such a strange man would have thought to turn +his lens on clear, pure water, just come down from the sky? What +could there be in water but just--water? You can imagine his daughter +Maria--she was nineteen and she took such care of her slightly insane +father!--watching him take a little tube of glass, heat it red hot in +a flame, draw it out to the thinness of a hair.... Maria was devoted +to her father--let any of those stupid neighbors dare to snigger at +him!--but what in the world was he up to now, with that hair-fine +glass pipe? + +You can see her watch that absent-minded wide-eyed man break the tube +into little pieces, go out into the garden to bend over an earthen +pot kept there to measure the fall of the rain. He bends over that +pot. He goes back into his study. He sticks the little glass pipe +onto the needle of his microscope.... + +What can that dear silly father be up to? + +He squints through his lens. He mutters guttural words under his +breath.... + +Then suddenly the excited voice of Leeuwenhoek: “Come here! Hurry! +There are little animals in this rain water.... They swim! They play +around! They are a thousand times smaller than any creatures we can +see with our eyes alone.... Look! See what I have discovered!” + +Leeuwenhoek’s day of days had come. Alexander had gone to India and +discovered huge elephants that no Greek had ever seen before--but +those elephants were as commonplace to Hindus as horses were to +Alexander. Cæsar had gone to England and come upon savages that +opened his eyes with wonder--but these Britons were as ordinary to +each other as Roman centurions were to Cæsar. Balboa? What were his +proud feelings as he looked for the first time at the Pacific? Just +the same that Ocean was as ordinary to a Central American Indian as +the Mediterranean was to Balboa. But Leeuwenhoek? This janitor of +Delft had stolen upon and peeped into a fantastic sub-visible world +of little things, creatures that had lived, had bred, had battled, +had died, completely hidden from and unknown to all men from the +beginning of time. Beasts these were of a kind that ravaged and +annihilated whole races of men ten million times larger than they +were themselves. Beings these were, more terrible than fire-spitting +dragons or hydra-headed monsters. They were silent assassins that +murdered babes in warm cradles and kings in sheltered places. It +was this invisible, insignificant, but implacable--and sometimes +friendly--world that Leeuwenhoek had looked into for the first time +of all men of all countries. + +This was Leeuwenhoek’s day of days.... + + + III + +That man was so unashamed of his admirations and his surprises at a +nature full of startling events and impossible things. How I wish +I could take myself back, could bring you back, to that innocent +time when men were just beginning to disbelieve in miracles and only +starting to find still more miraculous facts. How marvelous it would +be to step into that simple Dutchman’s shoes, to be inside his brain +and body, to feel his excitement--it is almost nausea!--at his first +peep at those cavorting “wretched beasties.” + +That was what he called them, and, as I have told you, this +Leeuwenhoek was an unsure man. Those animals were too tremendously +small to be true, they were too strange to be true. So he looked +again, till his hands were cramped with holding his microscope +and his eyes full of that smarting water that comes from too-long +looking. But he was right! Here they were again, not one kind of +little creature, but here was another, larger than the first, “moving +about very nimbly because they were furnished with divers incredibly +thin feet.” Wait! Here is a third kind--and a fourth, so tiny I +can’t make out his shape. But he is alive! He goes about, dashing +over great distances in this world of his water-drop in the little +tube.... What nimble creatures! + +“They stop, they stand still as ’twere upon a point, and then turn +themselves round with that swiftness, as we see a top turn round, the +circumference they make being no bigger than that of a fine grain of +sand.” So wrote Leeuwenhoek. + +For all this seemingly impractical sniffing about, Leeuwenhoek was +a hard-headed man. He hardly ever spun theories, he was a fiend +for measuring things. Only how could you make a measuring stick +for anything so small as these little beasts? He wrinkled his low +forehead: “How large really is this last and smallest of the little +beasts?” He poked about in the cobwebbed corners of his memory among +the thousand other things he had studied with you can’t imagine what +thoroughness; he made calculations: “This last kind of animal is a +thousand times smaller than the eye of a large louse!” That was an +accurate man. For we know now that the eye of one full-grown louse is +no larger nor smaller than the eyes of ten thousand of his brother +and sister lice. + +But where did these outlandish little inhabitants of the rainwater +come from? Had they come down from the sky? Had they crawled +invisibly over the side of the pot from the ground? Or had they +been created out of nothing by a God full of whims? Leeuwenhoek +believed in God as piously as any Seventeenth Century Dutchman. He +always referred to God as the Maker of the Great All. He not only +believed in God but he admired him intensely--what a Being to know +how to fashion bees’ wings so prettily! But then Leeuwenhoek was +a materialist too. His good sense told him that life comes from +life. His simple belief told him that God had invented all living +things in six days, and, having set the machinery going, sat back to +reward good observers and punish guessers and bluffers. He stopped +speculating about improbable gentle rains of little animals from +heaven. Certainly God couldn’t brew those animals in the rain water +pot out of nothing! But wait.... Maybe? Well, there was only one way +to find out where they came from. “I will experiment!” he muttered. + +He washed out a wine glass very clean, he dried it, he held it under +the spout of his eaves-trough, he took a wee drop in one of his +hair-fine tubes. Under his lens it went.... Yes! They were there, a +few of those beasts, swimming about.... “They are present even in +very fresh rain water!” But then, that really proved nothing, they +might live in the eaves-trough and be washed down by the water.... + +Then he took a big porcelain dish, “glazed blue within,” he washed it +clean, out into the rain he went with it and put it on top of a big +box so that the falling raindrops would splash no mud into the dish. +The first water he threw out to clean it still more thoroughly. Then +intently he collected the next bit in one of his slender pipes, into +his study he went with it.... + +“I have proved it! This water has not a single little creature in it! +They do not come down from the sky!” + +But he kept that water; hour after hour, day after day he squinted at +it--and on the fourth day he saw those wee beasts beginning to appear +in the water along with bits of dust and little flecks of thread +and lint. That was a man from Missouri! Imagine a world of men who +would submit all of their cocksure judgments to the ordeal of the +common-sense experiments of a Leeuwenhoek! + +Did he write to the Royal Society to tell them of this entirely +unsuspected world of life he had discovered? Not yet! He was a slow +man. He turned his lens onto all kinds of water, water kept in the +close air of his study, water in a pot kept on the high roof of his +house, water from the not-too-clean canals of Delft and water from +the deep cold well in his garden. Everywhere he found those beasts. +He gaped at their enormous littleness, he found many thousands of +them did not equal a grain of sand in bigness, he compared them to a +cheese-mite and they were to this filthy little creature as a bee is +to a horse. He was never tired with watching them “swim about among +one another gently like a swarm of mosquitoes in the air....” + +Of course this man was a groper. He was a groper and a stumbler as +all men are gropers, devoid of prescience, and stumblers, finding +what they never set out to find. His new beasties were marvelous but +they were not enough for him, he was always poking into everything, +trying to see more closely, trying to find reasons. Why is the sharp +taste of pepper? That was what he asked himself one day, and he +guessed: “There must be little points on the particles of pepper and +these points jab the tongue when you eat pepper....” + +But are there such little points? + +He fussed with dry pepper. He sneezed. He sweat, but he couldn’t +get the grains of pepper small enough to put under his lens. So, to +soften it, he put it to soak for several weeks in water. Then with +fine needles he pried the almost invisible specks of the pepper +apart, and sucked them up in a little drop of water into one of his +hair-fine glass tubes. He looked-- + +Here was something to make even this determined man scatter-brained. +He forgot about possible small sharp points on the pepper. With +the interest of an intent little boy he watched the antics of “an +incredible number of little animals, of various sorts, which move +very prettily, which tumble about and sidewise, this way and that!” + +So it was Leeuwenhoek stumbled on a magnificent way to grow his new +little animals. + +And now to write all this to the great men off there in London! +Artlessly he described his own astonishment to them. Long page +after page in a superbly neat handwriting with little common words +he told them that you could put a million of these little animals +into a coarse grain of sand and that one drop of his pepper water, +where they grew and multiplied so well, held more than two-million +seven-hundred-thousand of them.... + +This letter was translated into English. It was read before the +learned skeptics--who no longer believed in the magic virtues of +unicorn’s horns--and it bowled the learned body over! What! The +Dutchman said he had discovered beasts so small that you could put +as many of them into one little drop of water as there were people +in his native country? Nonsense! The cheese mite was absolutely and +without doubt the smallest creature God had created. + +But a few of the members did not scoff. This Leeuwenhoek was a +confoundedly accurate man: everything he had ever written to them +they had found to be true.... So a letter went back to the scientific +janitor, begging him to write them in detail the way he had made his +microscope, and his method of observing. + +That upset Leeuwenhoek. It didn’t matter that these stupid oafs of +Delft laughed at him--but the Royal Society? He had thought _they_ +were philosophers! Should he write them details, or should he from +now on keep everything he did to himself? “Great God,” you can +imagine him muttering, “these ways I have of uncovering mysterious +things, how I have worked and sweat to learn to do them, what jeering +from how many fools haven’t I endured to perfect my microscopes and +my ways of looking!...” + +But creators must have audiences. He knew that these doubters of +the Royal Society should have sweat just as hard to disprove the +existence of his little animals as he himself had toiled to discover +them. He was hurt, but--creators must have an audience. So he replied +to them in a long letter assuring them he never told anything too +big. He explained his calculations (and modern microbe hunters with +all of their apparatus make only slightly more accurate ones!) he +wrote these calculations out, divisions, multiplications, additions, +until his letter looked like a child’s exercise in arithmetic. +He finished by saying that many people of Delft had seen--with +applause!--these strange new animals under his lens. He would send +them affidavits from prominent citizens of Delft--two men of God, +one notary public, and eight other persons worthy to be believed. But +he wouldn’t tell them how he made his microscopes. + +That was a suspicious man! He held his little machines up for people +to look through, but let them so much as touch the microscope to help +themselves to see better and he might order them out of his house.... +He was like a child anxious and proud to show a large red apple to +his playmates but loth to let them touch it for fear they might take +a bite out of it. + +So the Royal Society commissioned Robert Hooke and Nehemiah Grew +to build the very best microscopes, and brew pepper water from the +finest quality of black pepper. And, on the 15th of November, 1677, +Hooke came carrying his microscope to the meeting--agog--for Antony +Leeuwenhoek had not lied. Here they were, those enchanted beasts! The +members rose from their seats and crowded round the microscope. They +peered, they exclaimed: this man must be a wizard observer! That was +a proud day for Leeuwenhoek. And a little later the Royal Society +made him a Fellow, sending him a gorgeous diploma of membership in +a silver case with the coat of arms of the society on the cover. +“I will serve you faithfully during the rest of my life,” he wrote +them. And he was as good as his word, for he mailed them those +conversational mixtures of gossip and science till he died at the +age of ninety. But send them a microscope? Very sorry, but that was +impossible to do, while he lived. The Royal Society went so far as to +dispatch Doctor Molyneux to make a report on this janitor-discoverer +of the invisible. Molyneux offered Leeuwenhoek a fine price for +one of his microscopes--surely he could spare one?--for there were +hundreds of them in cabinets that lined his study. But no! Was there +anything the gentleman of the Royal Society would like to see? Here +were some most curious little unborn oysters in a bottle, here were +divers very nimble little animals, and that Dutchman held up his +lenses for the Englishman to peep through, watching all the while out +of the corner of his eye to see that the undoubtedly most honest +visitor didn’t touch anything--or filch anything.... + +[Illustration: ANTONY LEEUWENHOEK] + +“But your instruments are marvelous!” cried Molyneux. “A thousand +times more clear they show things than any lens we have in England!” + +“How I wish, Sir,” said Leeuwenhoek, “that I could show you my best +lens, with my special way of observing, but I keep that only for +myself and do not show it to any one--not even to my own family.” + + + IV + +Those little animals were everywhere! He told the Royal Society of +finding swarms of those sub-visible beings in his mouth--of all +places: “Although I am now fifty years old,” he wrote, “I have +uncommonly well-preserved teeth, because it is my custom every +morning to rub my teeth very hard with salt, and after cleaning my +large teeth with a quill, to rub them vigorously with a cloth....” +But there still were little bits of white stuff between his teeth, +when he looked at them with a magnifying mirror.... + +What was this white stuff made of? + +From his teeth he scraped a bit of this stuff, mixed it with pure +rain water, stuck it in a little tube on to the needle of his +microscope, closed the door of his study-- + +[Illustration: (line drawing of microbes)] + +What was this that rose from the gray dimness of his lens into clear +distinctness as he brought the tube into the focus? Here was an +unbelievably tiny creature, leaping about in the water of the tube +“like the fish called a pike.” There was a second kind that swam +forward a little way, then whirled about suddenly, then tumbled over +itself in pretty somersaults. There were some beings that moved +sluggishly and looked like wee bent sticks, nothing more, but that +Dutchman squinted at them till his eyes were red-rimmed--and they +moved, they were alive, no doubt of it! There was a menagerie in his +mouth! There were creatures shaped like flexible rods that went to +and fro with the stately carriage of bishops in procession, there +were spirals that whirled through the water like violently animated +corkscrews.... + +Everybody he could get hold of--as well as himself--was an +experimental animal for that curious man. Tired from his long peering +at the little beasts in his own mouth, he went for a walk under the +tall trees that dropped their yellow leaves on the brown mirrors of +the canals; it was hard work, this play of his, he must rest! But he +met an old man, a most interesting old man: “I was talking to this +old man,” wrote Leeuwenhoek to the Royal Society, “an old man who led +a very sober life, who never used brandy nor tobacco and very seldom +wine, and my eye chanced to fall on his teeth which were badly grown +over and that made me ask him when he had last cleaned his mouth. +I got for answer that he had never cleaned his teeth in his whole +life....” + +Away went all thought of his aching eyes. What a zoo of wee animals +must be in this old fellow’s mouth. He dragged the dirty but virtuous +victim of his curiosity into his study--of course there were millions +of wee beasties in that mouth, but what he wanted particularly to +tell the Royal Society was this: that this old man’s mouth was host +to a new kind of creature, that slid along among the others, bending +its body in graceful bows like a snake--the water in the narrow tube +seemed to be alive with those little fellows! + +You may wonder that Leeuwenhoek nowhere in any of those hundreds of +letters makes any mention of the harm these mysterious new little +animals might do to men. He had come upon them in drinking water, +spied upon them in the mouth; as the years went by he discovered +them in the intestines of frogs and horses, and even in his own +discharges; in swarms he found them on those rare occasions when, +as he says, “he was troubled with a looseness.” But not for a moment +did he guess that his trouble was caused by those little beasts, +and from his unimaginativeness and his carefulness not to jump to +conclusions modern microbe hunters--if they only had time to study +his writings--could learn a great deal. For, during the last fifty +years, literally thousands of microbes have been described as the +authors of hundreds of diseases, when, in the majority of cases those +germs have only been chance residents in the body at the time it +became diseased. Leeuwenhoek was cautious about calling anything the +_cause_ of anything else. He had a sound instinct about the infinite +complicatedness of everything--that told him the danger of trying +to pick out one cause from the tangled maze of causes which control +life.... + +The years went by. He tended his little dry-goods store, he saw +to it the city hall of Delft was properly swept out, he grew more +and more crusty and suspicious, he looked longer and longer hours +through his hundreds of microscopes, he made a hundred amazing +discoveries. In the tail of a little fish stuck head first into a +glass tube he saw for the first time of all men the capillary blood +vessels through which blood goes from the arteries to the veins--so +he completed the Englishman Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of +the blood. The most sacred and improper and romantic things in life +were only material for the probing, tireless eyes of his lenses. +Leeuwenhoek discovered the human sperm, and the cold-blooded science +of his searching would have been shocking, if he had not been such +a completely innocent man! The years went by and all Europe knew +about him. Peter the Great of Russia came to pay his respects to +him, and the Queen of England journeyed to Delft only to look at the +wonders to be seen through the lenses of his microscopes. He exploded +countless superstitions for the Royal Society, and aside from Isaac +Newton and Robert Boyle he was the most famous of their members. But +did these honors turn his head? They couldn’t turn his head because +he had from the first a sufficiently high opinion of himself! His +arrogance was limitless--but it was equaled by his humility when he +thought of that misty unknown that he knew surrounded himself and all +men. He admired the Dutch God but his real god was truth: + +“My determination is not to remain stubbornly with my ideas but I’ll +leave them and go over to others as soon as I am shown plausible +reasons which I can grasp. This is the more true since I have no +other purpose than to place truth before my eyes so far as it is in +my power to embrace it; and to use the little talent I have received +to draw the world away from its old heathenish superstitions and to +go over to the truth and to stick to it.” + +He was an amazingly healthy man, and at the age of eighty his hand +hardly trembled as he held up his microscope for visitors to peep +at his little animals or to exclaim at the unborn oysters. But he +was fond of drinking in the evenings--as what Dutchman is not?--and +his only ill seems to have been a certain seediness in the morning +after such wassail. He detested physicians--how could they know +about the ills of the body when they didn’t know one thousandth of +what he did about the build of the body? So Leeuwenhoek had his own +theories--and sufficiently foolish they were--about the cause of this +seediness. He knew that his blood was full of little globules--he +had been the first of all men to see them. He knew those globules +had to go through very tiny capillaries to get from his arteries to +his veins--hadn’t he been the man to discover those wee vessels in a +fish tail? Well, after those hilarious nights of his, his blood got +too thick to run properly from the arteries to the veins! So he would +thin it! So he wrote to the Royal Society: + +“When I have supped too heavily of an evening, I drink in the morning +a large number of cups of coffee, and that as hot as I can drink +it, so that the sweat breaks out on me, and if by so doing I can’t +restore my body, a whole apothecary’s shop couldn’t do much, and that +is the only thing I have done for years when I have felt a fever.” + +That hot coffee drinking led him to another curious fact about the +little animals. Everything he did led him to pry up some new fact +of nature, for he lived wrapped in those tiny dramas that went on +under his lenses just as a child listens open-mouthed with saucer +eyes to the myths of Mother Goose.... He never tired of reading the +same story of nature, there were always new angles to be found in it, +the pages of his book of nature were thumbed and dog-eared by his +insatiable interest. Years after his discovery of the microbes in his +mouth one morning in the midst of his sweating from his vast curative +coffee drinkings he looked once more at the stuff between his teeth-- + +What was this? There was not a single little animal to be found. Or +there were no living animals rather, for he thought he could make +out the bodies of myriads of dead ones--and maybe one or two that +moved feebly, as if they were sick. “Blessed Saints!” he growled: “I +hope some great Lord of the Royal Society doesn’t try to find those +creatures in his mouth, and fail, and then deny my observations....” + +But look here! He had been drinking coffee, so hot it had blistered +his lips, almost. He had looked for the little animals in the white +stuff from between his front teeth. It was just after the coffee he +had looked there--Well? + +With the help of a magnifying mirror he went at his back teeth. +Presto! “With great surprise I saw an incredibly large number +of little animals, and in such an unbelievable quantity of the +aforementioned stuff, that it is not to be conceived of by those +who have not seen it with their own eyes.” Then he made delicate +experiment in tubes, heating the water with its tiny population to +a temperature a little warmer than that of a hot bath. In a moment +the creatures stopped their agile runnings to and fro. He cooled the +water. They did not come back to life--so! It was that hot coffee +that had killed the beasties in his front teeth! + +With what delight he watched them once more! But he was bothered, +he was troubled, for he couldn’t make out the heads or tails of +any of his little animals. After wiggling forward in one direction +they stopped, they reversed themselves and swam backward just as +swiftly without having turned around. But they _must_ have heads and +tails! They must have livers and brains and blood vessels as well! +His thoughts floated back to his work of forty years before, when he +had found that under his powerful lenses fleas and cheese mites, so +crude and simple to the naked eye, had become as complicated and as +perfect as human beings. But try as he would, with the best lenses he +had, and those little animals in his mouth were just plain sticks of +spheres or corkscrews. So he contented himself by calculating, for +the Royal Society, what the diameter of the invisible blood vessels +of his microbes must be--but mind you, he never for a moment hinted +that he had seen such blood vessels; it only amused him to stagger +his patrons by speculations of their unthinkable smallness. + +If Antony Leeuwenhoek failed to see the germs that cause human +disease, if he had too little imagination to predict the rôle of +assassin for his wretched creatures, he did show that sub-visible +beasts could devour and kill living beings much larger than they were +themselves. He was fussing with mussels, shellfish that he dredged up +out of the canals of Delft. He found thousands of them unborn inside +their mothers. He tried to make these young ones develop outside +their mothers in a glass of canal water. “I wonder,” he muttered, +“why our canals are not choked with mussels, when the mothers have +each one so many young ones inside them!” Day after day he poked +about in his glass of water with its slimy mass of embryos, he turned +his lens on to them to see if they were growing--but what was this? +Astounded he watched the fishy stuff disappear from between their +shells--it was being gobbled up by thousands of tiny microbes that +were attacking the mussels greedily.... + +“Life lives on life--it is cruel, but it is God’s will,” he pondered. +“And it is for our good, of course, because if there weren’t little +animals to eat up the young mussels, our canals would be choked by +those shellfish, for each mother has more than a thousand young ones +at a time!” So Antony Leeuwenhoek accepted everything and praised +everything, and in this he was a child of his time, for in his +century searchers had not yet, like Pasteur who came after them, +begun to challenge God, to shake their fists at the meaningless +cruelties of nature toward mankind, her children.... + +He passed eighty, and his teeth came loose as they had to even in +his strong body; he didn’t complain at the inexorable arrival of the +winter of his life, but he jerked out that old tooth and turned his +lens onto the little creatures he found within that hollow root--why +shouldn’t he study them once more? There might be some little detail +he had missed those hundred other times! Friends came to him at +eighty-five and told him to take it easy and leave his studies. He +wrinkled his brow and opened wide his still bright eyes: “The fruits +that ripen in autumn last the longest!” he told them--he called +eighty-five the autumn of his life! + +Leeuwenhoek was a showman. He was very pleased to hear the ohs and +ahs of people--they must be philosophical people and lovers of +science, mind you!--whom he let peep into his sub-visible world or to +whom he wrote his disjointed marvelous letters of description. But +he was no teacher. “I’ve never taught one,” he wrote to the famous +philosopher Leibniz, “because if I taught one, I’d have to teach +others.... I would give myself over to a slavery, whereas I want to +stay a free man.” + +“But the art of grinding fine lenses and making observations of these +new creatures will disappear from the earth, if you don’t teach young +men,” answered Leibniz. + +“The professors and students of the University of Leyden were long +ago dazzled by my discoveries, they hired three lens grinders to come +to teach the students, but what came of it?” wrote that independent +Dutchman. + +“Nothing, so far as I can judge, for almost all of the courses they +teach there are for the purpose of getting money through knowledge or +for gaining the respect of the world by showing people how learned +you are, and these things have nothing to do with discovering the +things that are buried from our eyes. I am convinced that of a +thousand people not one is capable of carrying out such studies, +because endless time is needed and much money is spilled and because +a man has always to be busy with his thoughts if anything is to be +accomplished....” + +That was the first of the microbe hunters. In 1723, when he was +ninety-one years old and on his deathbed, he sent for his friend +Hoogvliet. He could not lift his hand. His once glowing eyes were +rheumy and their lids were beginning to stick fast with the cement of +death. He mumbled: + +“Hoogvliet, my friend, be so good as to have those two letters on +the table translated into Latin.... Send them to London to the Royal +Society....” + +So he kept his promise made fifty years before, and Hoogvliet wrote, +along with those last letters: “I send you, learned sirs, this last +gift of my dying friend, hoping that his final word will be agreeable +to you.” + +So he passed, this first of the microbe hunters. You will read of +Spallanzani, who was much more brilliant, of Pasteur who had a +thousand times his imagination, of Robert Koch who did much more +immediate apparent good in lifting the torments that microbes bring +to men--these and all the others have much more fame to-day. But not +one of them has been so completely honest, so appallingly accurate +as this Dutch janitor, and all of them could take lessons from his +splendid common sense. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + SPALLANZANI + + MICROBES MUST HAVE PARENTS! + + + I + +“Leeuwenhoek is dead, it is too bad, it is a loss that cannot be +made good. Who now will carry on the study of the little animals?” +asked the learned men of the Royal Society in England, asked Réaumur +and the brilliant Academy in Paris. Their question did not wait +long for an answer, for the janitor of Delft had hardly closed his +eyes in 1723 for the long sleep that he had earned so well, when +another microbe hunter was born, in 1729 a thousand miles away in +Scandiano in northern Italy. This follower of Leeuwenhoek was Lazzaro +Spallanzani, a strange boy who lisped verses while he fashioned +mudpies; who forgot mudpies to do fumbling childish and cruel +experiments with beetles and bugs and flies and worms. Instead of +pestering his parents with questions, he examined living things in +nature, by pulling legs and wings off them, by trying to stick them +back on again. He must find out how things worked; he didn’t care so +very much what they looked like. + +Like Leeuwenhoek, the young Italian had to fight to become a microbe +hunter against the wishes of his family. His father was a lawyer +and did his best to get Lazzaro interested in long sheets of legal +foolscap--but the youngster sneaked away and skipped flat stones over +the surface of the water, and wondered why the stones skipped and +didn’t sink. + +In the evenings he was made to sit down before dull lessons, but when +his father’s back was turned he looked out of the window at the +stars that gleamed in the velvet black Italian sky, and next morning +lectured about them to his playmates until they called him “The +Astrologer.” + +On holidays he pushed his burly body through the woods near +Scandiano, and came wide-eyed upon foaming natural fountains. These +made him stop his romping, and caused him to go home sunk in unboyish +thought. What caused these fountains? His folks and the priest had +told him they had sprung in olden times from the tears of sad, +deserted, beautiful girls who were lost in the woods.... + +Lazzaro was a dutiful son--and a politician of a son--so he didn’t +argue with his father or the priest. But to himself he said “bunk” to +their explanation, and made up his mind to find out, some day, the +real why and wherefore of fountains. + +Young Spallanzani was just as determined as Leeuwenhoek had been to +find out the hidden things of nature, but he set about getting to be +a scientist in an entirely different way. He pondered: “My father +insists that I study law, does he?” He kept up the pretense of being +interested in legal documents--but in every spare moment he boned +away at mathematics and Greek and French and Logic--and during his +vacations watched skipping stones and fountains, and dreamed about +understanding the violent fireworks of volcanoes. Then craftily he +went to the noted scientist, Vallisnieri, and told this great man +what he knew. “But you were born for a scientist,” said Vallisnieri, +“you waste time foolishly, studying lawbooks.” + +“Ah, master, but my father insists.” + +Indignantly Vallisnieri went to Spallanzani senior and scolded him +for throwing away Lazzaro’s talents on the merely useful study of +law. “Your boy,” he said, “is going to be a searcher, he will honor +Scandiano, and make it famous--he is like Galileo!” + +And the shrewd young Spallanzani went to the University at Reggio, +with his father’s blessing, to take up the career of scientist. + +At this time it was much more respectable and safe to be a scientist +than it had been when Leeuwenhoek began his first grinding of +lenses. The Grand Inquisition was beginning to pull in its horns. It +preferred jerking out the tongues of obscure alleged criminals and +burning the bodies of unknown heretics, to persecuting Servetuses and +Galileos. The Invisible College no longer met in cellars or darkened +rooms, and learned societies all over were now given the generous +support of parliaments and kings. It was not only beginning to be +permitted to question superstitions, it was becoming fashionable to +do it. The thrill and dignity of real research into nature began +to elbow its way into secluded studies of philosophers. Voltaire +retired for years into the wilds of rural France to master the +great discoveries of Newton, and then to popularize them in his +country. Science even penetrated into brilliant and witty and immoral +drawing-rooms, and society leaders like Madame de Pompadour bent +their heads over the forbidden Encyclopedia--to try to understand the +art and science of the making of rouge and silk stockings. + +Along with this excited interest in everything from the mechanics +of the stars to the caperings of little animals, the people of +Spallanzani’s glittering century began to show an open contempt for +religion and dogmas, even the most sacred ones. A hundred years +before men had risked their skins to laugh at the preposterous and +impossible animals that Aristotle had gravely put into his books on +biology. But now, they could openly snicker at the mention of his +name and whisper: “Because he’s Aristotle it implies that he must be +believed e’en though he lies.” Still there was plenty of ignorance +in the world, and much pseudo-science--even in the Royal Societies +and Academies. And Spallanzani, freed from the horror of an endless +future of legal wranglings, threw himself with vigor into getting +all kinds of knowledge, into testing all kinds of theories, into +disrespecting all kinds of authorities no matter how famous, into +association with every kind of person, from fat bishops, officials, +and professors to outlandish actors and minstrels. + +He was the very opposite of Leeuwenhoek, who so patiently had ground +lenses, and looked at everything for twenty years before the learned +world knew anything about him. At twenty-five Spallanzani made +translations of the ancient poets, and criticized the standard and +much admired Italian translation of Homer. He brilliantly studied +mathematics with his cousin, Laura Bassi, the famous woman professor +of Reggio. He now skipped stones over the water in earnest, and wrote +a scientific paper on the mechanics of skipping stones. He became a +priest of the Catholic Church, and helped support himself by saying +masses. + +Despising secretly all authority, he got himself snugly into the good +graces of powerful authorities, so that he might work undisturbed. +Ordained a priest, supposed to be a blind follower of the faith, +he fell savagely to questioning everything, to taking nothing for +granted--excepting the existence of God, of some sort of supreme +being. At least if he questioned this he kept it--rogue that he +was--strictly to himself. Before he was thirty years old he had +been made professor at the University of Reggio, talking before +enthusiastic classes that listened to him with saucer-eyes. Here he +started his first work on the little animals, those weird new little +beings that Leeuwenhoek had discovered. He began his experiments on +them as they were threatening to return to that misty unknown from +which the Dutchman had dredged them up. + +The little animals had got themselves involved in a strange question, +in a furious fight, and had it not been for that, they might have +remained curiosities for centuries, or even have been completely +forgotten. This argument, over which dear friends grew to hate +each other and about which professors tried to crack the skulls of +priests, was briefly this: Can living things arise spontaneously, or +does every living thing have to have parents? Did God create every +plant and animal in the first six days, and then settle down to be +Managing Director of the universe, or does He even now amuse Himself +by allowing new animals to spring up in humorous ways? + +In Spallanzani’s time the popular side was the party that asserted +that life could arise spontaneously. The great majority of sensible +people believed that many animals did not have to have parents--that +they might be the unhappy illegitimate children of a disgusting +variety of dirty messes. Here, for example, was a supposedly sure +recipe for getting yourself a good swarm of bees. Take a young +bullock, kill him with a knock on the head, bury him under the ground +in a standing position with his horns sticking out. Leave him there +for a month, then saw off his horns--and out will fly your swarm of +bees. + + + II + +Even the scientists were on this side of the question. The English +naturalist Ross announced learnedly that: “To question that beetles +and wasps were generated in cow dung is to question reason, sense, +and experience.” Even such complicated animals as mice didn’t have +to have mothers or fathers--if anybody doubted this, let him go to +Egypt, and there he would find the fields literally swarming with +mice, begot of the mud of the River Nile--to the great calamity of +the inhabitants! + +Spallanzani heard all of these stories which so many important people +were sure were facts, he read many more of them that were still more +strange, he watched students get into brawls in excited attempts to +prove that mice and bees didn’t have to have fathers or mothers. +He heard all of these things--and didn’t believe them. He was +prejudiced. Great advances in science so often start from prejudice, +on ideas got not from science but straight out of a scientist’s +head, on notions that are only the opposite of the prevailing +superstitious nonsense of the day. Spallanzani had violent notions +about whether life could rise spontaneously; for him it was on the +face of things absurd to think that animals--even the wee beasts of +Leeuwenhoek--could arise in a haphazard way from any old thing or +out of any dirty mess. There must be law and order to their birth, +there must be a rime and reason! But how to prove it? + +Then one night, in his solitude, he came across a little book, +a simple and innocent little book, and this book told him of an +entirely new way to tackle the question of how life arises. The +fellow who wrote the book didn’t argue with words--he just made +experiments--and God! thought Spallanzani, how clear are the facts he +demonstrates. He stopped being sleepy and forgot the dawn was coming, +and read on.... + +The book told him of the superstition about the generation of maggots +and flies, it told of how even the most intelligent men believed +that maggots and flies could arise out of putrid meat. Then--and +Spallanzani’s eyes nearly popped out with wonder, with excitement, as +he read of a little experiment that blew up this nonsense, once and +for always. + +“A great man, this fellow Redi, who wrote this book,” thought +Spallanzani, as he took off his coat and bent his thick neck toward +the light of the candle. “See how easy he settles it! He takes two +jars and puts some meat in each one. He leaves one jar open and then +puts a light veil over the other one. He watches--and sees flies go +down into the meat in the open pot--and in a little while there are +maggots there, and then new flies. He looks at the jar that has the +veil over it--and there are no maggots or flies in that one at all. +How easy! It is just a matter of the veil keeping the mother flies +from getting at the meat.... But how clever, because for a thousand +years people have been getting out of breath arguing about the +question--and not one of them thought of doing this simple experiment +that settles it in a moment.” + +Next morning it was one jump from the inspiring book to tackling this +same question, not with flies, but with the microscopic animals. For +all the professors were saying just then that though maybe flies had +to come from eggs, little sub-visible animals certainly could rise by +themselves. + +Spallanzani began fumblingly to learn how to grow wee beasts, and +how to use a microscope. He cut his hands and broke large expensive +flasks. He forgot to clean his lenses and sometimes saw his little +animals dimly through his fogged glasses--just as you can faintly +make out minnows in the water riled up by your net. He raved at his +blunders; he was not the dogged worker that Leeuwenhoek had been--but +despite his impetuousness he was persistent--he must prove that these +yarns about the animalcules were yarns, nothing more. But wait! “If +I set out to prove something I am no real scientist--I have to learn +to follow where the _facts_ lead me--I have to learn to whip my +prejudices....” And he kept on learning to study little animals, and +to observe with a patient, if not an unprejudiced eye, and gradually +he taught the vanity of his ideas to bow to the hard clearness of his +facts. + +At this time another priest, named Needham, a devout Catholic who +liked to think he could do experiments, was becoming notorious in +England and Ireland, claiming that little microscopic animals were +generated marvelously in mutton gravy. Needham sent his experiments +to the Royal Society, and the learned Fellows deigned to be impressed. + +He told them how he had taken a quantity of mutton gravy hot from the +fire, and put the gravy in a bottle, and plugged the bottle up tight +with a cork, so that no little animals or their eggs could possibly +get into the gravy from the air. Next he even went so far as to heat +the bottle and its mutton gravy in hot ashes. “Surely,” said the good +Needham, “this will kill any little animals or their eggs, that might +remain in the flask.” He put this gravy flask away for a few days, +then pulled the cork--and marvel of marvels--when he examined the +stuff inside with his lens, he found it swarming with animalcules. + +“A momentous discovery, this,” cried Needham to the Royal Society, +“these little animals can only have come from the juice of the gravy. +Here is a real experiment showing that life _can_ come spontaneously +from dead stuff!” He told them mutton gravy wasn’t necessary--a soup +made from seeds or almonds would do the same trick. + +The Royal Society and the whole educated world were excited by +Needham’s discovery. Here was no Old Wives’ tale. Here was hard +experimental fact; and the heads of the Society got together and +thought about making Needham a Fellow of their remote aristocracy +of learning. But away in Italy, Spallanzani was reading the news of +Needham’s startling creation of little animals from mutton gravy. +While he read he knit his brows, and narrowed his dark eyes. At last +he snorted: “Animalcules do not arise by themselves from mutton +gravy, or almond seeds, or anything else! This fine experiment is a +fraud--maybe Needham doesn’t know it is--but there’s a nigger in the +wood pile somewhere. I’m going to find it....” + +The devil of prejudice was talking again. Now Spallanzani began to +sharpen his razors for his fellow priest--the Italian was a nasty +fellow who liked to slaughter ideas of any kind that were contrary +to his--he began to whet his knives, I say, for Needham. Then one +night, alone in his laboratory, away from the brilliant clamor of +his lectures and remote from the gay salons where ladies adored +his knowledge, he felt sure he had found the loophole in Needham’s +experiment. He chewed his quill, he ran his hands through his shaggy +hair, “Why have those little animals appeared in that hot gravy, and +in those soups made from seeds?” Undoubtedly because Needham didn’t +heat the bottles long enough, and surely because he didn’t plug them +tight enough! + +Here the searcher in him came forward--he didn’t go to his desk to +write Needham about it--instead he went to his dusty glass-strewn +laboratory, and grabbed some flasks and seeds, and dusted off his +microscope. He started out to test, even to defeat, if necessary, his +own explanations. Needham didn’t heat his soups long enough--maybe +there are little animals, or their eggs, which can stand a tremendous +heat, who knows? So Spallanzani took some large glass flasks, round +bellied with tapering necks. He scrubbed and washed and dried them +till they stood in gleaming rows on his table. Then he put seeds +of various kinds into some, and peas and almonds into others, and +following that poured pure water into all of them. “Now I won’t only +heat these soups for a short time,” he cried, “but I’ll boil them for +an hour!” He got his fires ready--then he grunted: “But how shall I +close up my flasks? Corks might not be tight enough, they might let +these infinitely wee things through.” He pondered. “I’ve got it, I’ll +melt the necks of my bottles shut in a flame. I’ll close them with +glass--nothing, no matter how small, can sneak through glass!” + +So he took his shining flasks one by one, and rolled their necks +gently in a hot flame till each one was fused completely shut. He +dropped some of them when they got too hot--he sizzled the skin of +his fingers, he swore, and got new flasks to take the smashed ones’ +places. Then when his flasks were all sealed and ready, “Now for some +real heat,” he muttered, and for tedious hours he tended his bottles, +as they bumped and danced in caldrons of boiling water. One set he +boiled for a few minutes only. Another he kept in boiling water for a +full hour. + +At last, his eyes near stuck shut with tiredness, he lifted the +flasks of stew steaming from their kettles, and put them carefully +away--to wait for nervous anxious days to see whether any little +animals would grow in them. And he did another thing, a simple one +which I almost forgot to tell you about, he made another duplicate +set of stews in flasks plugged up with corks, not sealed, and after +boiling these for an hour put them away beside the others. + +Then he went off for days to do the thousand things that were not +enough to use up his buzzing energy. He wrote letters to the famous +naturalist Bonnet, in Switzerland, telling him his experiments; +he played football; he went hunting and fishing. He lectured +about science, and told his students not of dry technicalities +only, but of a hundred things--from the marvelous wee beasts that +Leeuwenhoek had found in his mouth to the strange eunuchs and the +veiled multitudinous wives of Turkish harems. At last he vanished +and students and professors--and ladies--asked: “Where is the Abbé +Spallanzani?” + +He had gone back to his rows of flasks of seed soup. + + + III + +He went to the row of sealed flasks first, and one by one he cracked +open their necks, and fished down with a slender hollow tube to get +some of the soup inside them, in order to see whether any little +animals at all had grown in these bottles that he had heated so +long, and closed so perfectly against the microscopic creatures that +might be floating in the dust of the outside air. He was not the +lively sparkling Spallanzani now. He was slow, he was calm. Like some +automaton, some slightly animated wooden man he put one drop of seed +soup after another before his lens. + +He first looked at drop after drop of the soup from the sealed flasks +which had been boiled for an hour, and his long looking was rewarded +by--nothing. Eagerly he turned to the bottles that had been boiled +for only a few minutes, and cracked their seals as before, and put +drops of the soup inside them before his lens. + +“What’s this?” he cried. Here and there in the gray field of his lens +he made out an animalcule playing and sporting about--these weren’t +large microbes, like some he had seen--but they were living little +animals just the same. + +“Why, they look like little fishes, tiny as ants,” he muttered--and +then something dawned on him----“These flasks were sealed--nothing +could get into them from the outside, yet here are little beings that +have stood a heat of boiling water for several minutes!” + +He went with nervous hands to the long row of flasks he had only +stoppered with corks--as his enemy Needham had done--and he pulled +out the corks, one by one, and fished in the bottles once more with +his tubes. He growled excitedly, he got up from his chair, he seized +a battered notebook and feverishly wrote down obscure remarks in a +kind of scrawled shorthand. But these words meant that every one of +the flasks which had been only corked, not sealed, was alive with +little animals! Even the corked flasks which had been boiled for an +hour, “were like lakes in which swim fishes of all sizes, from whales +to minnows.” + +“That means the little animals get into Needham’s flasks from the +air!” he shouted. “And besides I have discovered a great new fact: +living things exist that can stand boiling water and still live--you +have to heat them to boiling almost an hour to kill them!” + +It was a great day for Spallanzani, and though he did not know it, a +great day for the world. Spallanzani had proved that Needham’s theory +of little animals arising spontaneously was wrong--just as the old +master Redi had proved the idea was wrong that flies can be bred in +putrid meat. But he had done more than that, for he had rescued the +baby science of microbe hunting from a fantastic myth, a Mother Goose +yarn that would have made all scientists of other kinds hold their +noses at the very mention of microbe hunting as a sound branch of +knowledge. + +Excited, Spallanzani called his brother Nicolo, and his sister, and +told them his pretty experiment. And then, bright-eyed, he told his +students that life only comes from life; every living thing has to +have a parent--even these wretched little animals! Seal your soup +flasks in a flame, and nothing can get into them from outside. Heat +them long enough, and everything, even those tough beasts that can +stand boiling, will be killed. Do that, and you’ll never find any +living animals arising in any kind of soup--you could keep it till +doomsday. Then he threw his work at Needham’s head in a brilliant +sarcastic paper, and the world of science was thrown into an uproar. +Could Needham really be wrong? asked thoughtful men, gathered in +groups under the high lamps and candles of the scientific societies +of London and Copenhagen, of Paris and Berlin. + +The argument between Spallanzani and Needham didn’t stay in the +academies among the highbrows. It leaked out through heavy doors +onto the streets and crept into stylish drawing-rooms. The world +would have liked to believe Needham, for the people of the eighteenth +century were cynical and gay; everywhere men were laughing at +religion and denying any supreme power in nature, and they delighted +in the notion that life could arise haphazardly. But Spallanzani’s +experiments were so clear and so hard to answer, even with the +cleverest words.... + +Meanwhile the good Needham had not been resting on his oars exactly; +he was an expert at publicity, and to help his cause along he went to +Paris and lectured about his mutton gravy, and in Paris he fell in +with the famous Count Buffon. This count was rich; he was handsome; +he loved to write about science; he believed he could make up hard +facts in his head; he was rather too well dressed to do experiments. +Besides he really knew some mathematics, and had translated Newton +into French. When you consider that he could juggle most complicated +figures, that he was a rich nobleman as well, you will agree that +he certainly ought to know--without experimenting--whether little +animals could come to life without fathers or mothers! So argued the +godless wits of Paris. + +Needham and Buffon got on famously. Buffon wore purple clothes and +lace cuffs that he didn’t like to muss up on dirty laboratory tables, +with their dust and cluttered glassware and pools of soup spilled +from accidentally broken flasks. So he did the thinking and writing, +while Needham messed with the experiments. These two men then set +about to invent a great theory of how life arises, a fine philosophy +that every one could understand, that would suit devout Christians as +well as witty atheists. The theory ignored Spallanzani’s cold facts, +but what would you have? It came from the brain of the great Buffon, +and that was enough to upset any fact, no matter how hard, no matter +how exactly recorded. + +“What is it that causes these little animals to arise in mutton +gravy, even after it has been heated, my Lord?” you can hear +Needham asking of the noble count. Count Buffon’s brain whirled in +a magnificent storm of the imagination, then he answered: “You have +made a great, a most momentous discovery, Father Needham. You have +put your finger on the very source of life. In your mutton gravy you +have uncovered the very force--it must be a force, everything is +force--which creates life!” + +“Let us then call it the Vegetative Force, my Lord,” replied Father +Needham. + +“An apt name,” said Buffon, and he retired to his perfumed study and +put on his best suit and wrote--not from dry laboratory notes or +the exact records of lenses or flasks but from his brain--he wrote, +I say, about the marvels of this Vegetative Force that could make +little animals out of mutton gravy and heated seed soups. In a little +while Vegetative Force was on everybody’s tongue. It accounted for +everything. The wits made it take the place of God, and the churchmen +said it was God’s most powerful weapon. It was popular like a street +song or an off color story--or like present day talk about relativity. + +Worst of all, the Royal Society tumbled over itself to get ahead of +the men in the street, and elected Needham a Fellow, and the Academy +of Sciences of Paris made him an Associate. Meanwhile in Italy +Spallanzani began to walk up and down his laboratory and sputter and +rage. Here was a danger to science, here was ignoring of cold facts, +without which science is nothing. Spallanzani was a priest of God, +and God was perhaps reasonably sacred to him, he didn’t argue with +any one about that--but here was a pair of fellows who ignored his +pretty experiments, his clear beautiful facts! + +But what could Spallanzani do? Needham and Buffon had deluged the +scientific world with words--they had not answered his facts, they +had not shown where Spallanzani’s experiment of the sealed flasks was +wrong. The Italian was a fighter, but he liked to fight with facts +and experiments, and here he was laying about him in this fog of +big words, and hitting nothing. Spallanzani stormed and laughed and +was sarcastic and bitter about this marvelous hoax, this mysterious +Vegetative Force. It was the Force, prattled Needham, that had made +Eve grow out of Adam’s rib. It was the Force, once more, that gave +rise to the remarkable worm-tree of China, which is a worm in winter, +and then marvelous to say is turned by the Vegetative Force into +a tree in summer! And much more of such preposterous stuff, until +Spallanzani saw the whole science of living things in danger of being +upset, by this alleged Vegetative Force with which, next thing people +knew, Needham would be turning cows into men and fleas into elephants. + +Then suddenly Spallanzani had his chance, for Needham made an +objection to one of his experiments. “Your experiment does not hold +water,” he wrote to the Italian, “because you have heated your +flasks for an hour, and that fierce heat weakens and so damages the +Vegetative Force that it can no longer make little animals.” + +This was just what the energetic Spallanzani was waiting for, and he +forgot religion and large classes of eager students and the pretty +ladies that loved to be shown through his museum. He rolled up his +wide sleeves and plunged into work, not at a writing desk but before +his laboratory bench, not with a pen, but with his flasks and seeds +and microscopes. + + + IV + +“So Needham says heat damages the Force in the seeds, does he? Has he +tried it? How can he see or feel or weigh or measure this Vegetative +Force? He says it is in the seeds, well, we’ll heat the seeds and +see!” + +Spallanzani got out his flasks once more and cleaned them. He +brewed mixtures of different kinds of seeds, of peas and beans and +vetches with pure water, until his work room almost ran over with +flasks--they perched on high shelves, they sat on tables and chairs, +they cluttered the floor so it was hard to walk around. + +“Now, we’ll boil a whole series of these flasks different lengths +of time, and see which one generates the most little animals,” he +said, and then doused one set of his soups in boiling water for +a few minutes, another for a half hour, another for an hour, and +still another for two hours. Instead of sealing them in the flame he +plugged them all up with corks--Needham said that was enough--and +then he put them carefully away to see what would happen. He waited. +He went off fishing and forgot to pull up his rod when a fish bit, +he collected minerals for his museum, and forgot to take them home +with him. He plotted for higher pay, he said masses, and studied the +copulation of frogs and toads--and then disappeared once more to his +dim work room with its regiments of bottles and weird machines. He +waited. + +If Needham were right, the flasks boiled for minutes should be alive +with little animals, but the ones boiled for an hour or two hours +should be deserted. He pulled out the corks one by one, and looked +at the drops of soup through his lens and at last laughed with +delight--the bottles that had been boiled for two hours actually +had more little animals sporting about in them than the ones he had +heated for a few minutes. + +“Vegetative Force, what nonsense! so long as you only plug up your +flasks with corks the little animals will get in from the air. You +can heat your soups till you’re black in the face--the microbes will +get in just the same and grow, after the broth has cooled.” + +Spallanzani was triumphant, but then he did the curious thing that +only born scientists ever do--he tried to beat his own idea, his +darling theory--by experiments he honestly and shrewdly planned to +defeat himself. That is science! That is the strange self-forgetting +spirit of a few rare men, those curious men to whom truth is more +dear than their own cherished whims and wishes. Spallanzani walked up +and down his narrow work room, hands behind him, meditating--“Wait, +maybe after all Needham has guessed right, maybe there is some +mysterious force in these seeds that strong heat might destroy.” + +Then he cleaned his flasks again, and took some seeds, but instead +of merely boiling them in water, he put them in a coffee-roaster and +baked them till they were soot-colored cinders. Next he poured pure +distilled water over them, growling: “Now if there was a Vegetative +Force in those seeds, I have surely roasted it to death.” + +Days later when he came back to his flasks, with their soups brewed +from the burned seeds, he smiled a sarcastic smile--a smile that +meant squirmings for Buffon and Needham--for as one bottle after +another yielded its drops of soup to his lens, every drop from every +bottle was alive with wee animals that swam up and down in the liquid +and went to and fro, living their funny limited little lives as gayly +as any animals in the best soup made from unburned seeds. He had +tried to defeat his own theory, and so trying had licked the pious +Needham and the precious Buffon. They had said that heat would kill +their Force so that no little animals could arise--and here were +seeds charred to carbon, furnishing excellent food for the small +creatures--this so-called Force was a myth! Spallanzani proclaimed +this to all of Europe, which now began to listen to him. + +Then he relaxed from his hard pryings into the loves and battles and +deaths of little animals by making deep studies of the digestion of +food in the human stomach--and to do this he experimented cruelly +on himself. This was not enough, so he had to launch into weird +investigations in the hot dark attic of his house, on the strange +problem of how bats can keep from bumping into things although they +cannot see. In the midst of this he found time to help educate his +little nephews and to take care of his brother and sister, obscure +beings who did not share his genius--but they were of his blood, and +he loved them. + +But he soon came back to the mysterious question of how life arises, +that question which his religion taught him to ignore, to accept +with blind faith as a miracle of the Creator. He didn’t work with +little animals only; instead he turned his curiosity onto larger +ones, and began vast researches on the mating of toads. “What is the +cause of the violent and persistent way in which the male toad holds +the female?” he asked himself, and his wonder at this strange event +set his ingenious brain to devising experiments of an unheard-of +barbarity. + +He didn’t do them out of any fiendish whim to hurt the father +toad--but this man must know every fact that could possibly be known +about how new toads arose. What will make the toad let go this grip? +And that mad priest cut off a male toad’s hind legs in the midst +of its copulation--but the dying animal did not relax that blind +grasp to which nature drove it. Spallanzani mused over his bizarre +experiment. “This persistence of the toad,” he said, “is due less to +his obtuseness of feeling than to the vehemence of his passion.” + +In his sniffing search for knowledge which let him stop at nothing, +he was led by an instinct that drove him into heartless experiments +on animals--but it made him do equally cruel and fantastic tests on +himself. He studied the digestion of food in the stomach, he gulped +down hollowed-out blocks of wood with meat inside them, then tickled +his throat and made himself vomit them up again so that he could find +out what had happened to the meat inside the blocks. He kept insanely +at this self-torture, until, as he admitted at last, a horrid nausea +made him stop the experiments. + +Spallanzani held immense correspondences with half the doubters +and searchers of Europe. By mail he was a great friend of that +imp, Voltaire. He complained that there were few men of talent in +Italy, the air was too humid and foggy--he became a leader of that +impudent band of scientists and philosophers who unknowingly prepared +the bloodiest of revolutions while they tried so honestly to find +truth and establish happiness and justice in the world. These men +believed that Spallanzani had spiked once for all that nonsense +about animals--even the tiniest ones--arising spontaneously. Led by +Voltaire they cracked vast jokes about the Vegetative Force and its +parents, the pompous Buffon and his laboratory boy, Father Needham. + +“But there is a Vegetative Force,” cried Needham, “a mysterious +something--I’ll admit you can’t see it or weigh it--that can make +life arise out of gravy or soup or out of nothing at all, perhaps. +Maybe it can stand all of that roasting that Spallanzani applies to +it, but what it needs particularly is a very elastic air to help +it. And when Spallanzani boils his flasks for an hour, he hurts the +elasticity of the air inside the flasks!” + +Spallanzani was up in arms in a moment, and bawled for Needham’s +experiments. “Has he heated air to see if it got less elastic?” The +Italian waited for experiments--and got only words. “Then I’ll have +to test it out myself,” he said, and once again he put seeds in rows +of flasks and sealed off their necks in a flame--and boiled them for +an hour. Then one morning he went to his laboratory, and cracked off +the neck of one of his bottles.... + +He cocked his ear--he heard a little wh-i-s-s-s-s-t. “What’s this,” +he muttered, and grabbed another bottle and cracked off its neck, +holding his ear close by. Wh-i-s-s-st! There it was again. “That +means the air is coming out of my bottle, or going into it,” he +cried, and he lighted a candle and ingeniously held it near the neck +of a third flask as he cracked the seal. + +The flame sucked inward toward the opening. + +“The air’s going in--that means the air in the bottle is less elastic +than the air outside, that means maybe Needham is right!” + +For a moment Spallanzani had a queer feeling at the pit of his +stomach, his forehead was wet with nervous sweat, his world tottered +around him.... Could that fool Needham have made a lucky stab, a +clever guess about what heat did to air in sealed up flasks? Could +this windbag knock out all of this careful finding of facts, which +had taken so many years of hard work? For days Spallanzani went about +troubled, and snapped at students to whom before he had been gentle, +and tried to comfort himself by reciting Dante and Homer--and this +only made him more grumpy. A relentless torturing imp pricked at him +and this imp said: “Find out why the air rushes into your flasks when +you break the seals--it may not have anything to do with elasticity.” +The imp woke him up in the night, it made him get tangled up in his +masses.... + +Then like a flash of lightning the explanation came to him +and he hurried to his work bench--it was covered with broken +flasks and abandoned bottles and its muddled disarray told his +discouragement--he reached into a cupboard and took out one of his +flasks. He was on the track, he would show Needham was wrong, and +even before he had proved it he stretched himself with a heave of +relief--so sure was he that the reason for the little whistling of +air had come to him. He looked at the flasks, then smiled and said, +“All the flasks that I have been using have fairly wide necks. When I +seal them in the flame it takes a lot of heat to melt the glass till +the neck is shut off--all that heat drives most of the air out of +the bottle before it’s sealed up. No wonder the air rushes in when I +crack the seal!” + +He saw that Needham’s idea that boiling water outside the flask +damaged the elasticity of the air inside was nonsense, nothing less. +But how to prove this, how to seal up the flasks without driving out +the air? His devilish ingenuity came to help him, and he took another +flask, put seeds into it, and filled it partly with pure water. Then +he rolled the neck of the bottle around in a hot flame until it +melted down to a tiny narrow opening--very, very narrow, but still +open to the air outside. Next he let the flask cool--now the air +inside must be the same as the air outside--then he applied a tiny +flame to the now almost needle-fine opening. In a jiffy the flask was +sealed--without expelling any of the air from the inside. Content, +he put the bottle in boiling water and watched it bump and dance in +the kettle for an hour and while he watched he recited verses and +hummed gay tunes. He put the flask away for days, then one morning, +sure of his result, he came to his laboratory to open it. He lighted +a candle; he held it close to the flask neck; carefully he broke the +seal--wh-i-s-s-s-t! But the flame blew _away_ from the flask this +time--the elasticity of the air inside the flask was greater than +that outside! + +All of the long boiling had not damaged the air at all--it was even +more elastic than before--and elasticity was what Needham said was +necessary for his wonderful Vegetative Force. The air in the flask +was super-elastic, but fishing drop after drop of the soup inside, +Spallanzani couldn’t find a single little animal. Again and again, +with the obstinacy of a Leeuwenhoek, he repeated the same experiment. +He broke flasks and spilled boiling water down his shirt-front, he +seared his hands, he made vast tests that had to be done over--but +always he confirmed his first result. + + + V + +Triumphant he shouted his last experiment to Europe, and Needham and +Buffon heard it, and had to sit sullenly amid the ruins of their +silly theory, there was nothing to say--Spallanzani had spiked their +guns with a simple fact. Then the Italian sat down to do a little +writing himself. A virtuoso in the laboratory, he was a fiend with +his quill, when once he was sure his facts had destroyed Needham’s +pleasant myth about life arising spontaneously. Spallanzani was sure +now that even the littlest beasts had to come--always--from beasts +that had lived before. He was certain too, that a wee microbe always +remained a microbe of the same kind that its parents had been, +just as a zebra doesn’t turn into a giraffe, or have musk-oxen for +children, but always stays a zebra--and has zebra babies. + +“In short,” shouted Spallanzani, “Needham is wrong, and I have +proved that there is a law and order in the science of animals, just +as there is in the working of the stars.” + +Then he told the muddle that Needham would have turned the science +of little animals into--if good facts hadn’t been found to beat him. +What animals this weird Vegetative Force could make--what tricks it +could do--if it had only existed! “It could make,” said Spallanzani, +“a microscopic animal found sometimes in infusions, which like a new +Protean, ceaselessly changes its form, appearing now as a body thin +as a thread, now in an oval or spherical form, sometimes coiled like +a serpent, adorned with rays and armed with horns. This remarkable +animal furnishes Needham an example, to explain easily how the +Vegetative Force produces now a frog and again a dog, sometimes a +midge and at others an elephant, to-day a spider and to-morrow a +whale, this minute a cow and the next a man.” + +So ended Needham--and his Vegetative Force. It became comfortable to +live once more; you felt sure there was no mysterious sinister Force +sneaking around waiting to change you into a hippopotamus. + +Spallanzani’s name glittered in all the universities of Europe; the +societies considered him the first scientist of the day; Frederick +the Great wrote long letters to him and with his own hand made +him a member of the Berlin Academy; and Frederick’s bitter enemy, +Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, put it over the great king +by offering Spallanzani the job of professor in her ancient and +run-down University of Pavia, in Lombardy. A pompous commission +came, a commission of eminent Privy Councillors weighed down with +letters and Imperial Seals and begged Spallanzani to put this defunct +college on its feet. There were vast interminable arguments and +bargainings about salary--Spallanzani always knew how to feather +his nest--bargains that ended in his taking the job of Professor of +Natural History and Curator of the Natural History Cabinet of Pavia. + +Spallanzani went to the Museum, the Natural History Cabinet, and +found that cupboard bare. He rolled up his sleeves, he lectured about +everything, he made huge public experiments and he awed his students +because his deft hands always made these experiments turn out +successfully. He sent here and there for an astounding array of queer +beasts and strange plants and unknown birds--to fill up the empty +Cabinet. He climbed dangerous mountains himself and brought back +minerals and precious ores; he caught hammer-head sharks and snared +gay-plumed fowl; he went on incredible collecting expeditions for +his museum--and to work off that tormenting energy that made him so +fantastically different from the popular picture of a calm scientist. +He was a Roosevelt with all of Teddy’s courage and appeal to the +crowd, but with none of Teddy’s gorgeous inaccuracy. + +In the intervals of this hectic collecting and lecturing he shut +himself in his laboratory with his stews and his microscopic animals, +and made long experiments to show that these beasts obey nature’s +laws, just as men and horses and elephants are forced to follow them. +He put drops of stews swarming with microbes on little pieces of +glass and blew tobacco smoke at them and watched them eagerly with +his lens. He cried out his delight as he saw them rush about trying +to avoid the irritating smoke. He shot electric sparks at them and +wondered at the way the little animals “became giddy” and spun about, +and quickly died. + +“The seeds or eggs of the little animals may be different from +chicken eggs or frog’s eggs or fish eggs--they may stand the heat +of boiling water in my sealed flasks--but otherwise these little +creatures are really no different from other animals!” he cried. Then +just after that he had to take back his confident words.... + +“Every beast on earth needs air to live, and I am going to show +just how _animal_ these little animals are by putting them in a +vacuum--and watching them die,” said Spallanzani to himself, alone +one day in his laboratory. He cleverly drew out some very thin +tubes of glass, like the ones Leeuwenhoek had used to study his +little animals. He dipped the tube into a soup that swarmed with +his microbes; the fluid rushed up into the hair-fine pipe. Then +Spallanzani sealed off one end of it, and ingeniously tied the other +end to a powerful vacuum pump, and set the pump going, and stuck his +lens against the thin wall of the tube. He expected to see the wee +animals stop waving the “little arms which they were furnished to +swim with;” he expected them to get giddy and then stop moving.... + +The pump chugged on--and nothing whatever happened to the microbes. +They went nonchalantly about their business and did not seem to +realize there was such a thing as life-maintaining air! They +lived for days, for weeks--and Spallanzani did the experiment +again and again, trying to find something wrong with it. This was +impossible--nothing can live without air--how the devil do these +beasts breathe? He wrote his amazement in a letter to his friend +Bonnet: + +“The nature of some of these animalcules is astonishing! They are +able to exercise in a vacuum the functions they use in free air. They +make all of their courses, they go up and down in the liquid, they +even multiply for several days in this vacuum. How wonderful this is! +For we have always believed there is no living being that can live +without the advantages air offers it.” + +Spallanzani was very proud of his imagination and his quick brain and +he was helped along in this conceit by the flattery and admiration of +students and intelligent ladies and learned professors and conquering +kings. But he was an experimenter too--he was really an experimenter +first, and he bent his head humbly when a new fact defeated one of +the brilliant guesses of his brain. + +Meanwhile this man who was so rigidly honest in his experiments, who +would never report anything but the truth of what he found amid the +smells and poisonous vapors and shining machines of his laboratory, +this superbly honest scientist, I say, was planning low tricks to +increase his pay as Professor at Pavia. Spallanzani, the football +player, the climber of mountains and explorer, this Spallanzani +whined to the authorities at Vienna about his feeble health--the +fogs and vapors of Pavia were like to make him die, he said. To keep +him the Emperor had to increase his pay and double his vacations. +Spallanzani laughed and cynically called his lie a political gesture! +He always got everything he wanted. He got truth by dazzling +experiments and close observation and insane patience; he obtained +money and advancement by work--and by cunning plots and falsehoods; +he received protection from religious persecution by becoming a +priest! + +Now, as he grew older, he began to hanker for wild researches +in regions remote from his little laboratory. He must visit the +site of ancient Troy whose story thrilled him so; he must see the +harems and slaves and eunuchs, which to him were as much a part of +natural history as his bats and toads and little animals of the +seed infusions. He pulled wires, and at last the Emperor Joseph +gave him a year’s leave of absence and the money for a trip to +Constantinople--for his failing health, which had never been more +superb. + +So Spallanzani put his rows of flasks away and locked his laboratory +and said a dramatic and tearful good-by to his students; on the +journey down the Mediterranean he got frightfully sea-sick, he was +shipwrecked--but didn’t forget to try to save the specimens he had +collected on some islands. The Sultan wined and dined him, the +doctors of the seraglios let him study the customs of the beauteous +concubines ... and afterward, good eighteenth century European that +he was, Spallanzani told the Turks that he admired their hospitality +and their architecture, but detested their custom of slavery and +their hopeless fatalistic view of life.... + +“We Westerners, through this new science of ours, are going to +conquer the seemingly unavoidable, the apparently eternal torture +and suffering of man,” you can imagine him telling his polite but +stick-in-the-mud Oriental friends. He believed in an all powerful +God, but while he believed, the spirit of the searcher, the +fact finder, flashed out of his eye, burdened all his thought and +talk, forced him to make excuses for God by calling him Nature and +the Unknown, compelled him to show that he had appointed himself +first-assistant to God in the discovery and even the conquering of +this unknown Nature. + +[Illustration: LAZZARO SPALLANZANI] + +After many months he returned overland through the Balkan Peninsula, +escorted by companies of crack soldiers, entertained by Bulgarian +dukes and Wallachian Hospodars. At last he came to Vienna, to pay his +respects to his boss and patron, the Emperor Joseph II--it was the +dizziest moment, so far as honors went, of his entire career. Drunk +with success, he thought, you may imagine, of how all of his dreams +had come true, and then---- + + + VI + +While Spallanzani was on his triumphant voyage a dark cloud gathered +away to the south, at his university, the school at Pavia that +he had done so much to bring back to life. For years the other +professors had watched him take their students away from them, they +had watched--and ground their tusks and sharpened their razors--and +waited. + +Spallanzani by tireless expeditions and through many fatigues and +dangers had made the once empty Natural History Cabinet the talk of +Europe. Besides he had a little private collection of his own at +his old home in Scandiano. One day, Canon Volta, one of his jealous +enemies, went to Scandiano and by a trick got into Spallanzani’s +private museum; he sniffed around, then smiled an evil grin--here +were some jars, and there a bird and in another place a fish, and all +of them were labeled with the red tags of the University museum of +Pavia! Volta sneaked away hidden in the dark folds of his cloak, and +on the way home worked out his malignant plans to cook the brilliant +Spallanzani’s goose; and just before Spallanzani got home from +Vienna, Volta and Scarpa and Scopoli let hell loose by publishing +a tract and sending it to every great man and society in Europe, +and this tract accused Spallanzani of the nasty crime of stealing +specimens from the University of Pavia and hiding them in his own +little museum at Scandiano. + +His bright world came down around his ears; in a moment he saw his +gorgeous career in ruins; in hideous dreams he heard the delighted +cackles of men who praised him and envied him; he pictured the +triumph of men whom he had soundly licked with his clear facts +and experiments--he imagined even the return to life of that fool +Vegetative Force.... + +But in a few days he came back on his feet, the center of a dreadful +scandal, it is true, but on his feet with his back to the wall ready +to face his accusers. Gone now was the patient hunter of microbes and +gone the urbane correspondent of Voltaire. He turned into a crafty +politician, he demanded an investigating committee and got it, he +founded Ananias Clubs, he fought fire with fire. + +He returned to Pavia and on his way there I wonder what his thoughts +were--did he see himself slinking into the town, avoided by old +admirers and a victim of malignant hissing whispers? Possibly, but as +he got near the gates of Pavia a strange thing happened--for a mob +of adoring students came out to meet him, told him they would stick +by him, escorted him with yells of joy to his old lecture chair. The +once self-sufficient, proud man’s voice became husky--he blew his +nose--he could only stutteringly tell them what their devotion meant +to him. + +Then the investigating committee had him and his accusers appear +before it, and knowing Spallanzani as you already do, you may imagine +the shambles that followed! He proved to the judges that the alleged +stolen birds were miserably stuffed, draggle-feathered creatures +which would have disgraced the cabinet of a country school--they +had been merely pitched out. He had traded the lost snakes and the +armadillo to other museums and Pavia had profited by the trade; not +only so, but Volta, his chief accuser, had himself stolen precious +stones from the museum and given them to his friends.... + +The judges cleared him of all guilt--though it is to-day not +perfectly sure that he wasn’t a little guilty; Volta and his +complotters were fired from the University, and all parties, +including Spallanzani, were ordered by the Emperor to stop their +deplorable brawling and shut up--this thing was getting to be a +smell all over Europe--students were breaking up the classroom +furniture about it, and other universities were snickering at such +an unparalleled scandal. Spallanzani took a last crack at his routed +enemies; he called Volta a perfect bladder full of wind and invented +hideous and unprintably improper names for Scarpa and Scopoli; then +he returned peacefully to his microbe hunting. + +Many times in his long years of looking at the animalcules he had +wondered how they multiplied. Often he had seen two of the wee beasts +stuck together, and he wrote to Bonnet: “When you see two individuals +of any animal kind united, you naturally think they are engaged in +reproducing themselves.” But were they? He jotted his observations +down in old notebooks and made crude pictures of them, but, impetuous +as he was in many things, when it came to experiments or drawing +conclusions--he was almost as cagy as old Leeuwenhoek had been. + +Bonnet told Spallanzani’s perplexity about the way little animals +multiplied to his friend, the clever but now unknown de Saussure. +And this fellow turned his sharp eye through his clear lenses onto +the breeding habits of animalcules. In a short while he wrote a +classic paper, telling the fact that when you see two of the small +beasts stuck together, they haven’t come together to breed. On the +contrary--marvelous to say--these coupled beasts are nothing more nor +less than an old animalcule which is dividing into two parts, into +two new little animals! This, said de Saussure, was the only way the +microbes ever multiplied--the joys of marriage were unknown to them! + +Reading this paper, Spallanzani rushed to his microscope hardly +believing such a strange event could be so--but careful looking +showed that de Saussure was right. The Italian wrote the Swiss a fine +letter congratulating him; Spallanzani was a fighter and something of +a plotter; he was infernally ambitious and often jealous of the fame +of other men, but he lost himself in his joy at the prettiness of +de Saussure’s sharp observations. Spallanzani and these naturalists +of Geneva were bound by a mysterious cement--a realization that the +work of finding facts and fitting facts together to build the high +cathedral of science is greater than any single finder of facts or +mason of facts. They were the first haters of war--the first citizens +of the world, the first genuine internationalists. + +Then Spallanzani was forced into one of the most devilishly ingenious +researches of his life. He was forced into this by his friendship for +his pals in Geneva and by his hatred of another piece of scientific +claptrap almost as bad as the famous Vegetative Force. An Englishman +named Ellis wrote a paper saying de Saussure’s observations about +the little animals splitting into two was all wrong. Ellis admitted +that the little beasts might occasionally break into two. “But that,” +cried Ellis, “doesn’t mean they are multiplying! It simply means,” he +said, “that one little animal, swimming swiftly along in the water, +bangs into another one amidships--and breaks him in half! That’s all +there is to de Saussure’s fine theory. + +“What is more,” Ellis went on, “little animals are born from each +other just as larger beasts come from their mothers. When I look +carefully with my microscope, I can actually see young ones inside +the old ones, and looking still more closely--you may not believe +it--I can see grandchildren inside these young ones.” + +“Rot!” thought Spallanzani. All this stuff smelled very fishy to him, +but how to show it wasn’t true, and how to show that animalcules +multiplied by breaking in two? + +He was first of all a hard scientist, and he knew that it was one +thing to say Ellis was feeble-minded, but quite another to _prove_ +that the little animals didn’t bump into each other and so knock each +other apart. In a moment the one way to decide it came to him----“All +I have to do,” he meditated, “is to get one little beast off by +itself, away from every other one where nothing whatever can bump +into it--and then just sit and watch through the microscope to see +if it breaks into two.” That was the simple and the only way to do +it, no doubt, but how to get one of these infernally tiny creatures +away from his swarms of companions? You can separate one puppy from +a litter, or even a little minnow from its myriads of brothers +and sisters. But you can’t reach in with your hands and take one +animalcule by the tail--curse it--it is a million times too small for +that. + +Then this Spallanzani, this fellow who reveled in gaudy celebrations +and vast enthusiastic lecturings, this hero of the crowd, this +magnifico, crawled away from all his triumphs and pleasures to do one +of the cleverest and most marvelously ingenious pieces of patient +work in his hectic life. He did no less a thing than to invent a sure +method of getting _one_ animalcule--a few twenty-five thousandths of +an inch long--a living animalcule, off by itself. + +He went to his laboratory and carefully put a drop of seed soup +swarming with animalcules on a clean piece of crystal glass. +Then with a clean hair-fine tube he put a drop of pure distilled +water--that had not a single little animal in it--on the same glass, +close to the drop that swarmed with microbes. + +“Now I shall trap one,” he muttered, as he trained his lens on the +drop that held the little animals. He took a fine clean needle, he +stuck it carefully into the drop of microbe soup--and then made a +little canal with it across to the empty water drop. Quickly he +turned his lens onto the passageway between the two drops, and +grunted satisfaction as he saw the wriggling cavorting little +creatures begin to drift through this little canal. He grabbed +for a little camel’s-hair brush----“There! there’s one of the wee +ones--just one, in the water drop!” Deftly he flicked the little +brush across the small canal, wiping it out, so cutting off the +chance of any other wee beast getting into the water drop to join its +lonely little comrade. + +“God!” he cried. “I’ve done it--no one’s ever done this before--I’ve +got one animalcule all by himself; now nothing can bump him, now +we’ll see if he’ll turn into two new ones!” His lens hardly quivered +as he sat with tense neck and hands and arms, back bent, eye +squinting through the glass at the drop with its single inhabitant. +“How tiny he is,” he thought--“he is like a lone fish in the spacious +abysses of the sea.” + +Then a strange sight startled him, not less dramatic for its +unbelievable littleness. The beast--it was shaped like a small +rod--began to get thinner and thinner in the middle. At last the +two parts of it were held together by the thickness of a spider web +thread, and the two thick halves began to wriggle desperately--and +suddenly they jerked apart. There they were, two perfectly formed, +gently gliding little beasts, where there had been one before. They +were a little shorter but otherwise they couldn’t be told from their +parent. Then, what was more marvelous to see, these two children of +the first one in a score of minutes split up again--and now there +were four where there had been one! + +Spallanzani did this ingenious trick a dozen times and got the same +result and saw the same thing; and then he descended on the unlucky +Ellis like a ton of brick and flattened into permanent obscurity +Ellis and his fine yarn about the children and the grandchildren +inside the little animals. Spallanzani was sniffish, he condescended, +he advised, he told Ellis to go back to school and learn his a b +c’s of microbe hunting. He hinted that Ellis wouldn’t have made his +mistake if he’d read the fine paper of de Saussure carefully, instead +of inventing preposterous theories that only cluttered up the hard +job of getting genuine new facts from a stingy Nature. + +A scientist, a really original investigator of nature, is like a +writer or a painter or a musician. He is part artist, part cool +searcher. Spallanzani told himself stories, he conceived himself +the hero of a new epic exploration, he compared himself--in his +writings even--to Columbus and Vespucci. He told of that mysterious +world of microbes as a new universe, and thought of himself as +a daring explorer making first groping expeditions along its +boundaries only. He said nothing about the possible deadliness of +the little animals--he didn’t like to engage, in print, in wild +speculations--but his genius whispered to him that the fantastic +creatures of this new world were of some sure but yet unknown +importance to their big brothers, the human species.... + + + VII + +Early in the year 1799, as Napoleon started thoroughly smashing an +old world to pieces, and just as Beethoven was knocking at the door +of the nineteenth century with the first of his mighty symphonies, +war-cries of that defiant spirit of which Spallanzani was one of +the chief originators--in the year 1799, I say, the great microbe +hunter was struck with apoplexy. Three days later he was poking his +energetic and irrepressible head above the bedclothes, reciting Tasso +and Homer to the amusement and delight of those friends who had come +to watch him die. But though he refused to admit it, this, as one of +his biographers says, was his _Canto di Cigno_, his swan song, for in +a few days he was dead. + +Great Egyptian kings kept their names alive for posterity by having +the court undertaker embalm them into expensive and gorgeous mummies. +The Greeks and Romans had their likenesses wrought into dignified +statues. Paintings exist of a hundred other distinguished men. What +is left for us to see of the marvelous Spallanzani? + +In Pavia there is a modest little bust of him and in the museum +near by, if you are interested, you may see--his bladder. What +better epitaph could there be for Spallanzani? What relic could +more perfectly suggest the whole of his passion to find truth, that +passion which stopped at nothing, which despised conventions, which +laughed at hardship, which ignored bad taste and the feeble pretty +fitness of things? + +He knew his bladder was diseased. “Well, have it out after I’m dead,” +you can hear him whisper as he lay dying. “Maybe you’ll find an +astonishing new fact about diseased bladders.” That was the spirit +of Spallanzani. This was the very soul of that cynical, sniffingly +curious, coldly reasoning century of his--the century that discovered +few practical things--but the same century that built the high clean +house for Faraday and Pasteur, for Arrhenius and Emil Fischer and +Ernest Rutherford to work in. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + PASTEUR + + MICROBES ARE A MENACE! + + + I + +In 1831, thirty-two years after the magnificent Spallanzani died, +microbe hunting had come to a standstill once more. The sub-visible +animals were despised and forgotten while other sciences were making +great leaps ahead; clumsy horribly coughing locomotives were scaring +the horses of Europe and America; the telegraph was getting ready to +be invented. Marvelous microscopes were being devised, but no man had +come to squint through these machines--no man had come to prove to +the world that miserable little animals could do useful work which +no complicated steam engine could attempt; there was no hint of the +somber fact that these wretched microbes could kill their millions +of human beings mysteriously and silently, that they were much more +efficient murderers than the guillotine or the cannon of Waterloo. + +On a day in October in 1831, a nine-year-old boy ran frightened away +from the edge of a crowd that blocked the door of the blacksmith +shop of a village in the mountains of eastern France. Above the awed +excited whispers of the people at the door this boy had heard the +crackling “s-s-s-s-z” of a white hot iron on human flesh, and this +terrifying sizzling had been followed by a groan of pain. The victim +was the farmer Nicole. He had just been mangled by a mad wolf that +charged howling, jaws dripping poison foam, through the streets of +the village. The boy who ran away was Louis Pasteur, son of a tanner +of Arbois and great-grandson of a serf of the Count of Udressier. + +Days and weeks passed and eight victims of the mad wolf died in the +choking throat-parched agonies of hydrophobia. Their screams rang in +the ears of this timid--some called him stupid--boy; and the iron +that had seared the farmer’s wound burned a deep scar in his memory. + +“What makes a wolf or a dog mad, father--why do people die when +mad dogs bite them?” asked Louis. His father the tanner was an old +sergeant of the armies of Napoleon. He had seen ten thousand men die +from bullets, but he had no notion of why people die from disease. +“Perhaps a devil got into the wolf, and if God wills you are to +die, you will die, there is no help for it,” you can hear the pious +tanner answer. That answer was as good as any answer from the wisest +scientist or the most expensive doctor in the world. In 1831 no one +knew what caused people to die from mad dog bites--the cause of all +disease was completely unknown and mysterious. + +I am not going to try to make believe that this terrible event made +the nine-year-old Louis Pasteur determine to find out the cause +and cure of hydrophobia some day--that would be very romantic--but +it wouldn’t be true. It is true though that he was more scared by +it, haunted by it for a longer time, brooded over it more, that he +smelled the burned flesh and heard the screams a hundred times more +vividly than an ordinary boy would--in short, he was of the stuff of +which artists are made; and it was this stuff in him, as much as his +science, that helped him to drag microbes out of that obscurity into +which they had passed once more, after the gorgeous Spallanzani died. +Indeed, for the first twenty years of his life he showed no signs +at all of becoming a great searcher. This Louis Pasteur was only a +plodding, careful boy whom nobody noticed particularly. He spent his +playtime painting pictures of the river that ran by the tannery, and +his sisters posed for him until their necks grew stiff and their +backs ached grievously; he painted curiously harsh unflattering +pictures of his mother--they didn’t make her look pretty, but they +looked like his mother.... + +Meanwhile it seemed perfectly certain that the little animals +were going to be put permanently on the shelf along with the dodo +and other forgotten beasts. The Swede Linnæus, most enthusiastic +pigeonholer, who toiled at putting all living things in a neat vast +card catalogue, threw up his hands at the very idea of studying the +wee beasts. “They are too small, too confused, no one will ever know +anything exact about them, we will simply put them in the class +of Chaos!” said Linnæus. They were only defended by the famous +round-faced German Ehrenberg who had immense quarrels--in moments +when he wasn’t crossing oceans or receiving medals--futile quarrels +about whether the little animals had stomachs, strange arguments +about whether they were really complete little animals or only +parts of larger animals; or whether perchance they might be little +vegetables instead of little animals. + +Pasteur kept plugging at his books though, and it was while he was +still at the little college of Arbois that the first of his masterful +traits began to stick out--traits good and bad, that made him one +of the strangest mixtures of contradictions that ever lived. He was +the youngest boy at the college, but he wanted to be a monitor; he +had a fiery ambition to teach other boys, particularly to run other +boys. He became a monitor. Before he was twenty he had become a kind +of assistant teacher in the college of Bezançon, and here he worked +like the devil and insisted that everybody else work as hard as he +worked himself; he preached in long inspirational letters to his poor +sisters--who, God bless them, were already trying their best---- + +“To _will_ is a great thing, dear sisters,” he wrote, “for Action +and Work usually follow Will, and almost always Work is accompanied +by Success. These three things, Work, Will, Success, fill human +existence. Will opens the door to success both brilliant and happy; +Work passes these doors, and at the end of the journey Success comes +to crown one’s efforts.” + +When he was seventy his sermons had lost their capital letters, but +they were exactly the same kind of simple earnest sermons. + +His father sent him up to Paris to the Normal School and there +he resolved to do great things, but he was carried away by a +homesickness for the smell of the tannery yard and he came back to +Arbois abandoning his high ambition.... In another year he was back +at the same school in Paris and this time he stuck at it; and then +one day he passed in a tear-stained trance out of the lecture room of +the chemist Dumas. “What a science is chemistry,” he muttered, “and +how marvelous is the popularity and glory of Dumas.” He knew then +that he was going to be a great chemist too; the misty gray streets +of the Latin Quarter dissolved into a confused and frivolous world +that chemistry alone could save. He had left off his painting but he +was still the artist. + +Presently he began to make his first stumbling independent researches +with stinking bottles and rows of tubes filled with gorgeous colored +fluids. His good friend Chappuis, a mere student of philosophy, had +to listen for hours to Pasteur’s lectures on the crystals of tartaric +acid, and Pasteur told Chappuis: “It is sad that you are not a +chemist too.” He would have made all students chemists just as forty +years later he tried to turn all doctors into microbe hunters. + +Just then, as Pasteur was bending his snub nose and broad forehead +over confused piles of crystals, the sub-visible living microbes were +beginning to come back into serious notice, they were beginning to +be thought of as important serious fellow creatures, just as useful +as horses or elephants, by two lonely searchers, one in France and +one in Germany. A modest but original Frenchman, Cagniard de la Tour, +in 1837 poked round in beer vats of breweries. He dredged up a few +foamy drops from such a vat and looked at them through a microscope +and noticed that the tiny globules of the yeasts he found in them +sprouted buds from their sides, buds like seeds sprouting. “They are +alive then, these yeasts, they multiply like other creatures,” he +cried. His further searchings made him see that no brew of hops and +barley ever changed into beer without the presence of the yeasts, +living growing yeasts. “It must be their _life_ that changes barley +into alcohol,” he meditated, and he wrote a short clear paper about +it. The world refused to get excited about this fine work of the wee +yeasts--Cagniard was no propagandist, he had no press agent to offset +his own modesty. + +In the same year in Germany Doctor Schwann published a short paper +in long sentences, and these muddy phrases told a bored public the +exciting news that meat only becomes putrid when sub-visible animals +get into it. “Boil meat thoroughly and put it in a clean bottle and +lead air into it that has passed through red-hot pipes--the meat will +remain perfectly fresh for months. But in a day or two after you +remove the stopper and let in ordinary air, with its little animals, +the meat will begin to smell dreadfully; it will teem with wriggling, +cavorting creatures a thousand times smaller than a pinhead--it is +these beasts that make meat go bad.” + +How Leeuwenhoek would have opened his large eyes at this! Spallanzani +would have dismissed his congregation and rushed from his masses to +his laboratory; but Europe hardly looked up from its newspapers, and +young Pasteur was getting ready to make his own first great chemical +discovery. + +When he was twenty-six years old he made it. After long peerings at +heaps of tiny crystals he discovered that there are four distinct +kinds of tartaric acid instead of two; that there are a variety of +strange compounds in nature that are exactly alike--excepting that +they are mirror-images of each other. When he stretched his arms +and straightened up his lame back and realized what he had done, he +rushed out of his dirty dark little laboratory into the hall, threw +his arms around a young physics assistant--he hardly knew him--and +took him out under the thick shade of the Gardens of the Luxembourg. +There he poured mouthfuls of triumphant explanation at him--he must +tell some one. He wanted to tell the world! + + + II + +In a month he was praised by gray-haired chemists and became the +companion of learned men three times his age. He was made professor +at Strasbourg and in the off moments of researches he determined to +marry the daughter of the dean. He didn’t know if she cared for him +but he sat down and wrote her a letter that he knew must make her +love him: + +“There is nothing in me to attract a young girl’s fancy,” he wrote, +“but my recollections tell me that those who have known me very well +have loved me very much.” + +So she married him and became one of the most famous and +long-suffering and in many ways one of the happiest wives in +history--and this story will have more to tell about her. + +Now the head of a house, Pasteur threw himself more furiously into +his work; forgetting the duties and chivalries of a bridegroom, he +turned his nights into days. “I am on the verge of mysteries,” he +wrote, “and the veil is getting thinner and thinner. The nights seem +to me too long. I am often scolded by Madame Pasteur, but I tell +her I shall lead her to fame.” He continued his work on crystals; +he ran into blind alleys, he did strange and foolish and impossible +experiments, the kind a crazy man might devise--and the kind that +turn a crazy man into a genius when they come off. He tried to change +the chemistry of living things by putting them between huge magnets. +He devised weird clockworks that swung plants back and forward, +hoping so to change the mysterious molecules that formed these plants +into mirror images of themselves.... He tried to imitate God: he +tried to change species! + +Madame Pasteur waited up nights for him and marveled at him and +believed in him, and she wrote to his father: “You know that the +experiments he is undertaking this year will give us, if they +succeed, a Newton or a Galileo!” It is not clear whether good +Madame Pasteur formed this so high opinion of her young husband by +herself.... At any rate, truth, that will o’ the wisp, failed him +this time--his experiments didn’t come off. + +Then Pasteur was made Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Sciences +in Lille and there he settled down in the Street of the Flowers, and +it was here that he ran, or rather stumbled for the first time, upon +microbes; it was in this good solid town of distillers and sugar-beet +raisers and farm implement dealers that he began his great campaign, +part science, part drama and romance, part religion and politics, to +put microbes on the map. It was from this not too interesting middle +sized city--never noted for learning--that he splashed up a great +wave of excitement about microbes that rocked the boat of science for +thirty years. He showed the world how important microbes were to it, +and in doing this he made enemies and worshipers; his name filled +the front pages of newspapers and he received challenges to duels; +the public made vast jokes about his precious microbes while his +discoveries were saving the lives of countless women in childbirth. +In short it was here he hopped off in his flight to immortality. + +When he left Strasbourg truth was tricking him and he was confused. +He came to Lille and fairly stumbled on to the road to fame--by +offering help to a beet-sugar distiller. + +When Pasteur settled in Lille he was told by the authorities that +highbrow science was all right-- + +“But what we want, what this enterprising city of Lille wants most of +all, professor,” you can hear the Committee of business men telling +him, “is a close coöperation between your science and our industries. +What we want to know is--does science pay? Raise our sugar yield from +our beets and give us a bigger alcohol output, and we’ll see you and +your laboratory are taken care of.” + +Pasteur listened politely and then proceeded to show them the stuff +he was made of. He was much more than a man of science! Think of +a committee of business men asking Isaac Newton to show them how +his laws of motion were going to help their iron works! That shy +thinker would have thrown up his hands and set himself to studying +the meaning of the prophecies of the Book of Daniel at once. Faraday +would have gone back to his first job as a bookbinder’s apprentice. +But Pasteur was no shrinking flower. A child of the nineteenth +century, he understood that science had to earn its bread and butter, +and he started to make himself popular with everybody by giving +thrilling lectures to the townspeople on science: + +“Where in your families will you find a young man whose curiosity +and interest will not immediately be awakened when you put into his +hands a potato, and when with that potato he may produce sugar, and +with that sugar alcohol, and with that alcohol ether and vinegar?” +he shouted enthusiastically one evening to an audience of prosperous +manufacturers and their wives. Then one day Mr. Bigo, a distiller of +alcohol from sugar beets, came to his laboratory in distress. “We’re +having trouble with our fermentations, Professor,” he complained; +“we’re losing thousands of francs every day. I wonder if you could +come over to the factory and help us out?” said the good Bigo. + +Bigo’s son was a student in the science course and Pasteur hastened +to oblige. He went to the distillery and sniffed at the vats that +were sick, that wouldn’t make alcohol; he fished up some samples +of the grayish slimy mess and put them in bottles to take to his +laboratory--and he didn’t fail to take some of the beet pulp from +the healthy foamy vats where good amounts of alcohol were being +made. Pasteur had no idea he could help Bigo, he knew nothing of how +sugar ferments into alcohol--indeed, no chemist in the world knew +anything about it. He got back to his laboratory, scratched his head, +and decided to examine the stuff from the healthy vats first. He +put some of this stuff--a drop of it--before his microscope, maybe +with an aimless idea of looking for crystals, and he found this drop +was full of tiny globules, much smaller than any crystal, and these +little globes were yellowish in color, and their insides were full of +a swarm of curious dancing specks. + +“What can these things be,” he muttered. Then suddenly he remembered-- + +“Of course, I should have known--these are the yeasts you find in all +stews that have sugar which is fermenting into alcohol!” + +He looked again and saw the wee spheres alone; he saw some in +bunches, others in chains, and then to his wonder he came on some +with queer buds sprouting from their sides--they looked like sprouts +on infinitely tiny seeds. + +“Cagniard de la Tour is right. These yeasts are alive. It must be +the yeasts that change beet sugar into alcohol!” he cried. “But that +doesn’t help Mr. Bigo--what on earth can be the matter with the stuff +in the sick vats?” He grabbed for the bottle that held the stuff +from the sick vat, he sniffed at it, he peered at it with a little +magnifying glass, he tasted it, he dipped little strips of blue paper +in it and watched them turn red.... Then he put a drop from it before +his microscope and looked.... + +“But there are no yeasts in this one; where are the yeasts? There +is nothing here but a mass of confused stuff--what is it, what does +this mean?” He took the bottle up again and brooded over it with an +eye that saw nothing--till at last a different, a strange look of +the juice forced its way up into his wool-gathering thoughts. “Here +are little gray specks sticking to the walls of the bottle--here are +some more floating on the surface--wait! No, there aren’t any in +the healthy stuff where there are yeasts and alcohol. What can that +mean?” he pondered. Then he fished down into the bottle and got a +speck, with some trouble, into a drop of pure water; he put it before +his microscope.... + +His moment had come. + +No yeast globes here, no, but something different, something strange +he had never seen before, great tangled dancing masses of tiny +rod-like things, some of them alone, some drifting along like strings +of boats, all of them shimmying with a weird incessant vibration. He +hardly dared to guess at their size--they were much smaller than the +yeasts--they were only one-twenty-five-thousandth of an inch long! + +That night he tossed and didn’t sleep and next morning his stumpy +legs hurried him back to the beet factory. His glasses awry on his +nearsighted eyes, he leaned over and dredged up other samples from +other sick vats--he forgot all about Bigo and thought nothing of +helping Bigo; Bigo didn’t exist; nothing in the world existed but +his sniffing curious self and these dancing strange rods. In every +one of the grayish specks he found millions of them.... Feverishly +at night with Madame Pasteur waiting up for him and at last going to +bed without him, he set up apparatus that made his laboratory look +like an alchemist’s den. He found that the rod-swarming juice from +the sick vats always contained the acid of sour milk--and no alcohol. +Suddenly a thought flooded through his brain: “Those little rods in +the juice of the sick vats are alive, and it is _they_ that make the +acid of sour milk--the rods fight with the yeasts perhaps, and get +the upper hand. They are the ferment of the sour-milk-acid, just as +the yeasts must be the ferment of the alcohol!” He rushed up to tell +the patient Madame Pasteur about it, the only half-understanding +Madame Pasteur who knew nothing of fermentations, the Madame Pasteur +who helped him so by believing always in his wild enthusiasms.... + +It was only a guess but there was something inside him that whispered +to him that it was surely true. There was nothing uncanny about the +rightness of his guess; Pasteur made thousands of guesses about the +thousand strange events of nature that met his shortsighted peerings. +Many of these guesses were wrong--but when he did hit on a right one, +how he did test it and prove it and sniff along after it and chase +it and throw himself on it and bring it to earth! So it was now, +when he was sure he had solved the ten-thousand-year-old mystery of +fermentation. + +His head buzzed with a hundred confused plans to see if he was really +right, but he never neglected the business men and their troubles, +or the authorities or the farmers or his students. He turned part of +his laboratory into a manure testing station, he hurried to Paris +and tried to get himself elected to the Academy of Sciences--and +failed--and he took his classes on educational trips to breweries in +Valenciennes and foundries in Belgium. In the middle of this he felt +sure, one day, that he had a way to prove that the little rods were +alive, that in spite of their miserable littleness they did giant’s +work, the work no giant could do--of changing sugar into lactic acid. + +“I can’t study these rods that I think are alive in this mixed-up +mess of the juice of the beet-pulp from the vats,” Pasteur pondered. +“I shall have to invent some kind of clear soup for them so that I +can see what goes on--I’ll have to invent this special food for them +and then see if they multiply, if they have young, if a thousand of +the small dancing beings appears where there was only one at first.” +He tried putting some of the grayish specks from the sick vats into +pure sugar water. They refused to grow in it. “The rods need a richer +food,” he meditated, and after many failures he devised a strange +soup; he took some dried yeast and boiled it in pure water and +strained it so that it was perfectly clear, he added an exact amount +of sugar and a little carbonate of chalk to keep the soup from being +acid. Then on the point of a fine needle he fished up one of the gray +specks from some juice of a sick fermentation. Carefully he sowed +this speck in his new clear soup--and put the bottle in an incubating +oven--and waited, waited anxious and nervous; it is this business +of experiments not coming off at once that is always the curse of +microbe hunting. + +He waited and signed some vouchers and lectured to students and came +back to peer into his incubator at his precious bottle and advised +farmers about their crops and fertilizers and bolted absent-minded +meals and peered once more at his tubes--and waited. He went to bed +without knowing what was happening in his bottle--it is hard to sleep +when you do not know such things.... + +All the next day it was the same, but toward evening when his legs +began to be heavy with failure once more, he muttered: “There _is_ no +clear broth that will let me see these beastly rods growing--but I’ll +just look once more----” + +He held the bottle up to the solitary gaslight that painted grotesque +giant shadows of the apparatus on the laboratory walls. “Sure enough, +there’s something changing here,” he whispered; “there are rows of +little bubbles coming up from some of the gray specks I sowed in the +bottle yesterday--there are many new gray specks--all of them are +sprouting bubbles!” Then he became deaf and dumb and blind to the +world of men; he stayed entranced before his little incubator; hours +floated by, hours that might have been seconds for him. He took up +his bottle caressingly; he shook it gently before the light--little +spirals of gray murky cloud curled up from the bottom of the flask +and from these spirals came big bubbles of gas. Now he would find out! + +He put a drop from the bottle before his microscope. Eureka! The +field of the lens swarmed and vibrated with shimmying millions of the +tiny rods. “They multiply! They are alive!” he whispered to himself, +then shouted: “Yes, I’ll be up in a little while!” to Madame Pasteur +who had called down begging him to come up for dinner, to come for a +little rest. For hours he did not come. + +Time and again in the days that followed he did the same experiment, +putting a tiny drop from a flask that swarmed with rods into a fresh +clear flask of yeast soup that had none at all--and every time the +rods appeared in billions and each time they made new quantities of +the acid of sour milk. Then Pasteur burst out--he was not a patient +man--to tell the world. He told Mr. Bigo it was the little rods +that made his fermentations sick: “Keep the little rods out of your +vats and you’ll always get alcohol, Mr. Bigo.” He told his classes +about his great discovery that such infinitely tiny beasts could make +acid of sour milk from sugar--a thing no mere man had ever done or +could do. He wrote the news to his old Professor Dumas and to all his +friends and he read papers about it to the Lille Scientific Society +and sent a learned treatise to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. It +is not clear whether Mr. Bigo found it possible to keep the little +rods out of his vats--for they were like bad weeds that get into +gardens. But to Pasteur that didn’t matter so much. Here was the one +important fact: + +_It is living things, sub-visible living beings, that are the real +cause of fermentations!_ + +Innocently he told every one that his discovery was remarkable--he +was too much of a child to be modest--and from now on and for years +these little ferments filled his sky; he ate and slept and dreamed +and loved--after his absent-minded fashion--with his ferments by him. +They were his life. + +He worked alone for he had no assistant, not even a boy to wash +his bottles for him; how then, you will ask, did he find time to +cram his days with such a bewildering jumble of events? Partly +because he was an energetic man, and partly it was thanks to Madame +Pasteur, who in the words of Roux, “loved him even to the point of +understanding his work.” On those evenings when she wasn’t waiting up +lonely for him--when she had finished putting to bed those children +whose absent-minded father he was--this brave lady sat primly on a +straight-backed chair at a little table and wrote scientific papers +at his dictation. Again, while he was below brooding over his tubes +and bottles she would translate the cramped scrawls of his notebooks +into a clear beautiful handwriting. Pasteur was her life and since +Pasteur thought only of work her own life melted more and more into +his work.... + + + III + +Then one day in the midst of all this--they were just nicely settled +in Lille--he came to her and said: “We are going to Paris, I have +just been made Administrator and Director of Scientific Studies in +the Normal School. This is my great chance.” + +They moved there, and Pasteur found there was absolutely no place +for him to work in; there were a few dirty laboratories for the +students but none for the professors; what was worse, the Minister of +Instruction told him there was not one cent in the budget for those +bottles and ovens and microscopes without which he could not live. +But Pasteur snooped round in every cranny of the dirty old building +and at last climbed tricky stairs to a tiny room where rats played, +to an attic under the roof. He chased the rats out and proclaimed +this den his laboratory; he got money--in some mysterious way that is +still not clear--for his microscopes and tubes and flasks. The world +must know how important ferments are in its life. The world soon knew! + +His experiment with the little rods that made the acid of sour milk +convinced him--why, no one can tell--that other kinds of small beings +did a thousand other gigantic and useful and perhaps dangerous +things in the world. “It is those yeasts that my microscope showed +me in the healthy beet vats, it is those yeasts that turn sugar into +alcohol--it is undoubtedly yeasts that make beer from barley and it +is certainly yeasts that ferment grapes into wine--I haven’t proved +it yet, but I know it.” Energetically he wiped his fogged spectacles +and cheerfully he climbed to his attic. Experiments would tell him; +he must make experiments; he must prove to himself he was right--more +especially he must prove to the world he was right. But the world of +science was against him. + +Liebig, the great German, the prince of chemists, the pope of +chemistry, was opposed to his idea. “So Liebig says yeasts have +nothing to do with the turning of sugar into alcohol--so he claims +that you have to have albumen there, and that it is just the albumen +breaking down that carries the sugar along down with it, into +alcohol.” He would show this Liebig! Then a trick to beat Liebig +flashed into his head, a crafty trick, a simple clear experiment that +would smash Liebig and all other pooh-bahs of chemistry who scorned +the important work that his precious microscopic creatures might do. + +“What I have to do is to grow yeasts in a soup that has no albumen +in it at all. If yeasts will turn sugar into alcohol in such a +soup--then Liebig and his theories are finished.” Defiance was in +every fiber of him. This business was turning from an affair of cold +science into a purely personal matter. But it was one thing to have +this bright idea and quite another to find an albumenless food for +yeasts--yeasts were squeamish in their tastes, confound them--and he +fussed around his drafty attic and was for weeks an exasperated, a +very grumpy Pasteur. Until one morning a happy accident cleared the +road for him. + +He had by chance put some salt of ammonia into an albumen soup in +which he grew the yeasts for his experiments. “What’s this,” he +meditated. “The ammonia salt keeps disappearing as my yeasts bud and +multiply. What does this mean?” He thought, he fumbled--“Wait! The +yeasts use up the ammonia salt, they will grow without the albumen!” +He slammed shut the door of his attic room, he must be alone while he +worked--he loved to be alone as he worked just as he greatly enjoyed +spouting his glorious results to worshipful, brilliant audiences. He +took clean flasks and poured distilled water into them, and carefully +weighed out pure sugar and slid it into this water, and then put in +his ammonia salt--it was the tartrate of ammonia that he used. He +reached for a bottle that swarmed with young budding yeasts; with +care he fished out a yellowish flake of them and dropped it into his +new albumenless soup. He put the bottle in his incubating oven. Would +they grow? + +That night he turned over and over in his bed. He whispered his +hopes and fears to Madame Pasteur--she couldn’t advise him but she +comforted him. She understood everything but couldn’t explain away +his worries. She was his perfect assistant.... + +He was back in his attic next morning not knowing how he had got up +the stairs, not remembering his breakfast--he might have floated +from his bed directly to the rickety dusty incubator that held his +flask--that fatal flask. He opened the bottle and put a tiny cloudy +drop from it between two thin bits of glass and slid the specimen +under the lens of his microscope--and knew the world was his. + +“Here they are,” he cried, “lovely budding growing young yeasts, +hundreds of thousands of them--yes, and here are some of the old +ones, the parent yeasts I sowed in the bottle yesterday.” He wanted +to rush out and tell some one, but he held himself--he must find out +something more--he got some of the soup from the fatal bottle into +a retort, to find out whether his budding beings had made alcohol. +“Liebig is wrong--albumen isn’t necessary--it is yeasts, the growth +of yeasts that ferments sugar.” And he watched trickling tears of +alcohol run down the neck of the retort. He spent the next weeks in +doing the experiment over and over, to be sure that the yeasts would +keep on living, to be certain that they would keep on making alcohol. +He transferred them monotonously, from one bottle to another--he put +them through countless flasks of this same simple soup of ammonia +salt and sugar in water and always the yeasts budded lustily and +filled the bottles with a foamy collar of carbonic acid gas. Always +they made alcohol! This checking-up of his discoveries was dull work. +There was not the excitement, the sleepless waiting for a result he +hoped for passionately or feared terribly would not come. + +His new fact was old stuff by now but still he kept on, he cared +for his yeasts like some tender father, he fed them and loved them +and was proud of their miraculous work of turning great quantities +of sugar into alcohol. He ruined his health watching them and he +violated sacred customs of all good middle-class Frenchmen. He writes +of how he sat down before his lens at seven in the evening--and this +is the dinner hour of France!--he sat down to watch and see if he +could spy on his yeasts in the act of budding. “And from that time,” +he writes, “I did not take my eye from the microscope.” It was half +past nine before he was satisfied that he had seen them bud. He +made vast crazy tests that lasted from June until September to find +out how long yeasts would keep at their work of turning sugar into +alcohol, and at the end he cried: “Give your yeasts enough sugar, and +they will not stop working for three months, or even more!” + +Then for a moment the searcher in him changed into a showman, an +exhibitor of stupendous surprises, a missionary in the cause of +microbes. The world must know and the people of the world must gasp +at this astounding news that millions of gallons of wine in France +and boundless oceans of beer in Germany are not made by men at all +but by incessantly toiling armies of creatures ten-billion times +smaller than a wee baby! + +He read papers about this and gave speeches and threw his proofs +insolently at the great Liebig’s head--and in a little while a +storm was up in the little Republic of Science on the left bank +of the Seine in Paris. His old Professors beamed pride on him and +the Academy of Sciences, which had refused to elect him a member, +now gave him the Prize of Physiology, and the magnificent Claude +Bernard--whom Frenchmen called Physiology itself--praised him in +stately sentences. The next night, Dumas, his old professor--whose +brilliant lectures had made him cry when he was a green boy in +Paris--threw bouquets at Pasteur in a public speech that would have +made another man than Pasteur bow his head and blush and protest. +Pasteur did not blush--he was perfectly sure that Dumas was right. +Instead he sat down proudly and wrote to his father: + +“Mr. Dumas, after praising the so great penetration I had given proof +of ... added: ‘_The Academy, sir, rewarded you a few days ago for +other profound researches; your audience this evening will applaud +you as one of the most distinguished professors we possess._’ All +that I have underlined was said in these very words by Mr. Dumas, and +was followed _by great applause_.” + +It is only natural that in the midst of this hurrahing there was +some quiet hissing. Opponents began to rise on all sides. Pasteur +made these enemies not entirely because his discoveries stepped on +the toes of old theories and beliefs. No, his bristling curious +impudent air of challenge got him enemies. He had a way of putting +“am-I-not-clever-to-have-found-this-and-aren’t-all-of-you-fools-not- +to-believe-it-at-once” between the lines of all of his writings and +speeches. He loved to fight with words, he had a cocky eagerness +to get into an argument with every one about anything. He would +have sputtered indignantly at an innocently intended comment on his +grammar or his punctuation. Look at portraits of him taken at this +time--it was 1860--read his researches, and you will find a fighting +sureness of his perpetual rightness in every hair of his eyebrow +and even in the technical terms and chemical formulas of his famous +scientific papers. + +Many people objected to this scornful cockiness--but some good men of +science had better reasons for disagreeing with him--his experiments +were brilliant, they were startling, but his experiments stopped +short of being completely proved. They had loopholes. Every now and +then when he set out confidently with some of his gray specks of +ferment to make the acid of sour milk, he would find to his disgust a +nasty smell of rancid butter wafting up from his bottles. There would +be no little rods in the flask--alas--and none of the sour-milk-acid +that he had set out to get. These occasional failures, the absence of +sure-fire in these tests gave ammunition to his enemies and brought +sleepless nights to Pasteur. But not for long! It is not the least +strange thing about him that it didn’t seem to matter to him that he +never quite solved this confusing going wrong of his fermentations; +he was a cunning man--instead of butting his head against the wall of +this problem, he slipped around it and turned it to his great fame +and advantage. + +[Illustration: PASTEUR AT FORTY-FIVE] + +Why this annoying rancid butter smell--why sometimes no +sour-milk-acid? One morning, in one of his bottles that had gone bad, +he noticed another kind of wee beasts swimming around among a few of +the discouraged dancing rods which should have been there in great +swarms. + +“What are these beasts? They’re much bigger than the rods--they don’t +merely quiver and vibrate--they actually swim around like fish; they +must be little animals.” + +He watched them peevishly, he had an instinct they had no business +there. There were processions of them hooked together like barges on +the River Seine, strings of clumsy barges that snaked along. Then +there were lonely ones that would perform a stately twirl now and +again; sometimes they would make a pirouette and balance--the next +moment they would shiver at one end in a curious kind of shimmy. It +was all very interesting, these various pretty cavortings of these +new beasts. But they had no business there! He tried a hundred ways +to keep them out, ways that would seem very clumsy to us now, but +just as he thought he had cleaned them out of all his bottles, back +they popped. Then one day it flashed over him that every time that +his bottles of soup swarmed with this gently moving larger sort of +animal, these same bottles of soup had the strong nasty smell of +rancid butter. + +So he proved, after a fashion, that this new kind of beast was +another kind of ferment, a ferment that made the rancid-butter-acid +from sugar; but he didn’t nail down his proof, because he couldn’t be +sure, absolutely, that there was one kind and only one kind of beast +present in his bottles. While he was a little confused and uncertain +about this, he turned his troubles once more to his advantage. He +was peering, one day, at the rancid butter microbes swarming before +his microscope. “There’s something new here--in the middle of the +drop they are lively, going every which way.” Gently, precisely, a +little aimlessly, he moved the specimen so that the edge of the drop +was under his lens.... “But here at the edge they’re not moving, +they’re lying round stiff as pokers.” It was so with every specimen +he looked at. “Air kills them,” he cried, and was sure he had made a +great discovery. A little while afterward he told the Academy proudly +that he had not only discovered a new ferment, a wee animal that had +a curious trick of making stale-butter-acid from sugar, but besides +this he had discovered that these animals could live and play and +move and do their work without any air whatever. Air even killed +them! “And this,” he cried, “is the first example of little animals +living without air!” + +Unfortunately it was the third example. Two hundred years before +old Leeuwenhoek had seen the same thing. A hundred years later +Spallanzani had been amazed to find that microscopic beasts could +live without breathing. + +Very probably Pasteur didn’t know about these discoveries of the +old trail blazers--I am sure he was not trying to steal their +stuff--but as he went up in his excited climb toward glory and toward +always increasing crowds of new discoveries, he regarded less and +less what had been done before him and what went on around him. He +re-discovered the curious fact that microbes make meat go bad. He +failed to give the first discoverer, Schwann, proper credit for it! + +But this strange neglect to give credit for the good work of +others must not be posted too strongly against him in the Book of +St. Peter, because you can see his fine imagination, that poet’s +thought of his, making its first attempts at showing that microbes +are the real murderers of the human race. He dreams in this paper +that just as there is putrid meat, so there are putrid diseases. +He tells how he suffered in this work with meat gone bad; he tells +about the bad smells--and how he hated bad smells!--that filled his +little laboratory during these researches: “My researches on the +fermentations have led me naturally toward these studies to which +I have resolved to devote myself without too much thought of their +danger or of the disgust which they inspire in me,” and then he told +the Academy of the hard job that awaited him; he explained to them +why he must not shrink from it, by making a graceful quotation from +the great Lavoisier: “Public usefulness and the interests of humanity +ennoble the most disgusting work and only allow enlightened men to +see the zeal which is needed to overcome obstacles.” + + + IV + +So he prepared the stage for his dangerous experiments--years before +he entered on them. He prepared a public stage-setting. His proposed +heroism thrilled the calm men of science that were his audience. As +they returned home through the gray streets of the ancient Latin +Quarter they could imagine Pasteur bidding them a farewell full +of emotion, they could see him marching with set lips--wanting to +hold his nose but bravely not doing it--into the midst of stinking +pestilences where perilous microbes lay in wait for him.... It is +so that Pasteur proved himself much more useful than Leeuwenhoek +or Spallanzani--he did excellent experiments, and then had a knack +of presenting them in a way to heat up the world about them. Grave +men of science grew excited. Simple people saw clear visions of the +yeasts that made the wine that was their staff of life and they were +troubled at nights by thoughts of hovering invisible putrid microbes +in the air.... + +He did curious tests that waited three years to be completed. He +took flasks and filled them part way full with milk or urine. He +doused them in boiling water and sealed their slender necks shut in +a blast flame--then for years he guarded them. At last he opened +them, to show that the urine and the milk were perfectly preserved, +that the air above the fluid in the bottles still had almost all +of its oxygen; no microbes, no destruction of the milk! He allowed +germs to grow their silent swarms in other flasks of urine and milk +that he had left unboiled, and when he tested these for oxygen he +found that the oxygen had been completely used up--the microbes had +used it to burn up, to destroy the stuff on which they fed. Then +like a great bird Pasteur spread his wings of fancy and soared up to +fearsome speculations--he imagined a weird world without microbes, a +world whose air had plenty of oxygen, but this oxygen would be of no +use, alas, to destroy dead plants and animals, because there were no +microbes to do the oxidations. His hearers had nightmare glimpses of +vast heaps of carcasses choking deserted lifeless streets--without +microbes life would not be possible! + +Now Pasteur ran hard up against a question that was bound to pop up +and look him in the face sooner or later. It was an old question. +Adam had without doubt asked it of God, while he wondered where +the ten thousand living beings of the garden of Eden came from. It +was the question that had all thinkers by the ears for a hundred +centuries, that had given Spallanzani so much exciting fun a hundred +years before. It was the simple but absolutely insoluble question: +Where do microbes come from? + +“How is it,” Pasteur’s opponents asked him, “how is it that yeasts +appear from nowhere every year of every century in every corner of +the earth, to turn grape juice into wine? Where do the little animals +come from, these little animals that turn milk sour in every can and +butter rancid in every jar, from Greenland to Timbuctoo?” + +Like Spallanzani, Pasteur could not believe that the microbes rose +from the dead stuff of the milk or butter. Surely microbes have to +have parents! He was, you see, a good Catholic. It is true that he +lived among the brainy skeptics on the left bank of the Seine in +Paris, where God is as popular as a Soviet would be in Wall Street, +but the doubts of his colleagues didn’t touch Pasteur. It was +beginning to be the fashion of the doubters to believe in Evolution: +the majestic poem that tells of life, starting as a formless stuff +stirring in a steamy ooze of a million years ago, unfolding through a +stately procession of living beings until it gets to monkeys and at +last--triumphantly--to men. There doesn’t have to be a God to start +that parade or to run it--it just happened, said the new philosophers +with an air of science. + +But Pasteur answered: “My philosophy is of the heart and not of the +mind, and I give myself up, for instance, to those feelings about +eternity that come naturally at the bedside of a cherished child +drawing its last breath. At those supreme moments there is something +in the depths of our souls which tells us that the world may be more +than a mere combination of events due to a machine-like equilibrium +brought out of the chaos of the elements simply through the gradual +action of the forces of matter.” He was always a good Catholic. + +Then Pasteur dropped philosophy and set to work. He believed that his +yeasts and rods and little animals came from the air--he imagined an +air full of these invisible things. Other microbe hunters had shown +there were germs in the air, but Pasteur made elaborate machines to +prove it all over again. He poked gun cotton into little glass tubes, +put a suction pump on one end of them and stuck the other end out of +the window, sucked half the air of the garden through the cotton--and +then gravely tried to count the number of living beings in this +cotton. He invented clumsy machines for getting these microbe-loaded +bits of cotton into yeast soup, to see whether the microbes would +grow. He did the good old experiment of Spallanzani over; he got +himself a round bottle and put some yeast soup in it, and sealed +off the neck of the bottle in the stuttering blast lamp flame, then +boiled the soup for a few minutes--and no microbes grew in this +bottle. + +“But you have heated the air in your flask when you boiled the yeast +soup--what yeast soup needs to generate little animals is _natural_ +air--you can’t put yeast soup together with natural unheated air +without its giving rise to yeasts or molds or torulas or vibrions +or animalcules!” cried the believers in spontaneous generation, +the evolutionists, the doubting botanists, cried all Godless men +from their libraries and their armchairs. They shouted, but made no +experiments. + +Pasteur, in a muddle, tried to invent ways of getting unheated air +into a boiled yeast soup--and yet keep it from swarming with living +sub-visible creatures. He fumbled at getting a way to do this; he +muddled--keeping all the time a brave face toward the princes and +professors and publicists that were now beginning to swarm to watch +his miracles. The authorities had promoted him from his rat-infested +attic to a little building of four or five two-by-four rooms at the +gate of the Normal School. It would not be considered good enough +to house the guinea-pigs of the great Institutes of to-day, but it +was here that Pasteur set out on his famous adventure to prove that +there was nothing to the notion that microbes could arise without +parents. It was an adventure that was part good experiment, part +unseemly scuffle--a scuffle that threatened at certain hilariously +vulgar moments to be settled by a fist fight. He messed around, I +say, and his apparatus kept getting more and more complicated, and +his experiments kept getting easier to object to and less clear, he +began to replace his customary easy experiments that convinced with +sledge-hammer force, by long drools of words. He was stuck. + +Then one day old Professor Balard walked into his workroom. Balard +had started life as a druggist; he had been an owlish original +druggist who had amazed the scientific world by making the discovery +of the element bromine, not in a fine laboratory, but on the +prescription counter in the back room of a drugstore. This had got +him fame and his job of professor of chemistry in Paris. Balard was +not ambitious; he had no yearning to make all the discoveries in the +world--discovering bromine was enough for one man’s lifetime--but +Balard did like to nose around to watch what went on in other +laboratories. + +“You say you’re stuck, you say you do not see how to get air and +boiled yeast soup together without getting living creatures into the +yeast soup, my friend?” you can hear the lazy Balard asking the then +confused Pasteur. “Look here, you and I both believe there is no +such thing as microbes rising in a yeast soup by themselves--we both +believe they fall in or creep in with the dust of the air, is it not +so?” + +“Yes,” answered Pasteur, “but----” + +“Wait a minute!” interrupted Balard. “Why don’t you just try the +trick of putting some yeast soup in a bottle, boiling it, then fixing +the opening so the dust can’t fall in. At the same time the air can +get in all it wants to.” + +“But how?” asked Pasteur. + +“Easy,” replied the now forgotten Balard. “Take one of your round +flasks, put the yeast soup into it, then soften the glass of the +flask neck in your blast lamp--and draw the neck out and downward +into a thin little tube--turn this little tube down the way a swan +bends his neck when he’s picking something out of the water. Then +just leave the end of the tube open. It’s like this----” and Balard +sketched a diagram: + +[Illustration: (line drawing of glass flask with curved neck)] + +Pasteur looked, then suddenly saw the magnificent ingeniousness +of this little experiment. “Why, then microbes can’t fall into +the flask, because the dust they stick to can’t very well fall +upward--marvelous! I see it now!” + +“Exactly,” smiled Balard. “Try it and find out if it works--see you +later,” and he left to continue his genial round of the laboratories. + +Pasteur had bottle washers and assistants now, and he ordered them to +hurry and prepare the flasks. In a moment the laboratory was buzzing +with the stuttering ear-shattering b-r-r-r-r-r of the enameler’s +lamps; he fell to work savagely. He took flasks and put yeast soup +into them and then melted their necks and drew them out and curved +them downward--into swan’s necks and pigtails and Chinaman’s queues and +a half-dozen fantastic shapes. Next he boiled the soup in them--that +drove out all the air--but as the flasks cooled down new air came +in--unheated air, perfectly clean air. + +The flasks ready, Pasteur crawled on his hands and knees, back and +forth with a comical dignity on his hands and knees, carrying one +flask at a time, through a low cubby hole under the stairs to his +incubating oven. Next morning he was first at the laboratory, and +in a jiffy, battered notebook in his hand, if you had been there +you would have seen his rear elevation disappearing underneath the +stairway. Like a beagle to its rabbit Pasteur was drawn to this oven +with its swan neck flasks. Family, love, breakfast, and the rest of a +silly world no longer existed for him. + +Had you still been there a half hour later, you would have seen him +come crawling out, his eyes shining through his fogged glasses. He +had a right to be happy, for every one of the long twisty necked +bottles in which the yeast soup had been boiled was perfectly +clear--there was not a living creature in them. The next day they +remained the same and the next. There was no doubt now that Balard’s +scheme had worked. There was no doubt that spontaneous generation was +nonsense. “What a fine experiment is this experiment of mine--this +proves that you can leave any kind of soup, after you’ve boiled it, +you can leave it open to the ordinary air, and nothing will grow in +it--so long as the air gets into it through a narrow twisty tube.” + +Balard came back and smiled as Pasteur poured the news of the +experiment over him. “I thought it would work--you see, when the air +comes back in, as the flask cools, the dusts and their germs start in +through the narrow neck--but they get caught on the moist walls of +the little tube.” + +“Yes, but how can we prove that?” puzzled Pasteur. + +“Just take one of those flasks that has been in your oven all these +days, a flask where no living things have appeared, and shake that +flask so that the soup sloshes over and back and forth into the +swan’s neck part of it. Put it back in the oven, and next morning the +soup will be cloudy with thick swarms of little beasts--children of +the ones that were caught in the neck.” + +Pasteur tried it, and it was so! A little later at a brilliant +meeting where the brains and wit and art of Paris fought to get in, +Pasteur told of his swan neck flask experiment in rapturous words. +“Never will the doctrine of Spontaneous Generation recover from the +mortal blow that this simple experiment has dealt it,” he shouted. If +Balard was there you may be sure he applauded as enthusiastically as +the rest. A rare soul was Balard. + +Then Pasteur invented an experiment that was--so far as one can tell +from a careful search through the records--really his own. It was +a grand experiment, a semi-public experiment, an experiment that +meant rushing across France in trains, it was a test in which he +had to slither around on glaciers. Once more his laboratory became +a shambles of cluttered flasks and hurrying assistants and tinkling +glassware and sputtering, bubbling pots of yeast soup. Pasteur and +his enthusiastic slaves--they were more like fanatic monks than +slaves--were getting ready hundreds of round bellied bottles. They +filled each one of them part full of yeast soup and then, during many +hours that shot by like moments--such was their excitement--they +doused each bottle for a few minutes in boiling water. And while +the soup was boiling they drew the flask necks out in a spitting +blue flame until they were sealed shut. Each one of this regiment of +bottles held boiled yeast soup--and a vacuum. + +Armed with these dozens of flasks, and fussing about them, Pasteur +started on his travels. He went down first into the dank cellars of +the Observatory of Paris, that famous Observatory where worked the +great Le Verrier, who had done the proud feat of prophesying the +existence of the planet Neptune. “Here the air is so still, so calm,” +said Pasteur to his boys, “that there will be hardly any dust in it, +and almost no microbes.” Then, holding the flasks far away from their +bodies, using forceps that had been heated red hot in a flame, they +cracked the necks of ten of the flasks in succession; as the neck +came off each one, there was a hissing “s-s-s-s” of air rushing +in. At once they sealed the bottles shut again in the flickering +flame of an alcohol lamp. They did the same stunt in the yard of +the observatory with another ten bottles, then hurried back to the +little laboratory to crawl under the stairs to put the bottles in the +incubating oven. + +A few days later Pasteur might have been seen squatting before his +oven, handling his rows of flasks lovingly, laughing his triumph with +one of those extremely rare laughs of his--he only laughed when he +found out he was right. He put down tiny scrawls in his notebook, and +then crawled out of his cubby-hole to tell his assistants: “Nine out +of ten of the bottles we opened in the cellar of the Observatory are +perfectly clear--not a single germ got into them. All the bottles we +opened in the yard are cloudy--swarming with living creatures. It’s +the _air_ that sucks them into the yeast soup--it’s the dust of the +air they come in with!” + +He gathered up the rest of the bottles and hurried to the train--it +was the time of the summer vacation when other professors were +resting--and he went to his old home in the Jura mountains and +climbed the hill of Poupet and opened twenty bottles there. He went +to Switzerland and perilously let the air hiss into twenty flasks on +the slopes of Mont Blanc; and found, as he had hoped, that the higher +he went, the fewer were the flasks of yeast soup that became cloudy +with swarms of microbes. “That is as it ought to be,” he cried, “the +higher and clearer the air, the less dust--and the fewer the microbes +that always stick to particles of the dust.” He came back proudly +to Paris and told the Academy--with proofs that would astonish +everybody!--that it was now sure that air alone could never cause +living things to rise in yeast soup. “Here are germs, right beside +them there are none, a little further on there are different ones +... and here where the air is perfectly calm there are none at all,” +he cried. Then once more he set a new stage for possible magnificent +exploits: “I would have liked to have gone up in a balloon to open +my bottles still higher up!” But he didn’t go up in that balloon, +for his hearers were already sufficiently astonished. Already they +considered him to be more than a man of science; he became for them a +composer of epic searchings, a Ulysses of microbe hunters--the first +adventurer of that heroic age to which you will soon come in this +story. + +Many times Pasteur won his arguments by brilliant experiments that +simply floored every one, but sometimes his victories were due to +the weakness or silliness of his opponents, and again they were the +result of--luck. Before a society of chemists Pasteur had insulted +the scientific ability of naturalists; he was astonished, he shouted, +that naturalists didn’t stretch out a hand to the real way of doing +science--that is, to experiments. “I am of the persuasion that that +would put a new sap into their science,” he said. You can imagine +how the naturalists liked that kind of talk; particularly Mr. +Pouchet, director of the Museum of Rouen, did not like it and he was +enthusiastically joined in not liking it by Professor Joly and Mr. +Musset, famous naturalists of the College of Toulouse. Nothing could +convince these enemies of Pasteur that microscopic beasts did not +come to life without parents. They were sure there was such a thing +as life arising spontaneously; they decided to beat Pasteur on his +own ground at his own game. + +Like Pasteur they filled up some flasks, but unlike him they used a +soup of hay instead of yeast, they made a vacuum in their bottles and +hastened to high Maladetta in the Pyrenees, and they kept climbing +until they had got up many feet higher than Pasteur had been on Mont +Blanc. Here, beaten upon by nasty breezes that howled out of the +caverns of the glaciers and sneaked through the thick linings of +their coats, they opened their flasks--Mr. Joly almost slid off the +edge of the ledge and was only saved from a scientific martyr’s death +when a guide grabbed him by the coat tail! Out of breath and chilled +through and through they staggered back to a little tavern and put +their flasks in an improvised incubating oven--and in a few days, to +their joy, they found every one of their bottles swarming with little +creatures. Pasteur was wrong! + +Now the fight was on. Pasteur became publicly sarcastic about the +experiments of Pouchet, Joly and Musset; he made criticisms that +to-day we know are quibbles. Pouchet came back with the remark that +Pasteur “had presented his own flasks as an ultimatum to science +to astonish everybody.” Pasteur was furious, denounced Pouchet as +a liar and bawled for a public apology. It seemed, alas, as if the +truth were going to be decided by the spilling of blood, instead +of by calm experiment. Then Pouchet and Joly and Musset challenged +Pasteur to a public experiment before the Academy of Sciences, and +they said that if one single flask would fail to grow microbes after +it had been opened for an instant, they would admit they were wrong. +The fatal day for the tests dawned at last--what an interesting +day it would have been--but at the last moment Pasteur’s enemies +backed down. Pasteur did his experiments before the Commission--he +did them confidently with ironical remarks--and a little while +later the Commission announced: “The facts observed by Mr. Pasteur +and contested by Messrs. Pouchet, Joly and Musset, are of the most +perfect exactitude.” + +Luckily for Pasteur, but alas for Truth, both sides happened to be +right. Pouchet and his friends had used hay instead of yeast soup, +and a great Englishman, Tyndall, found out years later that hay holds +wee stubborn seeds of microbes that will stand boiling for hours! It +was really Tyndall that finally settled this great quarrel; it was +Tyndall that proved Pasteur was right. + + + V + +Pasteur was now presented to the Emperor Napoleon III. He told that +dreamy gentleman that his whole ambition was to find the microbes +that he was sure must be the cause of disease. He was invited to an +imperial house party at Compiègne. The guests were commanded to get +ready to go hunting, but Pasteur begged to be excused; he had had a +dray load of apparatus sent up from Paris--though he was only staying +at the palace for a week!--and he impressed their Imperial Majesties +enormously by bending over his microscope while everybody else was +occupied with frivolous and gay amusements. + +The world must know that microbes have got to have parents! At Paris +he made a popular speech at the scientific soirée at the Sorbonne, +before Alexandre Dumas, the novelist, and the woman genius, George +Sand, the Princess Mathilde, and a hundred more smart people. That +night he staged a scientific vaudeville that sent his audience home +in awe and worry; he showed them lantern slides of a dozen different +kinds of germs; mysteriously he darkened the hall and suddenly shot +a single bright beam of light through the blackness. “Observe the +thousands of dancing specks of dust in the path of this ray,” he +cried; “the air of this hall is filled with these specks of dust, +these thousands of little nothings that you should not despise +always, for sometimes they carry disease and death; the typhus, the +cholera, the yellow fever and many other pestilences!” This was +dreadful news; his audience shuddered, convinced by his sincerity. +Of course this news was not strictly true, but Pasteur was no +mountebank--he believed it himself! Dust and the microbes of the dust +had become his life--he was obsessed with dust. At dinner, even at +the smartest houses, he would hold his plates and spoons close up to +his nose, peer at them, scour them with his napkin, he was with a +vengeance putting microbes on the map.... + +Every Frenchman from the Emperor down was becoming excited about +Pasteur and his microbes. Whisperings of mysterious and marvelous +events seeped through the gates of the Normal School. Students, +even professors, passed the laboratory a little atremble with awe. +One student might be heard remarking to another, as they passed the +high gray walls of the Normal School in the Rue d’Ulm: “There is a +man working here--his name is Pasteur--who is finding out wonderful +things about the machinery of life, he knows even about the origin of +life, he is even going to find out, perhaps, what causes disease....” +So Pasteur succeeded in getting another year added to the course of +scientific studies; new laboratories began to go up; his students +shed tears of emotion at the fiery eloquence of his lectures. He +talked about microbes causing disease long before he knew anything +about whether or not they caused disease--he hadn’t yet got his +fingers at the throats of mysterious plagues and dreadful deaths, but +he knew there were other ways to interest the public, to arouse even +such a hardheaded person as the average Frenchman. + +“I beg you,” he addressed the French people in a passionate pamphlet, +“take some interest in those sacred dwellings meaningly called +laboratories. Ask that they be multiplied and completed. They are the +temples of the future, of riches and comfort.” Fifty years ahead of +his time as a forward-looking prophet, he held fine austere ideals up +to his countrymen while he appealed to their wishes for a somewhat +piggish material happiness. A good microbe hunter, he was much more +than a mere wool-gathering searcher, much more than a mere man of +science.... + +Once more he started out to show all of France how science could +save money for her industry; he packed up boxes of glassware and an +eager assistant, Duclaux, and bustled off to Arbois, his old home--he +hurried off up there to study the diseases of wine--to save the +imperiled wine industry. He set up his laboratory in what had been an +old café and instead of gas burners he had to be satisfied with an +open charcoal brazier that the enthusiastic Duclaux kept glowing with +a pair of bellows; from time to time Duclaux would scamper across +to the town pump for water; their clumsy apparatus was made by the +village carpenter and tinsmith. Pasteur rushed around to his friends +of long ago and begged bottles of wine, bitter wine, ropy wine, oily +wine; he knew from his old researches that it was yeasts that changed +grapejuice into wine--he felt certain that it must be some other wee +microscopic being that made wines go bad. + +Sure enough! When he turned his lens on to ropy wines he found them +swarming with very tiny curious microbes hitched together like +strings of beads; he found the bottles of bitter wine infested with +another kind of beast and the kegs of turned wine by still another. +Then he called the winegrowers and the merchants of the region +together and proceeded to show them magic. + +“Bring me a half dozen bottles of wine that has gone bad with +different sicknesses,” he asked them. “Do not tell me what is wrong +with them, and I’ll tell you what ails them without tasting them.” +The winegrowers didn’t believe him; among each other they snickered +at him as they went to fetch the bottles of sick wine; they laughed +at the fantastic machinery in the old café; they took Pasteur for +some kind of earnest lunatic. They planned to fool him and brought +him bottles of perfectly good wine among the sick ones. Then he set +about flabbergasting them! With a slender glass tube he sucked a drop +of wine out of a bottle and put it between two little slips of glass +before his microscope. The wine raisers nudged each other and winked +French winks of humorous common sense, while Pasteur sat hunched over +his microscope, and they became more merry as minutes passed.... + +Suddenly he looked at them and said: “There is nothing the matter +with this wine--give it to the taster--let him see if I’m right.” + +The taster did his tasting, then puckered up his purple nose and +admitted that Pasteur was correct; and so it went through a long +row of bottles--when Pasteur looked up from his microscopes and +prophesied: “Bitter wine”--it turned out to be bitter; and when he +foretold that the next sample was ropy, the taster acknowledged that +ropy was right! + +The wine raisers mumbled their thanks and lifted their hats to him +as they left. “We don’t get the way he does this--but he is a very +clever man, very, very clever,” they muttered. That is much for a +peasant Frenchman to admit.... + +When they left, Pasteur and Duclaux worked triumphantly in their +tumbledown laboratory; they tackled the question of how to keep these +microbes out of healthy wines--they found at last that if you heat +wine just after it has finished fermenting, even if you heat it +gently, way below the point of boiling, the microbes that have no +business in the wine will be killed--and the wine will not become +sick. That little trick is now known to everybody by the name of +pasteurization. + +Now that people of the East of France had been shown how to keep +their wine from going bad, the people of the middle of France +clamored for Pasteur to come and save their vinegar-making industry. +So he rushed down to Tours. He had got used to looking for +microscopic beings in all kinds of things by now--he no longer groped +as he had had to do at first; he approached the vinegar kegs, where +wine was turning itself into vinegar, he saw a peculiar-looking scum +on the surface of the liquor in the barrels. “That scum has to be +there, otherwise we get no vinegar,” explained the manufacturers. In +a few weeks of swift, sure-fingered investigation that astonished +the vinegar-makers and their wives, Pasteur found that the scum on +the kegs was nothing more nor less than billions upon billions of +microscopic creatures. He took off great sheets of this scum and +tested it and weighed it and fussed with it, and at last he told an +audience of vinegar-makers and their wives and families that the +microbes which change wine to vinegar actually eat up and turn into +vinegar ten thousand times their own weight of alcohol in a few days. +What gigantic things these infinitely tiny beings can do--think of +a man of two hundred pounds chopping two millions of pounds of wood +in four days! It was by some such homely comparison as this one that +he made microbes part of these humble people’s lives, it was so that +he made them respect these miserably small creatures; it was by +pondering on their fiendish capacity for work that Pasteur himself +got used to the idea that there was nothing so strange about a tiny +beast, no larger than the microbe of vinegar, getting into an ox or +an elephant or a man--and doing him to death. Before he left them he +showed the people of Tours how to cultivate and care for those useful +wee creatures that so strangely added oxygen to wine to turn it into +vinegar--and millions of francs for them. + +These successes made Pasteur drunk with confidence in his method of +experiment; he began to dream impossible gaudy dreams--of immense +discoveries and super-Napoleonic microbe huntings--and he did more +than brood alone over these dreams; he put them into speeches and +preached them. He became, in a word, a new John the Baptist of the +religion of the Germ Theory, but unlike the unlucky Baptist, Pasteur +was a forerunner who lived to see at least some of his prophecies +come true. + +Then for a short time he worked quietly in his laboratory in +Paris--there was nothing for him to save just then--until one day +in 1865 Fate came to his door and knocked. Fate in the guise of his +old professor, Dumas, called on him and asked him to change himself +from a man of science into a silkworm doctor. “What’s wrong with +silkworms? I did not know that they ever had diseases--I know nothing +at all about silkworms--what’s more, I have never even seen one!” +protested Pasteur. + + + VI + +“The silk country of the South is my native country,” answered Dumas. +“I’ve just come back from there--it is terrible--I cannot sleep +nights for thinking of it, my poor country, my village of Alais.... +This country that used to be rich, that used to be gay with mulberry +trees which my people used to call the Golden Tree--this country is +desolate now. The lovely terraces are going to ruin--the people, they +are my people, they are starving....” Tears were in his voice. + +Anything but a respecter of persons, Pasteur who loved and respected +himself above all men, had always kept a touching reverence for +Dumas. He must help his sad old professor! But how? It is doubtful at +this time if Pasteur could have told a silkworm from an angle worm! +Indeed, a little later, when he was first given a cocoon to examine, +he held it up to his ear, shook it, and cried: “Why, there is +something inside it!” Pasteur hated to go South to try to find out +what ailed silkworms, he knew he risked a horrid failure by going and +he detested failure above everything. But it is one of the charming +things about him that in the midst of all his arrogance, his vulgar +sureness of himself, he had kept that boyish love and reverence for +his old master--so he said to Dumas: “I am in your hands, I’m at your +disposal, do with me as you wish--I will go!” + +So he went. He packed up the never complaining Madame Pasteur and +the children and a microscope and three energetic and worshiping +young assistants and he went into the epidemic that was slaughtering +millions of silkworms and ruining the South of France. Knowing less +of silkworms and their sicknesses than a babe in swaddling clothes +he arrived in Alais; he got there and he learned that a silkworm +spins a cocoon round itself and turns into a chrysalid inside the +cocoon; he found out that the chrysalid changes into a moth that +climbs out and lays eggs--which hatch out the next spring into new +broods of young silkworms. The silkworm growers--disgusted at his +great ignorance--told him that the disease which was killing their +worms was called _pébrine_, because the sick worms were covered with +little black spots that looked like pepper. Pasteur found out that +there were a thousand or so theories about the sickness, but that the +little pepper spots--and the curious little globules inside the sick +worms, wee globules that you could only see with a microscope--were +the only facts that were known about it. + +Then Pasteur unlimbered his microscope, before he had got his family +settled--he was like one of those trout fishing maniacs who starts +to cast without thought of securing his canoe safely on the bank--he +unlimbered his microscope, I say, and began to peer at the insides +of sick worms, and particularly at these wee globules. Quickly he +concluded that the globules were a sure sign of the disease. Fifteen +days after he had come to Alais he called the Agricultural Committee +together and told them: “At the moment of egg-laying put aside each +couple of moths, the father and the mother. Let them mate; let the +mother lay her eggs--then pin the father and mother moths down onto +a little board, slit open their bellies and take out a little of +the fatty tissue under their skin; put this under a microscope and +look for those tiny globules. If you can’t find any, you can be sure +the eggs are sound--you can use those eggs for new silkworms in the +spring.” + +The committee looked at the shining microscope. “We farmers can’t +run a machine like that,” they objected. They were suspicious, they +didn’t believe in this newfangled machine. Then the salesman that +was in Pasteur came to the front. “Nonsense!” he answered. “There is +an eight-year-old girl in my laboratory who handles this microscope +easily and is perfectly able to spot these little globules--these +corpuscles--and then you grown men try to tell me you couldn’t learn +to use a microscope!” So he shamed them. And the committee obediently +bought microscopes and tried to follow his directions. Then Pasteur +started a hectic life; he was everywhere around the tragic silk +country, lecturing, asking innumerable questions, teaching the +farmers to use microscopes, rushing back to the laboratory to direct +his assistants--he directed them to do complicated experiments that +he hadn’t time to do, or even watch, himself--and in the evenings he +dictated answers to letters and scientific papers and speeches to +Madame Pasteur. The next morning he was off again to the neighboring +towns, cheering up despairing farmers and haranguing them.... + +But the next spring his bubble burst, alas. The next spring, when it +came time for the worms to climb their mulberry twigs to spin their +silk cocoons, there was a horrible disaster. His confident prophecy +to the farmers did not come true. These honest people glued their +eyes to their microscopes to pick out the healthy moths, so as to +get healthy eggs, eggs without the evil globules in them--and these +supposed healthy eggs hatched worms, sad to tell, who grew miserably, +languid worms who would not eat, strange worms who failed to molt, +sick worms who shriveled up and died, lazy worms who hung around at +the bottoms of their twigs, not caring whether there was ever another +silk stocking on the leg of any fine lady in the world. + +Poor Pasteur! He had been so busy trying to save the silkworm +industry that he hadn’t taken time to find out what really ailed the +silkworms. Glory had seduced him into becoming a mere savior--for a +moment he forgot that Truth is a will o’ the wisp that can only be +caught in the net of glory-scorning patient experiment.... + +Some silkworm raisers laughed despairing laughs at him--others +attacked him bitterly; dark days were on him. He worked the harder +for them, but he couldn’t find bottom. He came on broods of silkworms +who fairly galloped up the twigs and proceeded to spin elegant +cocoons--then at the microscope he found these beasts swarming +with the tiny globules. He discovered other broods that sulked +on their branches and melted away with a gassy diarrhœa and died +miserably--but in these he could find no globules whatever. He became +completely mixed up; he began to doubt whether the globules had +anything to do with the disease. Then to make things worse, mice got +into the broods of his experimental worms and made cheerful meals on +them and poor Duclaux, Maillot and Gernez had to stay up by turns all +night to catch the raiding mice; next morning everybody would be just +started working when black clouds appeared in the West, and all of +them--Madame Pasteur and the children bringing up the rear--had to +scurry out to cover up the mulberry trees. In the evenings Pasteur +had to settle his tired back in an armchair, to dictate answers to +peeved silkworm growers who had lost everything--using his method of +sorting eggs. + +After a series of such weary months, his instinct to do experiments, +this instinct--and the Goddess of Chance--came together to save him. +He pondered to himself: “I’ve at least managed to scrape together a +few broods of healthy worms--if I feed these worms mulberry leaves +smeared with the discharges of sick worms, will the healthy worms +die?” He tried it, and the healthy worms died sure enough, but, +confound it! the experiment was a fizzle again--for instead of +getting covered with pepper spots and dying slowly in twenty-five +days or so, as worms always do of _pébrine_--the worms of his +experiment curled up and passed away in seventy-two hours. He was +discouraged, he stopped his experiments; his faithful assistants +worried about him--why didn’t he try the experiment over? + +At last Gernez went off to the north to study the silk worms of +Valenciennes, and Pasteur, not clearly knowing the reason why, wrote +to him and asked him to do that feeding experiment up there. Gernez +had some nice broods of healthy worms. Gernez was sure in his own +head--no matter what his chief might think--that the wee globules +were really living things, parasites, assassins of the silkworm. He +took forty healthy worms and fed them on good healthy mulberry leaves +that had never been fed on by sick beasts. These worms proceeded +to spin twenty-seven good cocoons and there were no globules in +the moths that came from them. He smeared some other leaves with +crushed-up sick moths and fed them to some day-old worms--and these +worms wasted away to a slow death, they became covered with pepper +spots and their bodies swarmed with the sub-visible globules. He took +some more leaves with crushed-up sick moths and fed these to some +old worms just ready to spin cocoons; the worms lived to spin the +cocoons, but the moths that came out of the cocoons were loaded with +the globules, and the worms from their eggs came to nothing. Gernez +was excited--and he became more excited when still nights at his +microscope showed him that the globules increased tremendously as the +worms faded to their deaths.... + +Gernez hurried to Pasteur. “It is solved,” he cried, “the little +globules are alive--they are _parasites_!--They are what make the +worms sick!” + +It was six months before Pasteur was convinced that Gernez was right, +but when at last he understood, he swooped back on his work, and +once more called the Committee together. “The little corpuscles are +not only a sign of the disease, they are its cause. These globules +are alive, they multiply, they force themselves into every part of +the moth’s body. Where we made our mistake was to examine only a +little part of the moth, we only looked under the skin of the moth’s +belly--we’ve got to grind up the whole beast and examine all of it. +Then if we do not find the globules we can safely use the eggs for +next year’s worms!” + +The committee tried the new scheme and it worked--the next year they +had fine worms that gave them splendid yields of silk. + +Pasteur saw now that the little globule, the cause of the _pébrine_, +came from outside the worm--it did not rise by itself inside the +worm--and he went everywhere, showing the farmers how to keep their +healthy worms away from all contact with leaves that sick worms +had soiled. Then suddenly he fell a victim of a hemorrhage of the +brain--he nearly died, but when he heard that work of building his +new laboratory had been stopped, frugally stopped in expectation +of his death, he was furious and made up his mind to live. He was +paralyzed on one side after that--he never got over it--but he +earnestly read Dr. Smiles’ book, “Self Help,” and vigorously decided +to work in spite of his handicap. At a time when he should have +stayed in his bed, or have gone to the seaside, he staggered to his +feet and limped to the train for the South, exclaiming indignantly +that it would be criminal not to finish saving the silkworms while so +many poor people were starving! All Frenchmen, excepting a few nasty +fellows who called it a magnificent gesture, joined in praising him +and adoring him. + +For six years Pasteur struggled with the diseases of silkworms. He +had no sooner settled _pébrine_ than another malady of these unhappy +beasts popped up, but he knew his problem and found the microbe of +this new disease much more quickly. Tears of joy were in the voice of +old Dumas now as he thanked his dear Pasteur--and the mayor of the +town of Alais talked enthusiastically of raising a golden statue to +the great Pasteur. + + + VII + +He was forty-five. He wallowed in this glory for a moment, and +then--having saved the silkworm industry, with the help of God and +Gernez--he raised his eyes toward one of those bright, impossible, +but always partly true visions that it was his poet’s gift to see. +He raised his artist’s eyes from the sicknesses of silkworms to +the sorrows of men, he sounded a trumpet call of hope to suffering +mankind: + +“It is in the power of man to make parasitic maladies disappear from +the face of the globe, if the doctrine of spontaneous generation is +wrong, as I am sure it is.” + +The siege of Paris in the bitter winter of 1870 had driven him from +his work to his old home in the Jura hills. He wandered pitifully +around battlefields looking for his son who was a sergeant. Here he +worked himself up into a tremendous hate, a hate that never left him, +of all things German; he became a professional patriot. “Every one of +my works will bear on its title page, ‘Hatred to Prussia. Revenge! +Revenge!’” he shrieked, good loyal Frenchman that he was. Then with +a magnificent silliness he proceeded to make his next research a +revenge research. Even he had to admit that French beer was much +inferior to the beer of the Germans. Well--he would make the beer of +France better than the beer of Germany--he must make the French beer +the peer of beers, no, the emperor of all beers of the world! + +He embarked on vast voyages to the great breweries of France and here +he questioned everybody from the brewmaster in his studio to the +lowest workman that cleaned out the vats. He journeyed to England and +gave advice to those red-faced artists who made English porter and +to the brewers of the divine ale of Bass and Burton. He trained his +microscope on the must of a thousand beer vats to watch the yeast +globules at their work of budding and making alcohol. Sometimes he +discovered the same kind of miserable sub-visible beings that he had +found in sick wines years before, and he told the brewers that if +they would heat their beer, they would keep these invaders out; he +assured them that then they would be able to ship their beer long +distances, that then they would be able to brew the most incredibly +marvelous of all beers! He begged money for his laboratory from +brewers, explaining to them how they would be repaid a thousand fold, +and with this money he turned his old laboratory at the Normal School +into a small scientific brewery that glittered with handsome copper +vats and burnished kettles. + +But in the midst of all this feverish work, alas, Pasteur grew sick +of working on beer. He hated the taste of beer just as he loathed the +smell of tobacco smoke; to his disgust he found that he would have to +become a good beer-taster in order to become a great beer-scientist, +to his dismay he discovered that there was much more to the art of +brewing than simply keeping vicious invading microbes out of beer +vats. He puckered his snub nose and buried his serious mustache in +foamy mugs and guzzled determined draughts of the product of his +pretty kettles--but he detested this beer, even good beer, in fact +all beer. Bertin, the physics professor, his old friend, smacked +his lips and laughed at him as he swallowed great gulps of beer +that Pasteur had denounced as worthless. Even the young assistants +snickered--but never to his face. Pasteur, most versatile of men, +was after all not a god. He was an investigator and a marvelous +missionary--but beer-loving is a gift that is born in a limited +number of connoisseurs, just as the ear for telling good music from +trash is born in some men! + +Pasteur did help the French beer industry. For that we have the +testimony of the good brewers themselves. It is my duty to doubt, +however, the claims of those idolizers of his who insist that he made +French the equal of German beer. I do not deny this claim, but I beg +that it be submitted to a commission, one of those solemn impartial +international commissions, the kind of commission that Pasteur +himself so often demanded to decide before all the world whether he +or his detested opponents were in the right.... + +Pasteur’s life was becoming more and more unlike the austere +cloistered existence that most men of science lead. His experiments +became powerful answers to the objections that swarmed on every side +against his theory of germs, they became loud public answers to such +objections--rather than calm quests after facts; but in spite of his +dragging science into the market place, there is no doubt that his +experiments were marvelously made, that they fired the hopes and the +imagination of the world. He got himself into a noisy argument on the +way yeasts turn grape juice into wine, with two French naturalists, +Frémy and Trécul. Frémy admitted that yeasts were needed to make +alcohol from grape juice, but he argued ignorantly before the amused +Academy that yeasts were spontaneously generated inside of grapes. +The wise men of the Academy pooh-poohed; they were amused, all except +Pasteur. + +[Illustration: (line drawing of a round-bellied flask)] + +“So Frémy says that yeasts rise by themselves inside the grape!” +cried Pasteur. “Well, let him answer this experiment then!” He took +a great number of round-bellied flasks and filled them part full +of grape juice. He drew each one out into a swan’s neck; then he +boiled the grape juice in all of them for a few minutes and for +days and weeks this grape juice, in every one of all these flasks, +showed no bubbles, no yeasts, there was no fermentation in them. +Then Pasteur went to a vineyard and gathered a few grapes--they were +just ripe--and with a pure water he washed the outsides of them with +a clean, heated, badger hairbrush. He put a drop of the wash water +under his lens--sure enough!--there were globules, a few wee globes, +of yeasts. Then he took ten of his swan neck flasks and ingeniously +sealed straight tubes of glass into their sides, and through these +straight tubes in each one he put a drop of this wash water from the +ripe grapes. Presto! Every one of these ten flasks was filled to the +neck in a few days with the pink foam of a good fermentation. There +was a little of the wash water left; he boiled that and put drops of +this through the straight tubes of ten more flasks. “Just so!” he +cried a few days later, “there’s no fermentation in these flasks, the +boiling has killed the yeasts in the wash water.” + +“Now I shall do the most remarkable experiment of all--I’ll prove to +this ignorant Frémy that there are no yeasts inside of ripe grapes,” +and he took a little hollow tube with a sharp point, sealed shut; +it was a little tube he had heated very hot in an oven to kill all +life--all yeasts--that might have been in it. Carefully he forced the +sharp closed point of the tube through the skin into the middle of +the grape; delicately he broke the sealed tip _inside_ the grape--and +the little drop of juice that welled up into the tube he transferred +with devilish cunning into another swan-necked flask part filled with +grape juice. A few days later he cried, “That finishes Frémy--there +is no fermentation in this flask at all--there is no yeast inside +the grape!” He went on to one of those sweeping statements he loved +to make: “Microbes never rise by themselves inside of grapes, or +silkworms, or inside of healthy animals--in animal’s blood or urine. +All microbes have to get in from the _outside_! That settles Frémy.” +Then you can fancy him whispering to himself: “The world will soon +learn the miracles that will grow from this little experiment.” + + + VIII + +Surely it looked then as if Pasteur had a right to his fantastic +dreams of wiping out disease. He had just received a worshiping +letter from the English surgeon Lister--and this letter told of a +scheme for cutting up sick people in safety, of doing operations in +a way that kept out that deadly mysterious infection that in many +hospitals killed eight people out of ten. “Permit me,” wrote Lister, +“to thank you cordially for having shown me the truth of the theory +of germs of putrefaction by your brilliant researches, and for +having given me the single principle which has made the antiseptic +system a success. If you ever come to Edinburgh it will be a real +recompense to you, I believe, to see in our hospital in how large a +measure humanity has profited from your work.” + +Like a boy who has just built a steam engine all by himself Pasteur +was proud; he showed the letter to all his friends; he inserted it +with all its praise in his scientific papers; he published it--of all +places--in his book on beer! Then he took a final smash at poor old +Frémy, who you would have thought was already sufficiently crushed by +the gorgeous experiments; he smashed Frémy not by damning Frémy, but +by praising himself! He spoke of his own “remarkable discoveries,” he +called his own theories the true ones and ended: “In a word, the mark +of true theories is their fruitfulness. This is the characteristic +which Mr. Balard, with an entirely fatherly friendliness, has made +stand out in speaking of my researches.” Frémy had no more to say. + +All Europe by now was in a furor about microbes, and he knew it +was himself that had changed microbes from playthings into useful +helpers of mankind--and perhaps, the world would soon be astounded +by it--into dread infinitesimal ogres and murdering marauders, +the worst enemies of the race. He had become the first citizen of +France and even in Denmark prominent brewers were having his bust +put in their laboratories. When suddenly Claude Bernard died, and +some of Bernard’s friends published this great man’s unfinished +work. Horrible to tell, this unfinished work had for its subject +fermentation of grape juice into wine, and it ended by showing that +the whole theory of Pasteur was destroyed because ... and Bernard +closed by giving a series of reasons. + +Pasteur could not believe his eyes. Bernard had done this, the great +Bernard who had been his seatmate in the Academy and had always +praised his work; Bernard who had exchanged sly sarcastic remarks +with him at the Academy of Medicine about those blue-coated pompous +brass-buttoned doctors whose talk was keeping real experiment out of +medicine. “It’s bad enough for these doctors and these half-witted +naturalists to contradict me--but truly great men have always +appreciated my work--and now Bernard ...” you can hear him muttering. + +Pasteur was overwhelmed, but only for a moment. He demanded Bernard’s +original manuscript. They gave it to him. He studied it with all the +close attention in his power. He found Bernard’s experiments were +only beginnings, rough sketches; gleefully he found that Bernard’s +friends who had published it had made some discreet changes to make +it read better. Then he rose one day, to the scandal of the entire +Academy and the shocked horror of all the great men of France, and +bitterly scolded Bernard’s friends for publishing a research that had +dared to question his own theories. Vulgarly he shouted objections +at Bernard--who, after all, could not answer Pasteur from his grave. +Then he published a pamphlet against his old dead friend’s last +researches. It was a pamphlet in the worst of taste, accusing Bernard +of having lost his memory. That pamphlet even claimed that Bernard, +who was to his finger tips a hard man of science, had become tainted +with mystical ideas by associating too much with literary lights +of the French Academy. It even proved that in his last researches +Bernard couldn’t see well any more--“I’ll wager he had become +farsighted and could not see the yeasts!” cried Pasteur. Vulgarly, +by all this criticism, he left people to conclude that Bernard had +been in his dotage when he did his last work--without any sense of +the fitness of things this passionate Pasteur jumped up and down on +Bernard’s grave. + +Finally he argued with Bernard by beautiful experiments--a thing +most other men would have done without making unseemly remarks. Like +an American about to build a skyscraper in six weeks he rushed to +carpenters and hardware stores and bought huge pieces of expensive +glass and with this glass he had the carpenters build ingenious +portable hothouses. His assistants worked dinnerless and sleepless, +preparing flasks and microscopes and wads of heated cotton; and in +an unbelievably short time Pasteur gathered up all this ponderous +paraphernalia and hastened to catch a train for his old home in +the Jura mountains. Like the so typical misplaced American that he +really was, he threw every consideration and all other work to the +winds and went directly to the point of settling: “Does my theory of +fermentation hold?” + +Coming to his own little vineyard in Arbois, he hastily put up his +hothouses around a part of his grape-vines. They were admirable +close-fitting hothouses that sealed the grape-vines from the +outside air. “It’s midsummer, now, the grapes are far from ripe,” +he pondered, “and I know that at this time there are never any +yeasts to be found on the grapes.” Then, to make doubly sure that no +yeasts from the air could fall on the grapes, he carefully wrapped +wads of cotton--which his assistants had heated to kill all living +beings--around some of the bunches under the glass of the hothouses. +He hurried back to Paris and waited nervously for the grapes to +ripen. He went back to Arbois too soon in his frantic eagerness to +prove that Bernard was wrong--but at last he got there to find them +ripe. He examined the hothouse grapes with his microscope; there +was not a yeast to be found on their skins. Feverishly he crushed +some of them up in carefully heated bottles--not a single bubble of +fermentation rose in these flasks--and when he did the same thing to +the exposed grapes from the vines outside the hothouse, these bubbled +quickly into wine! At last he gathered up Madame Pasteur and some of +the vines with their cotton-wrapped bunches of grapes--he was going +to take these back to the Academy, where he would offer a bunch to +each member that wanted one, and he was going to challenge everybody +to try to make wine from these protected bunches.... He knew they +couldn’t do it without putting yeasts into them.... He would show +them all Bernard was wrong! Madame Pasteur sat stiffly in the train +all the way back to Paris, carefully holding the twigs straight up in +front of her so that the cotton wrappings wouldn’t come undone. It +was a whole day’s trip to Paris.... + +Then at the next meeting Pasteur told the Academy of how he had +quarantined his grape-vines against yeasts: “Is it not worthy of +attention,” he shouted, “that in this vineyard of Arbois, and this +would be true of millions of acres of vineyards all over the world, +there was at the moment I made these experiments, not a speck of soil +which was not capable of fermenting grapes into wine; and is it not +remarkable that, on the contrary, the soil of my hothouses could not +do this? And why? Because at a definite moment, I covered this soil +with some glass....” + +Then he jumped to marvelous predictions, prophecies that have since +his time come true, he leaped to poetry, I say, that makes you forget +his vulgar wrangling with his dead friend Bernard. “Must we not +believe, as well, that a day will come when preventive measures that +are easy to apply, will arrest those plagues ...” and he painted +them a lurid picture of the terrible yellow fever that just then +had changed the gay streets of New Orleans into a desolation. He +made them shiver to hear of the black plague on the far banks of the +Volga. Finally he made them hope.... + +Meanwhile in a little village in Eastern Germany a young stubborn +round-headed Prussian doctor was starting on his road to those very +miracles that Pasteur was prophesying--this young doctor was doing +strange experiments with mice in time stolen from his practice. He +was devising ingenious ways to handle microbes so that he could be +dead sure he was handling only one kind--he was learning to do a +thing that Pasteur with all his brilliant skill had never succeeded +in doing. Let us leave Pasteur for a while--even though he is +on the threshold of his most exciting experiments and funniest +arguments--let us leave him for a chapter and go with Robert Koch, +while he is learning to do fantastic, and marvelously important +things with those microbes which had been subjects of Pasteur’s +kingdom for so many years. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + KOCH + + THE DEATH FIGHTER + + + I + +In those astounding and exciting years between 1860 and 1870, when +Pasteur was saving vinegar industries and astonishing emperors +and finding out what ailed sick silkworms, a small, serious, and +nearsighted German was learning to be a doctor at the University +of Göttingen. His name was Robert Koch. He was a good student, but +while he hacked at cadavers he dreamed of going tiger-hunting in the +jungle. Conscientiously he memorized the names of several hundred +bones and muscles, but the fancied moan of the whistles of steamers +bound for the East chased this Greek and Latin jargon out of his head. + +Koch wanted to be an explorer; or to be a military surgeon and win +Iron Crosses; or to be ship’s doctor and voyage to impossible places. +But alas, when he graduated from the medical college in 1866 he +became an interne in a not very interesting insane asylum in Hamburg. +Here, busy with raving maniacs and helpless idiots, the echoes +of Pasteur’s prophecies that there were such things as terrible +man-killing microbes hardly reached Koch’s ears. He was still +listening for steamer-whistles and in the evenings he took walks down +by the wharves with Emmy Fraatz; he begged her to marry him; he held +out the bait of romantic trips around the world to her. Emmy told +Robert that she would marry him, but on condition that he forget this +nonsense about an adventurous life, provided that he would settle +down to be a practicing doctor, a good useful citizen, in Germany. + +Koch listened to Emmy--for a moment the allure of fifty years of +bliss with her chased away his dreams of elephants and Patagonia--and +he settled down to practice medicine; he began what was to him +a totally uninteresting practice of medicine in a succession of +unromantic Prussian villages. + +Just now, while Koch wrote prescriptions and rode horseback through +the mud and waited up nights for Prussian farmer women to have their +babies, Lister in Scotland was beginning to save the lives of women +in childbirth--by keeping microbes away from them. The professors and +the students of the medical colleges of Europe were beginning to be +excited and to quarrel about Pasteur’s theory of malignant microbes, +here and there men were trying crude experiments, but Koch was almost +as completely cut off from this world of science as old Leeuwenhoek +had been, two hundred years before, when he first fumbled at +grinding glass into lenses in Delft in Holland. It looked as if his +fate was to be the consoling of sick people and the beneficent and +praiseworthy attempt to save the lives of dying people--mostly, of +course, he did not save them--and his wife Emmy was quite satisfied +with this and was proud when Koch earned five dollars and forty-five +cents on especially busy days. + +But Robert Koch was restless. He trekked from one deadly village to +another still more uninteresting, until at last he came to Wollstein, +in East Prussia, and here, on his twenty-eighth birthday, Mrs. Koch +bought him a microscope to play with. + +You can hear the good woman say: “Maybe that will take Robert’s mind +off what he calls his stupid practice ... perhaps this will satisfy +him a little ... he’s always looking at everything with his old +magnifying glass....” + +Alas for her, this new microscope, this plaything, took her husband +on more curious adventures than any he would have met in Tahiti or +Lahore; and these weird experiences--that Pasteur had dreamed of +but which no man had ever had before--came on him out of the dead +carcasses of sheep and cows. These new sights and adventures jumped +at him impossibly on his very doorstep, and in his own drug-reeking +office that he was so tired of, that he was beginning to loathe. + +“I hate this bluff that my medical practice is ... it isn’t because I +do not _want_ to save babies from diphtheria ... but mothers come to +me crying--asking me to save their babies--and what can I do?--Grope +... fumble ... reassure them when I know there is no hope.... How +can I cure diphtheria when I do not even know what causes it, when +the wisest doctor in Germany doesn’t know?...” So you can imagine +Koch complaining bitterly to Emmy, who was irritated and puzzled, and +thought that it was a young doctor’s business to do as well as he +could with the great deal of knowledge that he had got at the medical +school--oh! would he never be satisfied? + +But Koch was right. What, indeed, did doctors know about the +mysterious causes of disease? Pasteur’s experiments were brilliant, +but they had proved nothing about the how and why of human +sicknesses. Pasteur was a trail-blazer, a fore-runner crying possible +future great victories over disease, shouting about magnificent +stampings out of epidemics; but meanwhile the moujiks of desolate +towns in Russia were still warding off scourges by hitching four +widows to a plow and with them drawing a furrow round their villages +in the dead of night--and their doctors had no sounder protection to +offer them. + +“But the professors, the great doctors in Berlin, Robert, they +must know what is the cause of these sicknesses you don’t know how +to stop.” So Frau Koch might have tried to console him. But in +1873--that is only fifty years ago--I must repeat that the most +eminent doctors had not one bit better explanation for the causes of +epidemics than the ignorant Russian villagers who hitched the town +widows to their plows. In Paris Pasteur was preaching that microbes +would soon be found to be the murderers of consumptives: and against +this crazy prophet rose the whole corps of the doctors of Paris, +headed by the distinguished brass-buttoned Doctor Pidoux. + +“What!” roared this Pidoux, “consumption due to a germ--one definite +kind of germ? Nonsense! A fatal thought! Consumption is one and many +at the same time. Its conclusion is the necrobiotic and infecting +destruction of the plasmatic tissue of an organ by a number of roads +that the hygienist and the physician must endeavor to close!” It +was so that the doctors fought Pasteur’s prophecies with utterly +meaningless and often idiotic words. + + + II + +Koch was spending his evenings fussing with his new microscope, he +was beginning to find out just the right amount of light to shoot up +into its lens with the reflecting mirror, he was learning just how +needful it was to have his thin glass slides shining clean--those +bits of glass on which he liked to put drops of blood from the +carcasses of sheep and cows, that had died of anthrax.... + +Anthrax was a strange disease which was worrying farmers all over +Europe, that here and there ruined some prosperous owner of a +thousand sheep, that in another place sneaked in and killed the +cow--the one support--of a poor widow. There was no rime or reason to +the way this plague conducted its maraudings; one day a fat lamb in a +flock might be frisking about, that evening this same lamb refused to +eat, his head drooped a little--and the next morning the farmer would +find him cold and stiff, his blood turned ghastly black. Then the +same thing would happen to another lamb, and a sheep, four sheep, six +sheep--there was no stopping it. And then the farmer himself, and a +shepherd, and a woolsorter, and a dealer in hides might break out in +horrible boils--or gasp out their last breaths in a swift pneumonia. + +Koch had started using his microscope with the more or less thorough +aimlessness of old Leeuwenhoek; he examined everything under the +sun, until he ran on to this blood of sheep and cattle dead of +anthrax. Then he began to concentrate, to forget about making a call +when he found a dead sheep in a field--he haunted butcher shops to +find out about the farms where anthrax was killing the flocks. Koch +hadn’t the leisure of Leeuwenhoek; he had to snatch moments for his +peerings, between prescribing for some child that bawled with a +bellyache and the pulling out of a villager’s aching tooth. In these +interrupted hours he put drops of the blackened blood of a cow dead +of anthrax between two thin pieces of glass, very clean shining bits +of glass. He looked down the tube of his microscope and among the wee +round drifting greenish globules of this blood he saw strange things +that looked like little sticks. Sometimes these sticks were short, +there might be only a few of them, floating, quivering a little, +among the blood globules. But here were others, hooked together +without joints--many of them ingeniously glued together till they +appeared to him like long threads a thousand times thinner than the +finest silk. + +“What are these things ... are they microbes ... are they alive? +They do not move ... maybe the sick blood of these poor beasts just +changes into these threads and rods,” Koch pondered. Other men of +science, Davaine and Rayer in France, had seen these same things in +the blood of dead sheep; and they had announced that these rods were +bacilli, living germs, that they were undoubtedly the real cause of +anthrax--but they hadn’t proved it, and except for Pasteur, no one +in Europe believed them. But Koch was not particularly interested in +what anybody else thought about the threads and rods in the blood +of dead sheep and cattle--the doubts and the laughter of doctors +failed to disturb him, and the enthusiasms of Pasteur did not for +one moment make him jump at conclusions. Luckily nobody anxious to +develop young microbe hunters had ever heard of Koch, he was a lone +wolf searcher--he was his own man, alone with the mysterious tangled +threads in the blood of the dead beasts. + +“I do not see a way yet of finding out whether these little sticks +and threads are alive,” he meditated, “but there are other things +to learn about them....” Then, curiously, he stopped studying +diseased creatures and began fussing around with perfectly healthy +ones. He went down to the slaughter houses and visited the string +butchers and hobnobbed with the meat merchants of Wollstein, and +got bits of blood from tens, dozens, fifties of healthy beasts that +had been slaughtered for meat. He stole a little more time from his +tooth-pullings and professional layings-on-of-hands. More and more +Mrs. Koch worried at his not tending to his practice. He bent over +his microscope, hours on end, watching the drops of healthy blood. + +“Those threads and rods are never found in the blood of any healthy +animal,” Koch pondered, “--this is all very well, but it doesn’t tell +me whether they are bacilli, whether they are alive ... it doesn’t +show me that they grow, breed, multiply....” + +But how to find this out? Consumptives--whom, alas, he could not +help--babies choking with diphtheria, old ladies who imagined they +were sick, all his cares of a good physician began to be shoved away +into one corner of his head. How-to-prove-these-wee-sticks-are-alive, +this question made him forget to sign his name to prescriptions, it +made him a morose husband, it made him call the carpenter in to put +up a partition in his doctor’s office. And behind this wall Koch +stayed more and more hours, with his microscope and drops of black +blood of sheep mysteriously dead--and with a growing number of cages +full of scampering white mice. + +“I haven’t the money to buy sheep and cows for my experiments,” +you can hear him muttering, while some impatient invalid shuffled +her feet in the waiting room, “besides, cows would be a little +inconvenient to have around my office--but maybe I can give anthrax +to these mice ... maybe in them I can prove that the sticks really +grow....” + +So this foiled globe-trotter started on his strange explorations. +To me Koch is a still more weird and uncanny microbe hunter than +Leeuwenhoek, certainly he was just as much of a self-made scientist. +Koch was poor, he had his nose on the grindstone of a medical +practice, all the science he knew was what a common medical course +had taught him--and from this, God knows, he had learned nothing +whatever about the art of doing experiments; he had no apparatus but +Emmy’s birthday present, that beloved microscope--everything else he +had to invent and fashion out of bits of wood and strings and sealing +wax. Worst of all, when he came into the living room from his mice +and microscope to tell Frau Koch about the new strange things he had +discovered, this good lady wrinkled up her nose and told him: + +“But, Robert, you smell so!” + +Then he hit upon a sure way to give mice the fatal disease of +anthrax. He hadn’t a convenient syringe with which to shoot the +poisonous blood into them, but after sundry cursings and the ruin of +a number of perfectly good mice, he took slivers of wood, cleaned +them carefully, heated them in an oven to kill any chance ordinary +microbes that might be sticking to them. These slivers he dipped +into drops of blood from sheep dead of anthrax, blood filled with +the mysterious, motionless threads and rods, and then--heaven knows +how he managed to hold his wiggling mouse--he made a little cut with +a clean knife at the root of the tail of the mouse, and into this +cut he delicately slid the blood-soaked splinter. He dropped this +mouse into a separate cage and washed his hands and went off in a +kind of conscientious wool-gathering way to see what was wrong with +a sick baby.... “Will that beast, that mouse die of anthrax.... Your +child will be able to go back to school next week, Frau Schmidt.... +I hope I didn’t get any of that anthrax blood into that cut on my +finger....” Such was Koch’s life. + +And next morning Koch came into his home-made laboratory--to find +the mouse on its back, stiff, its formerly sleek fur standing on end +and its whiteness of yesterday turned into a leaden blue, its legs +sticking up in the air. He heated his knives, fastened the poor dead +creature onto a board, dissected it, opened it down to its liver and +lights, peered into every corner of its carcass. “Yes, this looks +like the inside of an anthrax sheep ... see the spleen, how big, how +black it is ... it almost fills the creature’s body....” Swiftly he +cut with a clean heated knife into this swollen spleen and put a drop +of the blackish ooze from it before his lens.... + +At last he muttered: “They’re here, these sticks and threads ... +they are swarming in the body of this mouse, exactly as they were in +the drop of dead sheep’s blood that I dipped the little sliver in +yesterday.” Delighted, Koch knew that he had caused in the mouse, so +cheap to buy, so easy to handle, the sickness of sheep and cows and +men. Then for a month his life became a monotony of one dead mouse +after another, as, day after day, he took a drop of the blood or the +spleen of one dead beast, put it carefully on a clean splinter, and +slid this sliver into a cut at the root of the tail of a new healthy +mouse. Each time, next morning, Koch came into his laboratory to +find the new animal had died, of anthrax, and each time in the blood +of the dead beast his lens showed him myriads of those sticks and +tangled threads--those motionless, twenty-five-thousandth-of-an-inch +thick filaments that he could never discover in the blood of any +healthy animal. + +“These threads _must_ be alive,” Koch pondered, “the sliver that I +put into the mouse has a drop of blood on it and that drop holds only +a few hundreds of those sticks--and these have grown into billions +in the short twenty-four hours in which the beast became sick and +died.... But, confound it, I must _see_ these rods grow--and I can’t +look inside a live mouse!” + +How--shall--I--find--a--way--to--see--the--rods--grow--out--into--threads? +This question pounded at him while he counted pulses and looked at +his patients’ tongues. In the evenings he hurried through supper and +growled good-night to Mrs. Koch and shut himself up in his little +room that smelled of mice and disinfectant, and tried to find ways +to grow his threads outside a mouse’s body. At this time Koch knew +little or nothing about the yeast soups and flasks of Pasteur, and +the experiments he fussed with had the crude originality of the first +cave man trying to make fire. + +“I will try to make these threads multiply in something that is as +near as possible like the stuff an animal’s body is made of--it must +be just like living stuff,” Koch muttered, and he put a wee pin-point +piece of spleen from a dead mouse--spleen that was packed with the +tangled threads, into a little drop of the watery liquid from the +eye of an ox. “That ought to be good food for them,” he grumbled. +“But maybe, too, the threads have got to have the temperature of a +mouse’s body to grow,” he said, and he built with his own hands a +clumsy incubator, heated by an oil lamp. In this uncertain machine +he deposited the two flat pieces of glass between which he had put +the drop of liquid from the ox-eye. Then, in the middle of the night, +after he had gone to bed, but not to sleep, he got up to turn the +wick of his smoky incubator lamp down a little, and instead of going +back to rest, again and again he slid the thin strips of glass with +their imprisoned infinitely little sticks before his microscope. +Sometimes he thought he could see them growing--but he could not +be sure, because other microbes, swimming and cavorting ones, had +an abominable way of getting in between these strips of glass, +over-growing, choking out the slender dangerous rods of anthrax. + +“I must grow my rods pure, absolutely pure, without any other +microbes around,” he muttered. And he kept flounderingly trying ways +to do this, and his perplexity pushed up huge wrinkles over the +bridge of his nose, and built crow’s-feet round his eyes.... + +Then one day a perfectly easy, a foolishly simple way to watch +his rods grow flashed into Koch’s head. “I’ll put them in a +_hanging-drop_, where no other bugs can get in among them,” he +muttered. On a flat, clear piece of glass, very thin, which he had +heated thoroughly to destroy all chance microbes, Koch placed a +drop of the watery fluid of an eye from a just-butchered healthy +ox; into this drop he delicately inserted the wee-est fragment of +spleen, fresh out of a mouse that had a moment before died miserably +of anthrax. Over the drop he put a thick oblong piece of glass with +a concave well scooped out of it so that the drop would not be +touched. Around this well he had smeared some vaseline to make the +thin glass stick to the thick one. Then, dextrously, he turned this +simple apparatus upside down, and presto!--here was his hanging-drop, +his ox-eye fluid with its rod-swarming spleen, imprisoned in the +well--away from all other microbes. + +[Illustration: (line drawing of hanging-drop)] + +Koch did not know it, perhaps, but this--apart from that day when +Leeuwenhoek first saw little animals in rain water--was a most +important moment in microbe hunting, and in the fight of mankind +against death. + +“Nothing can get into that drop--only the rods are there--now we’ll +see if they will grow,” whispered Koch as he slid his hanging-drop +under the lens of his microscope; in a kind of stolid excitement he +pulled up his chair and sat down to watch what would happen. In the +gray circle of the field of his lens he could see only a few shreddy +lumps of mouse spleen--they looked microscopically enormous--and +here and there a very tiny rod floated among these shreds. He +looked--fifty minutes out of each hour for two hours he looked, and +nothing happened. But then a weird business began among the shreds +of diseased spleen, an unearthly moving picture, a drama that made +shivers shoot up and down his back. + +The little drifting rods had begun to grow! Here were two where one +had been before. There was one slowly stretching itself out into +a tangled endless thread, pushing its snaky way across the whole +diameter of the field of the lens--in a couple of hours the dead +small chunks of spleen were completely hidden by the myriads of rods, +the masses of thread that were like a hopelessly tangled ball of +colorless yarn, living yarn--silent murderous yarn. + +“Now I know that these rods are alive,” breathed Koch. “Now I see +the way they grow into millions in my poor little mice--in the +sheep, in the cows even. One of these rods, these bacilli--he is a +billion times smaller than an ox--just one of them maybe gets into +an ox, and he doesn’t bear any grudge against the ox, he doesn’t +hate him, but he grows, this bacillus, into millions, everywhere +through the big animal, swarming in his lungs and brain, choking his +blood-vessels--it is terrible.” + +Time, his office and its dull duties, his waiting and complaining +patients--all of these things became nonsense, seemed of no account, +were unreal to Koch whose head was now full of nothing but dreadful +pictures of the tangled skeins of the anthrax threads. Then each +day of a nervous experiment that lasted eight days Koch repeated +his miracle of making a million bacilli grow where only a few were +before. He planted a wee bit of his rod-swarming hanging-drop into a +fresh, pure drop of the watery fluid of an ox-eye and in every one of +these new drops the few rods grew into myriads. + +“I have grown these bacilli for eight generations away from any +animal, I have grown them pure, apart from any other microbe--there +is no part of the dead mouse’s spleen, no diseased tissue left in +this eighth hanging-drop--only the children of the bacilli that +killed the mouse are in it.... Will these bacilli still grow in a +mouse, or in a sheep, if I inject them--are these threads really the +cause of anthrax?” + +Carefully Koch smeared a wee bit of his hanging-drop that swarmed +with the microbes of the eighth generation--this drop was murky, even +to his naked eye, with countless bacilli--he smeared a part of this +drop on to a little splinter of wood. Then, with that guardian angel +who cares for daring stumbling imprudent searchers of nature standing +by him, Koch deftly slid this splinter under the skin of a healthy +mouse. + +The next day Koch was bending near-sightedly over the body of this +little creature pinned on his dissecting board; giddy with hope, he +was carefully flaming his knives.... Not three minutes later Koch is +seated before his microscope, a bit of the dead creature’s spleen +between two thin bits of glass. “I’ve proved it,” he whispers, “here +are the threads, the rods--those little bacilli from my hanging-drop +were just as murderous as the ones right out of the spleen of a dead +sheep.” + +So it was that Koch found in this last mouse exactly the same kind +of microbe that he had spied long before--having no idea it was +alive--in the blood of the first dead cow he had peered at when his +hands were fumbling and his microscope was new. It was precisely the +same kind of bacillus that he had nursed so carefully, through long +successions of mice, through I do not know how many hanging-drops. + +First of all searchers, of all men that ever lived, ahead of the +prophet Pasteur who blazed the trail for him, Koch had really made +sure that one certain kind of microbe causes one definite kind +of disease, that miserably small bacilli may be the assassins of +formidable animals. He had angled for these impossibly tiny fish, and +spied on them without knowing anything at all of their habits, their +lurking places, of how hardy they might be or how vicious, of how +easy it might be for them to leap upon him from the perfect ambush +their invisibility gave them. + + + III + +Cool and stolid, Koch, now that he had come through these perils, +never thought himself a hero; he did not even think of publishing his +experiments! To-day it would be inconceivable for a man to do such +magnificent work and discover such momentous secrets, and keep his +mouth shut about it. + +But Koch plugged on, and it is doubtful whether this hesitating, +entirely modest genius of a German country doctor realized the +beauty or the importance of his lonely experiments. + +He plugged on. He must know more! He went pell-mell at the +inoculating of guinea-pigs and rabbits, and at last even sheep, +with the innocent looking but fatal fluid from the hanging-drops; +and in each one of these beasts, in the sheep just as quickly and +horribly as the mouse, the few thousands of microbes on the splinter +multiplied into billions in the animals, in a few hours they teemed +poisonously in what had been robust tissues, choking the little veins +and arteries with their myriads, turning to a sinister black the red +blood--so killing the sheep, the guinea-pigs, and the rabbits. + +At one fantastic jump Koch had soared out of the vast anonymous rank +and file of pill-rollers and landed among the most original of the +searchers, and the more ingeniously he hunted microbes, the more +miserably he tended to the important duties of his practice. Babies +in far-off farms howled, but he did not come; peasants, with jumping +aches in their teeth, waited sullen hours for him--and at last he had +to turn over part of his practice to another doctor. Mrs. Koch saw +little of him and worried and wished he would not go on his calls +smelling of germicides and of his menagerie of animals. But so far +as he was concerned his suffering patients and his wife might have +been inhabitants of the other side of the moon--for a new mysterious +question was worrying at his head, tugging at him, keeping him awake: + +How, in nature, do these little weak anthrax bacilli that fade away +and die so easily on my slides, how do they get from sick animals to +healthy ones? + +There were superstitions among the farmers and horse doctors +of Europe about this disease, strange beliefs in regard to the +mysterious power of this plague that hung always over their flocks +and herds like some cruel invisible sword. Why, this disease is +too terrible to be caused by such a wretched little creature as a +twenty-thousandth-of-an-inch-long bacillus! + +“Your little germ may be what kills our herds, all right, Herr +Doktor,” the cattle men told Koch, “but how is it that our cows or +sheep can be all right in one pasture--perfectly healthy, and then, +when we take them into another field, with fine grazing in it, they +die like flies?” + +Koch knew of this troublesome, mysterious fact too. He knew that in +Auvergne in France there were green mountains, horrible mountains +where no flock of sheep could go without being picked off, one by +one, or in dozens and even hundreds by the black disease, anthrax. +And in the country of the Beauce there were fertile fields where +sheep grew fat--only to die of anthrax. The peasants shivered at +night by their fires: “Our fields are cursed,” they whispered. + +These things bothered Koch--how could his tiny bacilli live over +winter, even for years, in the fields and on the mountains? How +could they, indeed, when he had smeared a little bacillus-swarming +spleen from a dead mouse on a clean slip of glass, and watched the +microbes grow dim, break up, and fade from view? And when he put +the nourishing watery fluid of ox-eyes on these bits of glass, the +bacilli would no longer grow; when he washed the dried blood off and +injected it into mice--these little beasts continued to scamper gayly +about in their cages. The microbes, which two days before could have +killed a heavy cow, were dead! + +“What keeps them alive in the fields, then,” muttered Koch, “when +they die on my clean glasses in two days?” + +Then one day he ran on to a curious sight under his microscope--a +strange transformation of his microbes that gave him a clew to +his question; and Koch sat down on his stool in his eight-by-ten +laboratory in East Prussia and solved the mystery of the cursed +fields and mountains of France. He had kept a hanging-drop, in +its closed glass well, at the temperature of a mouse’s body +for twenty-four hours. “Ah, this ought to be full of nice long +threads of bacilli,” he muttered, and looked down the tube of his +microscope--“What’s this?” he cried. + +The outlines of the threads had grown dim, and each thread was +speckled, through its whole length, with little ovals that shone +brightly like infinitely tiny glass beads, and these beads were +arranged along the threads as perfectly as a string of pearls. + +To himself Koch muttered guttural curses. “Other microbes have +doubtless gotten into my hanging-drop,” he grumbled, but when he +looked very carefully he saw that wasn’t true, for the shiny little +beads were _inside_ the threads--the bacilli that make up the threads +have turned into these beads! He dried this hanging-drop, and put it +away carefully, for a month or so, and then as luck would have it, +looked at it once more through his lens. The strange strings of beads +were still there, shining as brightly as ever. Then an idea for an +experiment got hold of him--he took a drop of pure fresh watery fluid +from the eye of an ox. He placed it on the dried-up smear with its +months-old bacilli that had turned into beads. His head swam with +confused surprise as he looked, and watched the beads grow back into +the ordinary bacilli, and then into long threads once more. It was +outlandish! + +“Those queer shiny beads have turned back into ordinary anthrax +bacilli again,” cried Koch, “the beads must be the _spores_ of the +microbe--the tough form of them that can stand great heat, and cold, +and drying.... That must be the way the anthrax microbe can keep +itself alive in the fields for so long--the bacilli must turn into +spores....” + +Then Koch launched himself into thorough, ingenious tests to see +if his quick guess was right. Expertly now he took spleens out of +mice which had perished of anthrax--he lifted this deadly stuff out +carefully with heated knives and forceps. Protected from all chance +of contamination by stray microbes of the air, he kept the spleens +for a day at the temperature of a mouse’s body, and, sure enough, the +microbes, every thread of them, turned into glassy spores. + +Then in experiments that kept him incessantly in his dirty little +room he found that the spores remained alive for months, ready to +hatch out into deadly bacilli the moment he put them into a fresh +drop of the watery fluid of ox-eyes, or the instant he stuck them, on +one of his thin slivers, into the root of a mouse’s tail. + +“These spores never form in an animal while he is still alive--they +only appear after he has died, and then only when he is kept very +warm,” said Koch, and he proved this beautifully by clapping +spleens into an ice chest--and in a few days this stuff, smeared +on splinters, was no more dangerous than if he had shot so much +beefsteak into his mice. + +It was now the year 1876, and Koch was thirty-four years old, +and at last he emerged out of the bush of Wollstein, to tell +the world--stuttering a little--that it was at last proved that +microbes were the cause of disease. Koch put on his best suit and +his gold-rimmed spectacles and packed up his microscope, a few +hanging-drops in their glass cells, swarming with murderous anthrax +bacilli; and besides these things he bundled a cage into the train +with him, a cage that bounced a little with several dozen healthy +white mice. He took a train for Breslau to exhibit his anthrax +microbes and the way they kill mice, and the weird way in which they +turn into glassy spores--he wanted to demonstrate these things to old +Professor Cohn, the botanist at the University, who had sometimes +written him encouraging letters. + +Professor Cohn, who had been amazed at the marvelous experiments +about which the lonely Koch had written him, old Cohn snickered when +he thought of how this greenhorn doctor--who had no idea, himself, of +how original he was--would surprise the highbrows of the University. +He sent out invitations to the most eminent medicoes of the school to +come to the first night of Koch’s show. + + + IV + +And they came. To hear the unscientific backwoodsman--they came. They +came maybe out of friendliness to old Professor Cohn. But Koch didn’t +lecture--he was never much at talking--instead of _telling_ them +that his microbes were the true cause of anthrax, he _showed_ these +sophisticated professors. For three days and nights he showed them, +taking them in swift steps through those searchings he had sweated +at--groping and failing often--for years. Never was there a greater +come-down for bigwigs who had arrived prepared to be indulgent to a +nobody. Koch never argued once, he never bubbled and raved and made +prophecies--but he slipped slivers into mouse tails with an unearthly +cleverness, and the experienced professors of pathology opened their +eyes to see him handle his spores and bacilli and microscopes like a +sixty-year-old master. It was a knock-out! + +At last Professor Cohnheim, one of the most skillful scientists +in the study of diseases in all of Europe, could hold himself no +longer. He rushed from the hall, hurried to his own laboratory, and +burst into the room where his young student searchers were working. +He shouted to them: “My boys, drop everything and go see Doctor +Koch--this man has made a great discovery!” Cohnheim gasped to get +his breath. + +“But who is this Koch, Herr Professor? We’ve never even heard of him.” + +“No matter who he is--it is a great discovery, so exact, so simple. +It is astounding! This Koch is not a professor, even.... He hasn’t +even been taught how to do research! He’s done it all by himself, +complete--there is nothing more to do!” + +“But what is this discovery, Herr Professor?” + +“Go, I tell you, every one of you, and see for yourselves. It is the +most marvelous discovery in the realm of microbes ... he will make us +all ashamed of ourselves.... Go----” But by this time, all of them, +including Paul Ehrlich, had disappeared through the door. + +Seven years before, Pasteur had foretold: “It is within the power +of man to make parasitic maladies disappear from the face of the +earth....” And when he said these words the wisest doctors in the +world put their fingers to their heads, thinking: “The poor fellow is +cracked!” + +But this night Robert Koch had shown the world the first step toward +the fulfillment of Pasteur’s seemingly insane vision: “Tissues from +animals dead of anthrax, whether they are fresh, or putrid, or dried, +or a year old, can only produce anthrax when they contain bacilli or +the spores of bacilli. Before this fact all doubt must be laid aside +that these bacilli are the cause of anthrax,” he told them finally, +as if his experiments had not convinced them already. And he ended by +telling his amazed audience how to fight this terrible disease--how +his experiments showed a way to stamp it out in the end: “All animals +that die of anthrax must be destroyed at once after they die--or if +they can not be burned, they should be buried deep in the ground, +where the earth is so cold that the bacilli cannot turn into the +tough, long-lived spores....” + +So it was that in these three days at Breslau this Koch put a sword +Excalibur into the hands of men, with which to begin the fight +against their enemies the microbes, their fight against lurking +death; so it was that he began to change the whole business of +doctors from a foolish hocus-pocus with pills and leeches into an +intelligent fight where science instead of superstition was the +weapon. + +Koch fell among friends--among honest generous men--at Breslau. Cohn +and Cohnheim, instead of trying to steal his stuff (there are no +fewer shady fellows in science than in any other human activity), +these two professors immediately set up a great whooping for Koch, +an applause that echoed over Europe and made Pasteur a bit uneasy +for his job as Dean of the Microbe Hunters. These two friends began +to bombard the authorities of the Imperial Health Office at Berlin +about this unknown that Germany ought to be proud of--they did their +best to give Koch a chance to do nothing but chase the microbes of +disease, to get away from that dull practice of his. + +Left alone, or snubbed at Breslau, he might easily have gone back +to Wollstein to his business of telling people to stick out their +tongues. In short, men of science have either to be showmen--as were +the magnificent Spallanzani and the passionate Pasteur--or they have +to have impresarios. + +Koch packed up Emmy and his household goods and moved to Breslau +and was given a job as city physician at four hundred and fifty +dollars a year, and was supposed to eke out his living with the +private patients that would undoubtedly flock to be treated by such a +brilliant man. + +So thought Cohn and Cohnheim. But the doorbell of Koch’s little +office didn’t ring, hardly any one came to ring it, and so Koch +learned that it is a great disadvantage for a doctor to be brainy and +inquire into the final causes of things. He went back to Wollstein, +beaten, and here from 1878 to 1880 he made long jumps ahead in +microbe hunting once more--spying on and tracking down the strange +sub-visible beings that cause the deadly infections of wounds in +animals and in human beings. He learned to stain all kinds of bacilli +with different colored dyes, so that the very tiniest microbe would +stand out clearly. In some unknown way he saved money enough to buy a +camera and stuck its lens against his microscope and learned--no one +helping him--how to take pictures of these little creatures. + +“You’ll never convince the world about these murderous bugs until you +can show them photographs,” Koch said. “Two men can’t look through +one microscope at the same time, no two men will ever draw the same +picture of a germ--so there’ll always be wrangling and confusion.... +But these photographs can’t lie--and ten men can study them, and come +to an agreement on them....” So it was that Koch began to try to +introduce rime and reason into the baby science of microbe hunting +which up till now had been as much a wordy brawl as a quest for +knowledge. + +Meanwhile his friends at Breslau had not forgotten him and in +1880--it was like some bush-leaguer breaking into the big team--he +was told by the government to come to Berlin and be Extraordinary +Associate of the Imperial Health Office. Here he was given a +fine laboratory and a sudden undreamed-of wealth of apparatus and +two assistants and enough money so that he could spend sixteen or +eighteen hours of his working day among his stains and tubes and +chittering guinea-pigs. + +By this time the news of Koch’s discoveries had spread to all of +the laboratories of Europe and had crossed the ocean and inflamed +the doctors of America. The vast exciting Battle of the Germ Theory +was on! Every medical man and Professor of Diseases who knew--or +thought he knew--the top end from the bottom of a microscope set +out to become a microbe hunter. Every week brought glad news of the +supposed discovery of some new deadly microbe, surely the assassin of +suffering from cancer or typhoid fever or consumption. One enthusiast +would shout across continents that he had discovered a kind of +pan-germ that caused all diseases from pneumonia to the pip--only +to be forgotten for an idiot who might claim that he had proved one +disease, let us say consumption, to be the result of the attack of a +hundred different species of microbes. + +So great was the enthusiasm about germs--and the confusion--that +Koch’s discoveries were in danger of being laughed into obscurity +along with the vast magazines full of balderdash that were being +printed on the subject of the germ theory. + +And yet to-day we demand with a great hue and cry more laboratories, +more microbe hunters, better paid searchers to free us from the +diseases that scourge us. How futile! For progress, God must send us +a few more infernal marvelous searchers of the kind of Robert Koch. + +But in the midst of the danger that foolish enthusiasm would kill +the new science of microbe hunting, Koch kept his head, and sat +down to find a way to grow germs pure. “One germ, one kind of germ +only, causes one definite kind of disease--every disease has its own +specific microbe, I _know_ that,” said Koch--without knowing it. +“I’ve got to find a sure easy method of growing one species of germ +away from all other contaminating ones that are always threatening to +sneak in!” + +But how to cage one kind of microbe? All manner of weird machines +were being invented to try to keep different sorts of germs apart. +Several microbe hunters devised apparatus so complicated that when +they had finished building it they probably had already forgotten +what they set out to invent it for. To keep stray germs of the air +from falling into their bottles some heroic searchers did their +inoculations in an actual rain of poisonous germicides! + + + V + +Until, one day, Koch--who frankly admitted it was by accident--looked +at the flat surface of half of a boiled potato left on a table in +his laboratory. “What’s this, I wonder?” he muttered, as he stared +at a curious collection of little colored droplets scattered on the +surface of the potato. “Here’s a gray-colored drop, here’s a red one, +there’s a yellow, a violet one--these little specks must be made up +of germs from the air. I’ll have a look at them.” + +He stuck his short-sighted eyes down close to the potato so that his +scraggly little beard almost dragged in it; he got ready his thin +plates of glass and polished off the lenses of his microscope. + +With a slender wire of platinum he fished delicately into one of the +gray droplets and put a bit of its slimy stuff in a little pure water +between two bits of glass, under his microscope. Here he saw a swarm +of bacilli, swimming gently about, and every one of these microbes +looked exactly like his thousands of brothers in this drop. Then +Koch peered at the bugs from a yellow droplet on the potato, and at +those of a red one and a violet one. The germs from one were round, +from another they had the appearance of swimming sticks, from a third +microbes looked like living corkscrews--but all the microbes in one +given drop were like their brothers, invariably! + +Then in a flash Koch saw the beautiful experiment nature had done for +him. “Every one of these droplets is a pure culture of one definite +kind of microbe--a pure _colony_ of one species of germs.... How +simple! When germs fall from the air into the liquid soups we have +been using--the different kinds of them get all mixed up and swim +among each other.... But when different bugs fall from the air on the +solid surface of this potato--each one has to stay where it falls ... +it sticks there ... then it grows there, multiplies into millions of +its own kind ... absolutely pure!” + +Koch called Loeffler and Gaffky, his two military doctor assistants, +and soberly he showed them the change in the whole mixed-up business +of microbe hunting that his chance glance at an abandoned potato had +brought. It was revolutionary! The three of them set to work with an +amazing--loyal Frenchmen might call it stupid--German thoroughness +to see if Koch was right. There they sat before the three windows of +their room, Koch before his microscope on a high stool in the middle, +Loeffler and Gaffky on stools on his left hand and his right--a kind +of grimly toiling trinity. They tried to defeat their hopes, but +quickly they discovered that Koch’s prophecy was an even more true +one than he had dreamed. They made mixtures of two or three kinds of +germs, mixtures that could never have been untangled by growing in +flasks of soup; they streaked these confused species of microbes on +the cut flat surfaces of boiled potatoes. And where each separate +tiny microbe landed, there it stuck, and grew into a colony of +millions of its own kind--and nothing but its own kind. + +Now Koch, who, by this simple experience of the old potato, had +changed microbe hunting from a guessing game into something that +came near the sureness of a science--Koch, I say, got ready to track +down the tiny messengers that bring a dozen murderous diseases to +mankind. Up till this time Koch had had very little criticism or +opposition from other men of science, mainly because he almost +never opened his mouth until he was sure of his results. He told +of his discoveries with a disarming modesty and his work was so +unanswerably complete--he had a way of seeing the objections that +critics might make and replying to them in advance--that it was hard +to find protestors. + +Full of confidence Koch went to Professor Rudolph Virchow, by +far the most eminent German researcher in disease, an incredible +savant, who knew more than there was to be known about a greater +number of subjects than any sixteen scientists together could +possibly know. Virchow was, in brief, the ultimate Pooh-Bah of +German medical science. He had spoken the very last word on clots in +blood vessels and had invented the impressive words, _heteropopia_, +_agenesia_, and _ochronosis_, and many others that I have been +trying for years to understand the meaning of. He had--with +tremendous mistakenness--maintained that consumption and scrofula +were two different diseases; but with his microscope he had made +genuinely good, even superb descriptions of the way sick tissues +look and he had turned his lens into every noisome nook and cranny +of twenty-six thousand dead bodies. Virchow had printed--I do +not exaggerate--thousands of scientific papers, on every subject +imaginable, from the shapes of little German schoolboys’ heads and +noses to the remarkably small size of the blood vessels in the bodies +of sickly green-faced girls. + +Properly awed--as any one would be--Koch tiptoed respectfully into +this Presence. + +“I have discovered a way to grow microbes pure, unmixed with other +germs, Herr Professor,” the bashful Koch told Virchow, with deference. + +“And how, I beg you tell me, can you do that? It looks to me to be +impossible.” + +“By growing them on solid food--I can get beautiful isolated colonies +of one kind of microbe on the surface of a boiled potato.... And now +I have invented a better way than that ... I mix gelatin with beef +broth ... and the gelatin sets and makes a solid surface, and----” + +But Virchow was not impressed. He made a sardonic remark that it +was so hard to keep different races of germs from getting mixed up +that Koch would have to have a separate laboratory for each species +of microbe.... In short, Virchow was very sniffish and cold to +Koch, for he had come to that time of life when ageing men believe +that everything is known and there is nothing more to be found out. +Koch went away a bit depressed, but not one jot was he discouraged. +Instead of arguing and writing papers and making speeches against +Virchow he launched himself into the most exciting and superb of all +his microbe huntings--he set out to spy upon and discover the most +vicious of microbes, that mysterious marauder which each year killed +one man, woman, and child out of every seven that died, in Europe, in +America. Koch rolled up his sleeves and wiped his gold-rimmed glasses +and set out to hunt down the microbe of tuberculosis. + + + VI + +Compared to this sly murderer the bacillus of anthrax had been +reasonably easy to discover--it was a large bug as microbes go, and +the bodies of sick animals were literally alive with anthrax germs +when the beasts were about to die. But this tubercle germ--if indeed +there was such a creature--was a different matter. Many searchers +were looking in vain for it. Leeuwenhoek, with his sharpest of all +eyes, would never have found it even if he had looked at a hundred +sick lungs; Spallanzani’s microscopes would not have been good enough +to have revealed this sly microbe; Pasteur, searcher that he was, had +neither the precise methods of searching, nor, perhaps, the patience, +to lay bare this assassin. + +All that was known about tuberculosis was that it must be caused by +some kind of microbe, since it could be transmitted from sick men to +healthy animals. An old Frenchman, Villemin, had pioneered in this +work, and Cohnheim, the brilliant professor of Breslau, had found +that he could give tuberculosis to rabbits--by putting a bit of the +consumptive’s sick lung into the front chamber of a rabbit’s eye. +Here Cohnheim could watch the little islands of sick tissue--the +tubercles--spread and do their deadly work; it was a strange clever +experiment that was like looking through a window at a disease +growing.... + +Koch had studied Cohnheim’s experiments closely. “This is what I +need,” he meditated. “I may not use human beings for experimental +animals, but now I can give the disease, whenever I wish, to animals +... here is a real chance to study it, handle it, to look for the +microbe that must cause it ... there _must_ be a microbe there....” + +So Koch set to work--he did everything with a cold system that gives +one the shivers when one reads his scientific reports--and he got +his first consumptive stuff from a powerful man, a laborer aged +thirty-six. This man had been superbly healthy three weeks before, +when all at once he began to cough, little pains shot through his +chest, his body seemed literally to melt away. Four days after +this poor fellow entered the hospital, he was dead, riddled with +tubercles--every organ was peppered with little grayish-yellow, +millet-seed-like specks---- + +With this dangerous stuff Koch set to work, alone, for Loeffler +had set out to track down the microbe of diphtheria and Gaffky +was busy trying to find the sub-visible author of typhoid fever. +Koch, meanwhile, crushed the yellowish tubercles from the body of +the dead man between two heated knives; he ground these granules +up and delicately, with a little syringe, injected them into the +eyes of numerous rabbits and under the skins of flocks of foolish +guinea-pigs. He put these beasts in clean cages and tended them +lovingly. And while he waited for his creatures to develop signs of +the consumption, he began to peer with his most powerful microscope +through the sick tissues that he had taken from the body of the dead +workman. + +For days he saw nothing. His best lenses, that magnified many hundred +times, showed him only the dead ruins of what had once been good +healthy lung or liver. “If there is a tubercle microbe, he is such a +sneaky fellow that I won’t be able, perhaps, to see him in his native +state. But I can try painting the tissue with a powerful dye--that +may make this bug stand out....” + +Day after day, Koch set about staining the stuff from the dead +workman brown and blue and violet and most of the colors of the +rainbow. Carefully, dipping his hands in the germ-killing bichloride +of mercury after almost every move--blackening and wrinkling them +with it--he smeared the perilous material from the tubercles on thin +clean bits of glass and kept these pieces of glass for hours in a +strong blue dye.... + +Then one morning he took his specimens out of their bath of stain, +and put them under his lens, and focussed his microscope and out +of the gray mist a strange picture untangled itself. Lying among +the shattered diseased lung cells were curious masses of little, +infinitely thin bacilli--blue-colored rods--so slim that he could not +guess their size, and they were less than a fifteen-thousandth of an +inch long. + +“Ah! they are pretty,” he muttered. “They’re not straight like the +anthrax bugs ... they have little bends and curves in them. Wait! +here are whole bunches of them ... like cigarettes in a pack--Heh! +here is one lone devil _inside_ a lung cell ... I wonder ... have I +found him--that tubercle bug, already?” + +Koch went on, precisely, with that efficiency of his, to staining +tubercles from every part of the workman’s body, and everywhere +his blue dye showed up these same slender crooked bacilli--strange +creatures unlike any he had seen in all the thousands of animals +or men, diseased or healthy, into whose insides he had pried. And +now, sorry things began to happen to his inoculated guinea-pigs +and rabbits. The guinea-pigs began to huddle disconsolately in +the corners of their cages; their sleek coats ruffled and their +bouncing little bodies began to fall away until they were sad bags of +bones. They were feverish, their cavortings stopped and they looked +listlessly at their fine carrots and their fragrant meals of hay--and +one by one they died. And as these unconscious martyrs died--for +Koch’s mad curiosity and for suffering men--the little microbe hunter +pinned them down on his post-mortem board and soaked their sick hair +with bichloride of mercury and precisely and with breathless care cut +them open with sterile knives. + +And inside these poor beasts Koch found the same kind of +grayish-yellow sinister tubercles that had filled the body of the +workman. Into the baths of blue stain on his eternal strips of glass +Koch dipped them--and everywhere, in every one, he found the same +terrible curved sticks that had jumped into his astounded gaze when +he had stained the lung of the dead man. + +“I have it!” he whispered, and called the busy Loeffler and the +faithful Gaffky from their own spyings on other microbes. “Look!” +Koch cried. “One little speck of tubercle I put into this beast six +weeks ago--there could not have been more than a few hundred of those +bacilli in that small bit--and now they’ve grown into billions! What +devils they are, those germs--from that one place in the guinea-pig’s +groin they have sneaked everywhere into his body, they have +gnawed--they have grown through the walls of his arteries ... the +blood has carried them into his bones ... into the farthest corner of +his brain....” + +Now he went to hospitals everywhere in Berlin, and begged the bodies +of men or women that had died of consumption, he spent dreary days +in dead houses and every evening before his microscope in his +laboratory where the stillness was broken only by the eerie purrings +and scurryings of guinea-pigs. He injected the sick tissue from +the wasted bodies of consumptives who had died, into hundreds of +guinea-pigs, into rabbits and three dogs, thirteen scratching cats, +ten flopping chickens and twelve pigeons. He didn’t stop with these +wholesale insane inoculations but shot the same kind of deadly cheesy +stuff into white mice and rats and field mice and into two marmots. +Never in microbe hunting has there been such appalling thoroughness. + +“Ach! this is a little hard on the nerves, this work,” he muttered +(thinking, perhaps of the lightning move of the paw of one of his +cats jabbing the germ-filled syringe needle into his own hand). +For Koch, hunting his invisible foes alone, there were so many +disagreeable and always imminent possibilities of excitement--of +something tragically worse than mere excitement.... + +But the hand of this completely unheroic looking little microbe +hunter never slipped, it just grew drier and more wrinkled and +blacker from its incessant baths in the bichloride of mercury--that +good bichloride, with which in those old days the groping microbe +hunters used to swab down everything, including their own persons. +Then, week by week, in all of Koch’s meaouwing, crowing, barking, +clucking menagerie of beasts those small curved bacilli grew into +their relentless millions--and one by one the animals died, and +gave eighteen-hour-days of work to Robert Koch in post-mortems and +blear-eyed peerings through the microscope. + +“It is only when a man or beast has tuberculosis that I can find +these blue-stained rods, these bacilli,” Koch told Loeffler and +Gaffky. “In healthy animals--I have looked, you know, at hundreds of +them--I never find them.” + +“That means, without doubt, that you have discovered the bacillus +that is the cause, Herr Doktor----” + +“No--not yet--what I have done might make Pasteur sure, but I am +not at all convinced yet.... I have to get these bacilli out of +the bodies of my dying animals now ... grow them on our beef-broth +jelly, pure colonies of these microbes I must get, and cultivate +them for months, away from any living creature ... and _then_, if I +inoculate these cultivations into good healthy animals, and they get +tuberculosis ...” and Koch’s sober wrinkled face smiled for a moment. +Loeffler and Gaffky, ashamed of their jumping at conclusions, went +back awed to their own searchings. + +Testing every possible combination that his head could invent, Koch +set out to try to grow his bacilli pure on beef-broth jelly. He made +a dozen different kinds of good soup for them, he kept his tubes and +bottles at the temperature of the room and the temperature of a man’s +body and the temperature of fever. He cleverly used the sick lungs +of guinea-pigs that teemed with bacilli, lungs that held no other +stray microbes which might over-grow and choke out those delicate +germs which he was sure must be the authors of consumption. The stuff +from these lungs he planted dangerously into hundreds of tubes and +bottles, but all this work ended in--nothing. In brief, those slim +bacilli that grew like weeds in tropic gardens in the bodies of his +sick animals, those microbes that swarmed in millions in sick men, +those bacilli turned up their noses--that is, they would have if they +had been equipped with noses--at the good soups and jellies that Koch +cooked for them. It was no go! + +But one day a reason for his failures popped into Koch’s head: “The +trouble is that these tubercle bacilli will only grow in the bodies +of living creatures--they are maybe almost _complete_ parasites--I +must fix a food for them that is as near as possible like the stuff a +living animal’s body is made of!” + +So it was that Koch invented his famous food--blood-serum jelly--for +microbes that are too finicky to grow on common provender. He went +to string-butchers and got the clear straw-colored serum from the +clotted blood of freshly slaughtered healthy cattle and carefully +heated this fluid to kill all the stray microbes that might have +fallen into it. Delicately he poured this serum into each one of +dozens of narrow test-tubes, and placed these on a slant so that +there would be a long flat surface on which to smear the sick +consumptive tissues. Then ingeniously he heated each tube just hot +enough to make the serum set, on a slant, into a clear beautiful +jelly. + +That morning a guinea-pig, sadly riddled with tuberculosis, had +died. He dissected out of it a couple of the grayish yellow +tubercles, and then, with a wire of platinum he streaked bits of this +bacillus-swarming stuff on the moist surface of his serum jelly, on +tube after tube of it. Then, with that drawing in and puffing out of +breath that comes after a nasty piece of work, well done, Koch took +his tubes and put them in the oven--at the exact temperature of a +guinea-pig’s body. + +Day after day Koch hurried in the morning to his incubating oven, and +took out his tubes and held them close to his gold-rimmed glasses, +and saw--nothing. + +“Well, I have failed again,” he mumbled--it was the fourteenth day +after he had planted his consumptive stuff--“every other microbe I +have ever grown multiplies into large colonies in a couple of days, +but here, confound it--there is nothing, nothing....” + +Any other man would have pitched these barren disappointing +serum-tubes out, but at this stubbly-haired country doctor’s shoulder +his familiar demon whispered: “Wait--be patient, my master--you know +that tubercle germs sometimes take months, years to kill men. Maybe +too they grow very slowly in the serum tubes.” So Koch did not pitch +the tubes out, and on the morning of the fifteenth day he came back +to his incubator--to find the velvety surface of the serum jelly +covered with tiny glistening specks! Koch reached a trembling hand +for his pocket lens, clapped it to his eye and peered at one tube +after another, and through his lens these glistening specks swelled +out into dry tiny scales.... + +In a daze Koch pulled the cotton plug out of one of his tubes, +mechanically he flamed its mouth in the sputtering blue fire of the +Bunsen burner, with a platinum wire he picked off one of these little +flaky colonies--they must be microbes--and not knowing how or what, +he got them before his microscope.... + +Then he knew that he had got to a warm inn on the stony road of his +adventure--here they were, countless myriads of these same bacilli, +these crooked rods that he had first spied in the lung of the dead +workman. They were motionless but surely multiplying and alive--they +were delicate and finicky about their food and feeble in size, but +more savage than hordes of Huns and more murderous than ten thousand +nests of rattlesnakes. + +Now Koch, in taut intent months, confirmed his first success--he went +after proving it with a patience and a detail that made me sick of +his everlasting thoroughness and prudence as I read the endlessly +multiplied experiments in his classic report on tuberculosis--from +consumptive monkeys and consumptive oxen and consumptive guinea-pigs +Koch grew forty-three different families of these deadly rods on his +slanted tubes of serum jelly! + +And only from animals sick or dying of tuberculosis, could he grow +them. For months he nursed these wee murderers along, planting them +from one tube to another--with marvelous watchfulness he kept all +other chance microbes away from them. + +“Now I must shoot these bacilli--these pure cultivations of my +bacilli--into healthy guinea-pigs, into all kinds of healthy animals. +If then these creatures get tuberculosis, I shall know that my +bacilli are necessarily and beyond all doubt the cause!” + +That man with the terrible single-mindedness of a maniac driven +by a fixed idea changed his laboratory into the weirdest kind of +zoo. He became grouchy to every one--to curious visitors he was a +sarcastic, spiteful little German ogre. Alone he sterilized batteries +of shining syringes and shot the crinkly masses of microbes from the +cultivations in his serum-jelly tubes--he injected these bacilli +ground up in a little pure water into guinea-pigs and rabbits and +hens and rats and mice and monkeys. “That’s not enough!” he growled, +“I’ll try some animals that never are known to have tuberculosis +naturally.” So he ranged abroad and gathered to his laboratory and +injected his beloved terrible bacilli into tortoises, sparrows, five +frogs and three eels. + +Insanely Koch completed this most fantastic test by sticking his +microbes from the serum cultivation into--a goldfish! + +Days dragged by, weeks passed, and every day Koch walked into his +workshop in the morning and made straight for the cages and jars that +held these momentous animals. The goldfish continued to open and shut +his mouth and swim placidly about in his round-bellied bowl. The +frogs croaked unconcernedly and the eels kept all of their slippery +liveliness; the tortoise now and then stuck his head out of his shell +and seemed to wink an eye at Koch as if to say: “Your tubercle bugs +are food for me--give me some more.” + +But while his injections worked no harm to these creatures, that do +not in the course of nature get consumption anyway--at the same time +the guinea-pigs began to droop, to lie pitifully on their sides, +gasping. One by one they died, their bodies wasting terribly into +tubercles.... + +Now Koch had forged the last link of the chain of his experiments +and was ready to give his news to the world: The bacillus, the true +cause of tuberculosis, has been trapped, discovered! When suddenly he +decided there was one more thing to do. + +“Human beings surely must catch these bacilli by inhaling them, in +dust, or from the coughing of people sick with consumption. I wonder, +will healthy animals be infected that way too?” At once Koch began +to devise ways of doing this experiment--it was a nasty job. “I’ll +have to _spray_ the bacilli from my cultivations at the animals,” +he pondered. But this was a more serious business than turning ten +thousand murderers out of jail.... + +Like the good hunter that he was, he took a chance with the dangers +that he couldn’t avoid. He built a big box and put guinea-pigs and +mice and rabbits inside it and set this box in the garden. Then +through the window he ran a lead pipe that opened in a spray nozzle +inside the box, and for three days, for half an hour each day, he sat +in his laboratory, pumping at a pair of bellows that shot a poisonous +mist of bacilli into the box--to be breathed by the cavorting beasts +inside it. + +In ten days three of the rabbits were gasping, fighting for that +precious air that their sick lungs could no longer give them. In +twenty-five days the guinea-pigs had done their humble work--one and +all they were dead, of tuberculosis. + +Koch told nothing of the ticklish job it was to take these beasts +out of their germ-soaked box--if I had been in his place I would +rather have handled a boxful of boa-constrictors--and he makes no +mention of how he disposed of this little house whose walls had +been wet with this so-deadly spray. What chances for making heroic +flourishes were missed by this quiet Koch! + + + VII + +On the twenty-fourth of March in 1882 in Berlin there was a meeting +of the Physiological Society in a plain small room made magnificent +by the presence of the most brilliant men of science in Germany. Paul +Ehrlich was there and the most eminent Professor Rudolph Virchow--who +had but lately sniffed at this crazy Koch and his alleged bacilli of +disease--and nearly all of the famous German battlers against disease +were there. + +A bespectacled wrinkled small man rose and put his face close to his +papers and fumbled with them. The papers quivered and his voice shook +a little as he started to speak. With an admirable modesty Robert +Koch told these men the plain story of the way he had searched out +the invisible assassin of one human being out of every seven that +died. With no oratorical raisings of his voice he told these disease +fighters that the physicians of the world were now able to learn all +of the habits of this bacillus of tuberculosis--this smallest but +most savage enemy of men. Koch recited to them the lurking places of +this slim microbe, its strengths and weaknesses, and he showed them +how they might begin the fight to crush, to wipe out this sub-visible +deadly enemy. + +At last Koch sat down, to wait for the discussion, the inevitable +arguments and objections that greet the finish of revolutionary +papers. But no man rose to his feet, no word was spoken, and finally +eyes began to turn toward Virchow, the oracle, the Tsar of German +science, the thunderer whose mere frown had ruined great theories of +disease. + +All eyes looked at him, but Virchow got up, put on his hat, and left +the room--he had no word to say. + +If old Leeuwenhoek, two hundred years before, had made so astounding +a discovery, Europe of the Seventeenth Century would have heard the +news in months. But in 1882 the news that Robert Koch had found +the microbe of tuberculosis trickled out of the little room of the +Physiological Society the same evening, sang to Kamchatka and to San +Francisco on the cable wires that night, and exploded on the front +pages of the newspapers in the morning. Then the world went wild over +Koch, doctors boarded ships and hopped trains for Berlin to learn +from him the secret of hunting microbes; vast crowds of them rushed +to Berlin to sit at Koch’s feet to learn how to make beef-broth jelly +and how to stick syringes full of germs into the wiggling carcasses +of guinea-pigs. + +Pasteur’s deeds had set France by the ears, but Koch’s experiments +with the dangerous tubercle bacilli rocked the earth, and Koch waved +worshipers away, saying: + +“This discovery of mine is not such a great advance.” + +He tried to get away from his adorers and to dodge his eager pupils, +to snatch what moments he could for his own new searchings. He +loathed teaching--that way he was precisely like Leeuwenhoek--but +he was forced, cursing under his breath, to give lessons in microbe +hunting to Japanese who spoke horrible German and understood less +than they spoke, and to Portuguese, who could never, by any amount +of instruction, learn to hunt microbes. He started a huge fight with +Pasteur--but of this I shall tell in the next chapter--and between +times he showed his assistant, Gaffky, how to spy on and track down +the bacillus of typhoid fever. He was forced to attend idiotic +receptions and receive medals, and came away from these occasions to +guide his fierce-mustached assistant Loeffler, who was on the trail +of the poison-dripping microbe that kills babies with diphtheria. It +was thus that Koch shook the tree of his marvelous simple method of +growing microbes on the surface of solid food--he shook the tree, as +Gaffky said long afterward, and discoveries rained into his lap. + +In all of his writings I have never found any evidence that Koch +considered himself a great originator; never, like Pasteur, did he +seem to realize that he was the leader in the most beautiful and one +of the most thrilling battles of men against cruel nature--there was +no actor in this mussy-bearded little man. But he did set under way +an inspiring drama, a struggle with the messengers of death that +turned some of the microbe-hunting actors into maniac searchers, men +who went to nearly suicidal lengths, almost murderous extremes--to +prove that microbes were the cause of dangerous diseases. + +Doctor Fehleisen, to take one instance, went out from Koch’s +laboratory and found a curious little ball-shaped microbe, hitched +to its brothers in chains like the beads of a rosary--he cultivated +these bugs from skin gouged out of people sick with erysipelas, that +sky-rockety disease that used to be called St. Anthony’s Fire. On the +theory that an attack of erysipelas might cure cancer--a mad man’s +excuse!--Fehleisen shot billions of these chain microbes, now known +as streptococci, into people hopelessly sick with cancer. And in a +few days each one of these human experimental animals of his flamed +red with St. Anthony’s Fire--some collapsed dangerously and nearly +died--and so this desperado proved his case: That streptococcus is +the cause of erysipelas. + +Another pupil of Koch was the now forgotten hero, Doctor Garrè of +Basel, who gravely rubbed whole test-tubes full of another kind of +microbe--which Pasteur had alleged was the cause of boils--into his +own arm. Garrè came down horribly with an enormous carbuncle and +twenty boils--the tremendous dose of microbes he shot into himself +might easily have finished him--but he dismissed his danger as merely +“unpleasant” and shouted triumphantly: “I now know that this microbe, +this staphylococcus, is the true cause of boils and carbuncles!” + +Meanwhile, at the end of 1882, when Koch had finished his virulent +and partly comic wrangle with Pasteur, who was just then with +prodigious enthusiasm saving the lives of sheep and cattle in France, +the discoverer of the tubercle bacillus started sniffing along +the trail of one of the most delicate, the most easy to kill, and +yet the most terribly savage of all microbes. In 1883 the Asiatic +cholera knocked at the door of Europe. This cholera had stolen out +of its lurking place in India and slipped mysteriously across the +sea and over desert sands to Egypt; suddenly a murderous epidemic +of it exploded in Alexandria and Europe across the Mediterranean +was frightened. In Alexandria the streets were still with fear; the +murderous virus--no one had the slightest notion of what kind of an +invisible beast it was--this virus, I say, sneaked into healthy men +in the morning, doubled them into knots of spasm-racked agony by +afternoon, and put them to rest beyond the reach of all pain by night. + +Then a strange race started between Pasteur and Koch, which meant +between France and Germany, to search out the microbe of this cholera +that flared threatening on the horizon. Koch and Gaffky went armed +with microscopes and a menagerie of animals from Berlin; Pasteur--who +was desperately busy struggling to conquer the mysterious microbe +of hydrophobia--sent the brilliant and devoted Émile Roux and the +silent Thuillier, youngest of the microbe hunters of Europe. Koch and +Gaffky worked forgetting to eat or sleep; they toiled in dreadful +rooms cutting up the bodies of Egyptians dead of cholera; in their +muggy laboratory with the air fairly dripping with a steamy heat, +sweat dropping off the ends of their noses on to the lenses of their +microscopes, they shot stuff from the tragic carcasses of just-dead +Alexandrians into apes and dogs and hens and mice and cats. But while +these rival teams of searchers hunted frantically the epidemic began +to fade away as mysteriously as it came. None of them had yet found a +microbe they could surely accuse, and all of them--there is a kind of +twisted humor in this--grumbled as they saw death receding, their +chance of trapping their prey slipping from them. + +[Illustration: ROBERT KOCH] + +Koch and Gaffky were getting ready to return to Berlin, when one +morning a frightened messenger came to them and told them: “Dr. +Thuillier, of the French Commission, is dead--of cholera.” + +Koch and Pasteur hated each other sincerely and enthusiastically, +like the good patriots that they were, but now the two Germans went +to the bereaved Roux and offered their help and their condolences; +and Koch was one of those that carried in a plain box to its last +home the body of Thuillier, this daring young Thuillier whom the +miserably weak--but treacherous--cholera microbe had turned upon and +done to death before he had ever had a chance to spy upon and trap +it. At the grave Koch laid wreaths upon the coffin: “They are very +simple,” he said, “but they are of laurel, such as are given to the +brave.” + +The funeral of this first of the martyred microbe hunters over, +Koch hurried back to Berlin with certain mysterious boxes that +held specimens, that he had painted with powerful dyes, and these +specimens had in them a curious microbe shaped like a comma. Koch +made his report to the Minister of State: “I have found a germ,” +he said, “in all cases of cholera ... but I haven’t _proved_ yet +that it is the cause. Send me to India where cholera is always +smoldering--what I have found justifies your sending me there.” + +So Koch sailed from Berlin for Calcutta, with the fate of +Thuillier hanging over him, drolly chaperoning fifty mice and +dreadfully annoyed by seasickness. I have often wondered what his +fellow-passengers took him for--probably they guessed that he was +some earnest little missionary or a serious professor intent to delve +into ancient Hindu lore. + +Koch found his comma bacillus in the dead bodies of every one of +the forty carcasses into which he peered, and he unearthed the same +microbe in the intestines of patients at the moment the fatal disease +hit them. But he never found this germ in any of the hundreds of +healthy Hindus that he examined, nor in any animal, from mice to +elephants. + +Quickly Koch learned to grow the comma bacillus pure on beef-broth +jelly, and once he had it imprisoned in his tubes he studied all the +habits of this vicious little vegetable, how it perished quickly when +he dried it the least bit, how it could sneak into a healthy man by +way of the soiled linen of patients that had died. He dredged this +comma microbe up out of the stinking water of the tanks around which +clustered the miserable Hindu’s huts--sad hovels from which drifted +the moans of helpless ones that were dying of cholera. + +At last Koch sailed back to Germany, and here he was received +like some returning victorious general. “Cholera never rises +spontaneously,” he told his audience of learned doctors; “no healthy +man can ever be attacked by cholera unless he swallows the comma +microbe, and this germ can only develop from its like--it cannot be +produced from any other thing, or out of nothing. And it is only in +the intestine of man, or in highly polluted water like that of India +that it can grow.” + +It is thanks to these bold searchings of Robert Koch that Europe +and America no longer dread the devastating raids of these puny +but terrible little murderers from the Orient--and their complete +extermination from the world waits only upon the civilization and +sanitation of India.... + + + VIII + +From the German Emperor’s own hand Koch now received the Order of the +Crown, with Star, but in spite of that his countrified hat continued +to fit his stubbly head, and when admirers adored him he only said +to them: “I have worked as hard as I could ... if my success has +been greater than that of most ... the reason is that I came in my +wanderings through the medical field upon regions where the gold was +still lying by the wayside ... and that is no great merit.” + +The hunters who believed that microbes were the chief foes of man, +these men were brave, but there was careless heroism too among some +of the ancient doctors and old-fogey sanitarians who thought that +all this new stuff about microbes was claptrap and nonsense. Old +Professor Pettenkofer of Munich was the leader of the skeptics who +were not convinced by Koch’s clear experiments, and when Koch came +back from India with those comma bacilli that he was sure were the +authors of cholera Pettenkofer wrote him something like this: “Send +me some of your so-called cholera germs, and I’ll show you how +harmless they are!” + +Koch sent him on a tube that swarmed with wee virulent comma +microbes. And so Pettenkofer--to the great alarm of all good microbe +hunters--swallowed the entire contents of the tube. There were enough +billions of wiggling comma germs in this tube to infect a regiment. +Then he growled his scorn through his magnificent beard, and said: +“Now let us see if I get cholera!” Mysteriously, nothing happened, +and the failure of the mad Pettenkofer to come down with cholera +remains to this day an enigma, without even the beginning of an +explanation. + +Pettenkofer, who was foolhardy enough to try such a possibly suicidal +experiment, was also sufficiently cocksure to believe that his +drinking of the cholera soup had settled the question in his favor. +“Germs are of no account in cholera!” shouted the old doctor. “The +important thing is the _disposition_ (whatever that means) of the +individual!” + +“There can be no cholera without the comma bacillus!” said Koch in +reply. + +“But I have just swallowed millions of your alleged fatal bacilli, +and have not even had a cramp in my stomach!” came back Pettenkofer +in rebuttal. + +As it is so often the case, alas, in violent scientific +controversies, both sides were partly right and partly wrong. Every +event of the past forty years has shown that Koch was right when +he said that people can never have cholera without swallowing his +comma bacillus. And the years that have gone by have revealed that +Pettenkofer’s experiment pointed out a mystery behind the curtains of +the unknown, and these obscuring draperies have not now even begun to +be lifted by modern microbe hunters. Murderous germs are everywhere, +sneaking into all of us, yet they are able to assassinate only some +of us, and that question of the strange resistance of the rest of us +is still just as much an unsolved puzzle as it was in those days of +the roaring eighteen-eighties when men were ready to risk dying to +prove that they were right. + +For, make no mistake, Pettenkofer walked within an inch of death; +other microbe hunters have since then swallowed cultures of virulent +cholera microbes by accident--and died horribly. + +But we come to the end of the great days of Robert Koch, and the +exploits of Louis Pasteur begin once more to push Koch and all other +microbe hunters into the background of the world’s attention. Let us +leave Koch while his ambitious but well-meaning countrymen prepare, +without knowing it, a disaster for him, a tragedy that, alas, has +partly tarnished the splendor of his trapping of the microbes that +murder animals and men with anthrax and cholera and tuberculosis. But +before you read the perfect and brilliant _finale_ of the gorgeous +career of Pasteur, I beg leave to remove my hat and make bows of +respect to Koch--the man who really _proved_ that microbes are our +most deadly enemies, who brought microbe hunting near to being a +science, the man who is now the partly forgotten captain of an +obscure heroic age. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + PASTEUR + + AND THE MAD DOG + + + I + +Do not think for a moment that Pasteur allowed his fame and name to +be forgotten in the excitement kicked up by the sensational proofs of +Koch that microbes murder men. It is certain that less of a hound for +sniffing out microbes, less of a poet, less of a master at keeping +people wide-eyed with their mouths open, would have been shoved off +into a fairly complete oblivion by such events--but not Pasteur! + +It was in the late eighteen-seventies--Koch had just swept the +German doctors off their feet by his fine discovery of the spores +of anthrax--that Pasteur who was only a chemist, had the effrontery +to dismiss with a grunt, a shrug, and a wave of his hand, the ten +thousand years of experience of doctors in studying and fighting +diseases. At this time, in spite of Semmelweis, the Austrian who had +proved child-bed fever was contagious, the Lying-In hospitals of +Paris were pest-holes. Out of every nineteen women who went hopeful +into their doors, one was sure to die of child-bed fever, to leave +her baby motherless. One of these places, where ten young mothers +perished in succession, was called the House of Crime. Women hardly +dared to trust themselves to the most expensive physicians; they +were beginning to boycott the hospitals. Large numbers of them--with +reason--no longer cared to risk the grim danger of having babies. +Even the doctors themselves--accustomed though they were helplessly +but sympathetically to preside at the demise of their patients--even +the physicians themselves, I say, were scandalized at this dreadful +presence of death at the birth of new life. + +One day, at the Academy of Medicine in Paris, a famous physician +was holding an oration, with plenty of long Greek and elegant Latin +words, on the cause--alas, completely unknown to him--of child-bed +fever. Suddenly one of his learned and stately sentences was +interrupted by a voice bellowing from the rear of the hall: + +“The thing that kills women with child-bed fever--it isn’t anything +like that! It is you doctors that carry deadly microbes from sick +women to healthy ones...!” It was Pasteur who said this; he was out +of his seat; his eyes flamed excitement. + +“Possibly you are right, but I fear you will never find that +microbe----” The orator tried to start his speech again, but by this +time Pasteur was charging up the aisle, dragging his partly paralyzed +left leg behind him a little. He reached the blackboard, grabbed a +piece of chalk and shouted to the annoyed orator and the scandalized +Academy: + +“You say I will not find the microbe? Man, I have found it! Here’s +the way it looks!” And Pasteur scrawled a chain of little circles on +the blackboard. The meeting broke up in confusion. + +Pasteur was in his late fifties now, but he was still as impetuous +and enthusiastic as he had been at twenty-five. He had been a chemist +and an expert on beet-sugar fermentations, he had shown the vintners +how to keep their wines from spoiling, he had rushed from this job +into the saving of sick silkworms, he had preached the slogan of +Better Beer for France and had really made the French beer better; +but during all these hectic years while he was doing the life work +of a dozen men Pasteur dreamed about the tracking down of microbes +that he knew must be the scourges of the human race, the authors of +disease. + +Then suddenly he found Koch had done the trick ahead of him. He must +catch up with this Koch. “Microbes are in a way mine--I was the +first to show how important they were, twenty years ago, when Koch +was a child....” you can imagine Pasteur muttering. But there were +difficulties in the way of his catching up. + +In the first place, Pasteur had never felt a pulse or told a bilious +man to stick out his tongue, it is doubtful if he could have +told a lung from a liver, and it is certain that he did not know +the first thing about how to hold a scalpel. As for those cursed +hospitals--phew! The smell of them gave him nasty feelings at the +pit of his stomach, and he wanted to stop his ears and run away from +the moans that floated down their dingy corridors. But presently--it +was ever the way with this unconquerable man--he got around his +medical ignorance. Three physicians, Joubert at first, and then Roux +and Chamberland became his assistants; youngsters they were, these +three, radicals who were Bolshevik against ancient idiotic medical +doctrines. They sat worshiping Pasteur at his unpopular lectures +in the Academy of Medicine, believing every one of his laughed-at +prophecies of dreadful scourges caused by sub-visible bugs. He +took these boys into his laboratory and in return they explained +the machinery of animals’ insides to Pasteur, they taught him the +difference between the needle and the plunger of a hypodermic syringe +and convinced him--he was very squeamish about such things--that +animals like guinea-pigs and rabbits hardly felt the prick of the +syringe needle when he injected them. Privately these three men swore +to be his slaves--and the priests of this new science.... + +Nothing is truer than that there is no one orthodox way of hunting +microbes, and the differences between the ways Koch and Pasteur went +at their work are the best illustrations of this. Koch was as coldly +logical as a text-book of geometry--he searched out his bacillus of +tuberculosis with systematic experiments, and he thought of all the +objections that doubters might make before such doubters knew that +there was anything to have doubts about. Koch always recited his +failures with just as much and no more enthusiasm than he did his +triumphs. There was something inhumanly just and right about him +and he looked at his own discoveries as if they had been those of +another man of whom he was a little over-critical. But Pasteur! This +man was a passionate groper whose head was incessantly inventing +right theories and wrong guesses--shooting them out like a display of +village fireworks going off bewilderingly by accident. + +Pasteur started hunting microbes of disease and punched into a boil +on the back of the neck of one of his assistants and grew a germ from +it and was sure it was the cause of boils; he hurried from these +experiments to the hospital to find his chain microbes in the bodies +of women dying with child-bed fever; from here he rushed out into the +country to discover--but not to prove it precisely--that earthworms +carry anthrax bacilli from the deep buried carcasses of cattle to the +surface of the fields. He was a strange genius who seemed to need the +energetic, gusto-ish doing of a dozen things at the same time--more +or less accurately--in order to discover that grain of truth which +lies at the bottom of most of his work. + +In this variety of simultaneous goings-on you can fairly feel Pasteur +fumbling at a way of getting ahead of Koch. Koch had shown with +beautiful clearness that germs cause disease, there is no doubt +about that--but this isn’t the most important thing to do ... this +is nothing, this proof, the thing to do is to find a way to prevent +the germs from killing people, to protect mankind from death! “What +impossible, what absurd experiments didn’t we discuss,” said Roux +long after this distressing time when Pasteur was stumbling about in +the dark. “We would laugh at them ourselves, next day.” + +To understand Pasteur, it is important to know his wild stabs and his +failures as well as his triumphs. He had not the precise methods of +growing microbes pure--it took the patience of Koch to devise such +things--and one day to his disgust, Pasteur observed that a bottle of +boiled urine in which he had planted anthrax bacilli was swarming +with unbidden guests, contaminating microbes of the air that had +sneaked in. The following morning he observed that there were no +anthrax germs left at all; they had been completely choked out by the +bacilli from the air. + +At once Pasteur jumped to a fine idea: “If the harmless bugs from the +air choke out the anthrax bacilli in the bottle, they will do it in +the body too! It is a kind of dog-eat-dog!” shouted Pasteur, and at +once he put Roux and Chamberland to work on the fantastic experiment +of giving guinea-pigs anthrax and then shooting doses of billions of +harmless microbes into them--beneficent germs which were to chase the +anthrax bacilli round the body and devour them--they were to be like +the mongoose which kills cobras.... + +Pasteur gravely announced: “That there were high hopes for the cure +of disease from this experiment,” but that is the last you hear of +it, for Pasteur was never a man to give the world of science the +benefit of studying his failures. But a little later the Academy of +Sciences sent him on a queer errand, and on this mission he stumbled +across a fact that gave him the first clew to a genuine, a remarkable +way of turning savage microbes into friendly ones. It was an +outlandish plan he began to devise, to dream about, of turning living +microbes of disease against their own kind, so guarding animals and +men from invisible deaths. At this time there was a great to-do +about a cure for anthrax, invented by the horse doctor, Louvrier, +in the Jura mountains in the east of France. Louvrier had cured +hundreds of cows who were at death’s door, said the influential men +of the district: it was time that this treatment received scientific +approval. + + + II + +Pasteur arrived there, escorted by his young assistants, and found +that this miraculous cure consisted first, in having several farm +hands rub the sick cow violently to make her as hot as possible; +then long gashes were cut in the poor beast’s skin and into these +cuts Louvrier poured turpentine; finally the now bellowing and +deplorably maltreated cow was covered--excepting her face!--with an +inch thick layer of unmentionable stuff soaked in hot vinegar. This +ointment was kept on the animal--who now doubtless wished she were +dead--by a cloth that covered her entire body. + +Pasteur said to Louvrier: “Let us make an experiment. All cows +attacked by anthrax do not die, some of them just get better by +themselves; there is only one way to find out, Doctor Louvrier, +whether or no it is your treatment that saves them.” + +So four good healthy cows were brought, and Pasteur in the presence +of Louvrier and a solemn commission of farmers, shot a powerful dose +of virulent anthrax microbes into the shoulder of each one of these +beasts: this stuff would have surely killed a sheep, it was enough +to do to death a few dozen guinea-pigs. The next day Pasteur and the +commission and Louvrier returned, and all the cows had large feverish +swellings on their shoulders, their breath came in snorts--they were +in a bad way, that was very evident. + +“Now, Doctor,” said Pasteur, “choose two of these sick cows--we’ll +call them A and B. Give them your new cure, and we’ll leave cows C +and D without any treatment at all.” So Louvrier assaulted poor A and +B with his villainous treatment. The result was a terrible blow to +the sincere would-be curer of cows, for one of the cows that Louvrier +treated got better--but the other perished; and one of the creatures +that had got no treatment at all, died--but the other got better. + +“Even this experiment might have tricked us, Doctor,” said Pasteur. +“If you had given your treatment to cows A and D instead of A and +B--we all would have thought you had really found a sovereign remedy +for anthrax.” + +Here were two cows left over from the experiment, beasts that had +had a hard siege of anthrax and got better from it: “What shall I do +with these two cows?” pondered Pasteur. “Well, I might try shooting +a still more savage strain of anthrax bacilli into them--I have one +family of anthrax germs in Paris that would give even a rhinoceros a +bad night.” + +So Pasteur sent to Paris for his vicious cultivation, and injected +five drops into the shoulders of those two cows that had got better. +Then he waited, but nothing happened to the beasts, not even a tiny +swelling at the point where he had injected millions of poisonous +bacilli; the cows remained perfectly happy! + +Then Pasteur jumped to one of his quick conclusions: “Once a cow has +anthrax, but gets better from it, all the anthrax microbes in the +world cannot give her another attack--she is _immune_.” This thought +began playing and flitting about in his head and made him wool-gather +so that he did not hear questions that Madame Pasteur asked him, nor +see obvious things at which his eyes looked directly. + +“How to give an animal a _little_ attack of anthrax, a safe little +attack that won’t kill him, but will surely protect him.... There +must be a way to do that.... I must find a way.” + +So it went with Pasteur for months and he kept saying to Roux +and Chamberland: “What mystery is there, like the mystery of the +non-recurrence of virulent maladies?” He went about muttering to +himself: “We must immunize--we must immunize against microbes....” + +Meanwhile Pasteur and his faithful crew were training their +microscopes on stuff from men and animals dead of a dozen different +diseases; there was a kind of mixed-up fumbling in this work between +1878 and 1880--when one day fate, or God, put a marvelous way to +immunize right under Pasteur’s lucky nose. (It is hard for me to give +you this story exactly straight because all of the various people who +have written about Pasteur tell it differently and Pasteur himself +in his scientific paper says nothing whatever about this remarkable +discovery having been a happy accident.) But here it is, as well as I +can do, with certain gaps that I have had to fill in myself. + +In 1880, Pasteur was playing with the very tiny microbe that kills +chickens with a malady known as chicken cholera. Doctor Peronçito +had discovered this microbe, so tiny that it was hardly more than +a quivering point before the strongest lens. Pasteur was the first +microbe hunter to grow it pure, in a soup that he cooked for it from +chicken meat. And after he had watched these dancing points multiply +into millions in a few hours, he let fall the smallest part of a +drop of this bug-swarming broth onto a crumb of bread--and fed this +bread to a chicken. In a few hours the unfortunate beast stopped +clucking and refused to eat, her feathers ruffled until she looked +like a fluffy ball, and the next day Pasteur came in to find the bird +tottering, its eyes shut in a kind of invincible drowsiness that +turned quickly into death. + +Roux and Chamberland nursed these terrible wee microbes along +carefully; day after day they dipped a clean platinum needle into a +bottle of chicken broth that teemed with germs and then carefully +shook the same still-wet needle into a fresh flask of soup that held +no microbe at all--so day after day these transplantations went +on--always with new myriads of germs growing from the few that had +come in on the moistened needle. The benches of the laboratory became +cluttered with abandoned cultures, some of them weeks old. “We’ll +have to clean this mess up to-morrow,” thought Pasteur. + +Then the god of good accidents whispered in his ear, and Pasteur +said to Roux: “We know the chicken cholera microbes are still alive +in this bottle ... they’re several weeks old, it is true ... but +just try shooting a few drops of this old cultivation into some +chickens....” + +Roux followed these directions and the chickens promptly got sick, +turned drowsy, lost their customary lively frivolousness. But next +morning, when Pasteur came into the laboratory looking for these +birds, to put them on the post-mortem board--he was sure they would +be dead--he found them perfectly happy and gay! + +“This is strange,” pondered Pasteur, “always before this the +microbes from our cultivations have killed twenty chickens out of +twenty....” But the time for his discovery was not yet, and next day, +after these strangely recovered chickens had been put in charge of +the caretaker, Pasteur and his family and Roux and Chamberland went +off on their summer vacations. They forgot about those birds.... + +But at last one day Pasteur told the laboratory servant: “Bring up +some healthy birds, new chickens, and get them ready for inoculation.” + +“But we only have a couple of unused chickens left, Mr. +Pasteur--remember, you used the last ones before you went away--you +injected the old cultures into them, and they got sick but didn’t +die?” + +Pasteur made a few appropriate remarks about servants who neglected +to keep a good supply of fresh chickens on hand. “Well, all right, +bring up what new chickens you have left--and let’s have a couple of +those used ones too--the ones that had the cholera but got better....” + +The squawking birds were brought up. The assistant shot the soup with +its myriads of germs into the breast muscles of the chickens--into +the new ones, _and into the ones that had got better_! Roux and +Chamberland came into the laboratory next morning--Pasteur was always +there an hour or so ahead of them--they heard the muffled voice of +their master shouting to them from the animal room below stairs: + +“Roux, Chamberland, come down here--hurry!” + +They found him pacing up and down before the chicken cages. “Look!” +said Pasteur. “The new birds we shot yesterday--they’re dead all +right, as they ought to be.... But now see these chickens that +recovered after we shot them with the old cultures last month.... +They got the same murderous dose yesterday--but look at them--they +have resisted the virulent dose perfectly ... they are gay ... they +are eating!” + +Roux and Chamberland were puzzled for a moment. + +Then Pasteur raved: “But don’t you see what this means? Everything +is found! Now I have found out how to make a beast a little +sick--just a little sick so that he will get better, from a +disease.... All we have to do is to let our virulent microbes grow +old in their bottles ... instead of planting them into new ones +every day.... When the microbes age, they get tame ... they give +the chicken the disease ... but only a little of it ... and when +she gets better she can stand all the vicious virulent microbes +in the world.... This is our chance--this is my most remarkable +discovery--this is a _vaccine_ I’ve discovered, much more sure, +more scientific than the one for smallpox where no one has seen +the germ.... We’ll apply this to anthrax too ... to all virulent +diseases.... We will save lives...!” + + + III + +A lesser man than Pasteur might have done this same accidental +experiment--for this was no test planned by the human brain--a lesser +man might have done it and would have spent years trying to explain +to himself the mystery of it, but Pasteur, stumbling on this chance +protection of a couple of miserable chickens, saw at once a new way +of guarding living things against virulent germs, of saving men +from death. His brain jumped to a new way of tricking the hitherto +inexorable God who ruled that men must be helpless before the +sneaking attacks of his sub-visible enemies.... + +Pasteur was fifty-eight years old now, he was past his prime, but +with this chance discovery of the vaccine that saved chickens +from cholera, he started the six most hectic years of his life, +years of appalling arguments and unhoped-for triumphs and terrible +disappointments--into these years, in short, he poured the energy and +the events of the lives of a hundred ordinary men. + +Hurriedly Pasteur and Roux and Chamberland set out to confirm the +first chance observation they had made. They let virulent chicken +cholera microbes grow old in their bottles of broth; they inoculated +these enfeebled bugs into dozens of healthy chickens--which +promptly got sick, but as quickly recovered. Then triumphantly, +a few days later, they watched these birds--these _vaccinated_ +chickens--tolerate murderous injections of millions of microbes, +enough to kill a dozen new birds who were not immune. + +So it was that Pasteur, ingeniously, turned microbes against +themselves. He tamed them first, and then he strangely used them for +wonderful protective weapons against the assaults of their own kind. + +And now Pasteur, with his characteristic impetuousness--after all it +was only chickens he had learned to guard from death so far--became +more arrogant than ever with the old-fashioned doctors who talked +Latin words and wrote shot-gun prescriptions. He went to a meeting +of the Academy of Medicine and with complaisance told the doctors +how his chicken vaccinations were a great advance on the immortal +smallpox discovery of Jenner: “In this case I have demonstrated a +thing that Jenner never could do in smallpox--and that is, that the +microbe that kills is the same one that guards the animal from death!” + +The old-fashioned blue-coated doctors were peeved at Pasteur’s +appointing himself a god superior to the great Jenner; Doctor Jules +Guérin, the famous surgeon, became particularly sarcastic about +Pasteur making so much of mere fussings with chickens--and the fight +was on. Pasteur, in a fury got up and shouted remarks about the utter +nonsensicality of one of Guérin’s pet operations, and there occurred +a most scandalous scene--it embarrasses me to have to tell about +it--a strange shambles in which Guérin, who was past eighty, rose +from his seat and was about to fall on the sixty-year-old Pasteur. +The old man aimed a wallop at Pasteur, but frantic friends jumped in +and prevented the impending fisticuffs of these two men who thought +they could settle the truth by kicks and blows and mayhem. + +Next day the ancient Guérin sent his seconds to Pasteur with a +challenge to a duel, but Pasteur, evidently, did not care to risk +dying that way and he sent Guérin’s friends to the Secretary of +the Academy with this message: “I am ready, having no right to act +otherwise, to modify whatever the editors may consider as going +beyond the rights of criticism and legitimate defense.” And so +Pasteur once more proved himself to be a human being--if not what is +commonly called a man--by backing out of the fight. + +As I have told you before, Pasteur had a great deal of the mystic in +him. Often he bowed himself down before that mysterious Infinite--he +worshiped the Infinite when he was not clutching at it like a +baby reaching for the moon; but frequently, the moment one of his +beautiful experiments had knocked another little chunk off that +surrounding Unknown, he made the mistake of believing that all +mysteries had dissolved away. It was so now--when he saw that he +could really protect chickens perfectly against a fatal illness by +his amazing trick of sticking a few of their own tamed assassins into +them. At once Pasteur guessed: “Maybe these fowl-cholera microbes +will guard chickens against other virulent diseases!” and promptly he +inoculated some hens with his new vaccine of weakened fowl-cholera +germs and then injected them with some certainly murderous _anthrax_ +bacilli--and the chickens did not die! + +Wildly excited he wrote to Dumas, his old professor, and hinted that +the new fowl-cholera vaccine might be a wonderful Pan-Protector +against all kinds of virulent maladies. “If this is confirmed,” he +wrote, “we can hope for the most important consequences, even in +human maladies.” + +Old Dumas, greatly thrilled, had this letter published in the Reports +of the Academy of Sciences, and there it stands, a sad monument to +Pasteur’s impetuousness, a blot on his record of reporting nothing +but _facts_. So far as I can find, Pasteur never retracted this +error, although he soon found that a vaccine made from one kind +of bacillus does not protect an animal against all diseases, but +only--and then not absolutely surely--against the one disease of +which the microbe in the vaccine is the cause. + +But one of Pasteur’s most charming traits was his characteristic +of a scientific Phœnix, who rose triumphantly from the ashes of +his own mistakes. When his imagination carried him into the clouds +you find him presently landing on the ground with a bump--making +clever experiments again, digging for good true hard facts. So it +is not surprising to find him, with Roux and Chamberland, in 1881, +discovering a very pretty way of taming vicious anthrax microbes +and turning them into a vaccine. By this time the quest after +vaccines had become so violent that Roux and Chamberland hardly had +their Sundays off, and never went on vacations; they slept at the +laboratory to be near their tubes and microscopes and microbes. +And here, Pasteur directing them, they delicately weakened anthrax +bacilli so that some killed guinea-pigs, but not rabbits, and others +did mice to death, but were too weak to harm guinea-pigs. They shot +the weaker and then the stronger microbes into sheep, who got a +little sick but then recovered, and after that these sheep could +stand, apparently, the assaults of vicious anthrax germs that were +able to kill even a cow. + +At once Pasteur told this new triumph to the Academy of Sciences--he +had left off going to the Academy of Medicine after his brawl with +Guérin--and he held out purple hopes to them that he would presently +invent ingenious vaccines that would wipe out all diseases from mumps +to malaria. “What is more easy,” he shouted, “than to find in these +successive viruses a vaccine capable of making sheep and cows and +horses a little sick with anthrax without letting them perish--and +so preserving them from subsequent maladies?” Some of Pasteur’s +colleagues thought he was a little cocksure about this, and they +ventured to protest. Pasteur’s veins stood out on his forehead, but +he managed to keep his mouth shut until he and Roux were on the way +home, when he burst out, speaking really of all people who failed to +see the absolute truth of his idea: + +“I would not be surprised if such a man were to be caught beating his +wife!” + +Make no mistake--science was no cool collecting of facts for Pasteur; +in him it set going the same kind of machinery that stirs the human +animal to tears at the death of a baby and makes him sing when he +hears his uncle has died and left him five hundred thousand dollars. + +But enemies were on Pasteur’s trail again. Just as he was always +stepping on the toes of physicians, so he had offended the high and +useful profession of the horse doctors, and one of the leading horse +doctors, the editor of one of the most important journals of horse +doctoring, his name was Doctor Rossignol, cooked up a plot to lure +Pasteur into a dangerous public experiment and so destroy him. This +Rossignol got up with a great show of scientific fairness at the +Agricultural Society of Melun and said: + +“Pasteur claims that nothing is easier than to make a vaccine that +will protect sheep and cows absolutely from anthrax. If that is true, +it would be a great thing for French farmers, who are now losing +twenty million francs a year from this disease. Well, if Pasteur can +really make such magic stuff, he ought to be willing to prove to +us that he has the goods. Let us get Pasteur to consent to a grand +public experiment; if he is right, we farmers and veterinarians are +the gainers--if it fails, Pasteur will have to stop his eternal +blabbing about great discoveries that save sheep and worms and babies +and hippopotamuses!” Like this argued the sly Rossignol. + +At once the Society raised a lot of francs to buy forty-eight sheep +and two goats and several cows and the distinguished old Baron de la +Rochette was sent to flatter Pasteur into this dangerous experiment. + +But Pasteur was not one bit suspicious. “Of course I am willing to +demonstrate to your society that my vaccine is a life-saver--what +will work in the laboratory on fourteen sheep will work on sixty at +Melun!” + +That was the great thing about Pasteur! When he prepared to take +the rabbit out of the hat, to astonish the world, he was absolutely +sincere about it; he was a magnificent showman and not below some +small occasional hocus-pocus, but he was no designing mountebank. And +the public test was set for May and June, that year. + +Roux and Chamberland--who had begun to see animals that were strange +combinations of chickens and guinea-pigs in their dreams, to drop +important flasks, to lie awake injecting millions of imaginary +guinea-pigs, these fagged-out boys had just started off on a vacation +to the country--when they received telegrams that brought them back +to their exciting treadmill: + +COME BACK PARIS AT ONCE ABOUT TO MAKE PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION THAT OUR +VACCINE WILL PROTECT SHEEP AGAINST ANTHRAX--L. PASTEUR. + +Something like that read these wires. + +They hurried back. Pasteur said to them: “Before the Agricultural +Society of Melun, at the farm of Pouilly-le-Fort, I am going to +vaccinate twenty-four sheep, one goat and several cattle--twenty-four +other sheep, one goat and several other cattle are going to be left +without inoculation--then, at the appointed time, I am going to +inject _all_ of the beasts with the most deadly virulent culture +of anthrax bacilli that we have. The vaccinated animals will be +perfectly protected--the not-vaccinated ones will die in two days of +course.” Pasteur sounded as confident as an astronomer predicting an +eclipse of the sun.... + +“But, master, you know this work is so delicate--we _cannot_ be +absolutely sure of our vaccines--they may kill some of the sheep we +try to protect----” + +“WHAT WORKED WITH FOURTEEN SHEEP IN OUR LABORATORY WILL WORK WITH +FIFTY AT MELUN!” Pasteur roared at them. For him just then, there +was no such thing as a mysterious, tricky nature, an unknown full of +failures and surprises--the misty Infinite was as simple as two plus +two makes four to him just then. So there was nothing for Roux and +Chamberland to do but to roll up their sleeves and get the vaccines +ready. + +The day for the first injections came at last. Their bottles and +syringes were ready, their flasks were carefully labeled--“Be sure +not to mix up the first and second vaccine, boys!” shouted Pasteur, +full of a gay confidence, as they left the Rue d’Ulm for the train. +As they came on the field at Pouilly-le-Fort, and strode toward the +sheds that held the forty-eight sheep, two goats and several cattle, +Pasteur marched into the arena like a matador, and bowed severely to +the crowd. There were senators of the Republic there, and scientists +and horse doctors and dignitaries, and hundreds of farmers; and as +Pasteur walked among them with his little limp--it was however a sort +of jaunty limp--they cheered him mightily, many of them, and some of +them snickered. + +And there was a flock of newspaper men there, including the now +almost legendary de Blowitz, of the London _Times_. + +The sheep, fine healthy beasts, were herded into a clear space; Roux +and Chamberland lighted their alcohol lamps and gingerly unpacked +their glass syringes and shot five drops of the first vaccine--the +anthrax bacilli that would kill mice but leave guinea-pigs alive, +into the thighs of twenty-four of the sheep, one of the goats, and +half of the cattle. The beasts got up and shook themselves and +were labeled by a little gouge punched out of their ears. Then the +audience repaired to a shed where Pasteur harangued them for half an +hour--telling them simply but with a kind of dramatic portentousness +of these new vaccinations and the hopes they held out for suffering +men. + +Twelve days went by and the show was repeated. The crowd was there +once more and the second vaccine--the stronger one whose bacilli +had the power of killing guinea-pigs but not rabbits--was injected, +and the animals bore up beautifully under it and scampered about as +healthy sheep, goats and cattle should do. The time for the fatal +final test drew near; the very air of the little laboratory became +finicky; the taut workers snapped at each other across the Bunsen +flames. Pasteur was never so appallingly quiet--and the bottle +washers fairly jumped across the room to fill his growled orders. +Every day Thuillier, Pasteur’s new youngest assistant, went out to +the farm to put his thermometer carefully under the tails of the +inoculated animals to see if they had fever--but thank God, every +one of them was standing up beautifully under the heavy dose of the +vaccine that was not quite murderous enough to kill rabbits. + +While the heads of Roux and Chamberland turned several hairs grayer, +Pasteur kept his confidence, and he wrote, with his old charmingly +candid opinion of himself: “If success is complete, this will be +one of the finest examples of applied science in this country, +consecrating one of the greatest and most fruitful discoveries.” + +His friends shook their heads and lifted their shoulders and +murmured: “Napoleonic, my dear Pasteur,” and Pasteur did not deny it. + + + IV + +Then on the fateful thirty-first of May all of the forty-eight sheep, +two goats, and several cattle--those that were vaccinated and those +to which nothing whatever had been done--all of these received a +surely fatal dose of virulent anthrax bugs. Roux got down on his +knees in the dirt, surrounded by his alcohol lamps and bottles of +deadly virus, and awed the crowd by his cool flawless shooting of the +poisonous stuff into the more than sixty animals. + +With his whole scientific reputation trusted to this one delicate +test, realizing at last that he had done the brave but terribly rash +thing of letting a frivolous public judge his science, Pasteur rolled +and tossed around in his bed and got up fifty times that night. He +said absolutely nothing when Madame Pasteur tried to encourage him +and told him, “Now now everything will come out all right”; he sulked +in and out of the laboratory; there is no record of it, but without +a doubt he prayed.... + +Pasteur did not fancy going up in balloons and he would not fight +duels--but no one can question his absolute gameness when he let the +horse doctors get him into this dangerous test. + +The crowd that came to judge Pasteur on the famous second day of +June, 1881, made the previous ones look like mere assemblages at +country baseball games. General Councilors were here to-day as well +as senators; magnificoes turned out to see this show--tremendous +dignitaries who only exhibited themselves to the public at the +weddings and funerals of kings and princes. And the newspaper +reporters clustered around the famous de Blowitz. + +At two o’clock Pasteur and his cohorts marched upon the field and +this time there were no snickers, but only a mighty bellowing of +hurrahs. Not one of the twenty-four vaccinated sheep--though two +days before millions of deadly germs had taken residence under their +hides--not one of these sheep, I say, had so much as a trace of +fever. They ate and frisked about as if they had never been within a +thousand miles of an anthrax bacillus. + +But the unprotected, the not vaccinated beasts--alas--there they +lay in a tragic row, twenty-two out of twenty-four of them; and +the remaining two were staggering about, at grips with that last +inexorable, always victorious enemy of all living things. Ominous +black blood oozed from their mouths and noses. + +“See! There goes another one of those sheep that Pasteur did not +vaccinate!” shouted an awed horse doctor. + + + V + +The Bible does not go into details about what the great wedding crowd +thought of Jesus when he turned water into wine, but Pasteur, that +second of June, was the impresario of a modern miracle as amazing +as any of the marvels wrought by the Man of Galilee, and that day +Pasteur’s whole audience--who many of them had been snickering +skeptics--bowed down before this excitable little half-paralyzed +man who could so perfectly protect living creatures from the deadly +stings of sub-visible invaders. To me this beautiful experiment at +Pouilly-le-Fort is an utterly strange event in the history of man’s +fight against relentless nature. There is no record of Prometheus +bringing the precious fire to mankind amid applause; Galileo was +actually clapped in prison for those searchings that have done more +than any other to transform the world. We do not even know the names +of those completely anonymous geniuses who first built the wheel and +invented sails and thought to tame a horse. + + + VI + +But here stood Louis Pasteur, while his twenty-four immune sheep +scampered about among the carcasses of the same number of pitiful +dead ones, here stood this man, I say, in a gruesomely gorgeous +stage-setting of an immortal drama, and all the world was there +to see and to record and to be converted to his own faith in his +passionate fight against needless death. + +Now the experiment turned into the likeness of a revival. Doctor +Biot, a healer in horses who had been one of the most sarcastic +of the Pasteur-baiters, rushed up to him as the last of the +not-vaccinated sheep was dying, and cried: “Inoculate me with your +vaccines, Mr. Pasteur--just as you have done to those sheep you +have saved so wonderfully----Then I will submit to the injection of +the murderous virus! All men must be convinced of this marvelous +discovery!” + +“It is true,” said another humbled enemy, “that I have made jokes +about microbes, but I am a repentant sinner!” + +“Well, allow me to remind you of the words of the Gospel,” Pasteur +answered him. “Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, +more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.” + +The great de Blowitz cheered and rushed off to file his telegram +to the London _Times_ and to the newspapers of the world: “The +experiment at Pouilly-le-Fort is a perfect, an unprecedented success.” + +The world received this news and waited, confusedly believing that +Pasteur was a kind of Messiah who was going to lift from men the +burden of all suffering. France went wild and called him her greatest +son and conferred on him the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honor. +Agricultural societies, horse doctors, poor farmers whose fields were +cursed with the poisonous virus of anthrax--all these sent telegrams +begging him for thousands of doses of the life-saving vaccine. And +Pasteur, with Roux and Chamberland and Thuillier, responded to them +with a magnificent disregard of their own health--and of science. For +Pasteur, poet that he was, had more faith than the wildest of his new +converts in this experiment. + +In answer to these telegrams Pasteur turned the little laboratory +in the Rue d’Ulm into a vaccine factory--huge kettles bubbled and +simmered with the broth in which the tame, the life-saving, anthrax +bacilli were to grow. Delicately--but so frantically that it was not +quite delicate enough--Roux and Chamberland worked at weakening the +murderous bacilli just enough to make the sheep of France a little +sick, but not too sick from anthrax. Then all of them sweat at +pouring numerous gallons of this bacillus-swarming soup which was the +vaccine, into little bottles, a few ounces to each bottle, into clean +bottles that had to be absolutely free from all other germs. And they +had to do this subtle job without any proper apparatus whatever. I +marvel that Pasteur ever attempted it; surely there never has been +such blind confidence raised by one clear--but Lord! it might be +simply a lucky--experiment. + +In moments snatched from this making of vaccine Roux and Chamberland +and Thuillier scurried up and down the land of France, and even to +Hungary. They inoculated two hundred sheep in this place and five +hundred and seventy-six in that--in less than a year hundreds of +thousands of beasts had got this life-saving stuff. These wandering +vaccinators would drag themselves back into the laboratory from their +hard trips, they would get back to Paris probably wanting to get a +few drinks or spend an evening with a pretty girl or loaf over a +pipe--but Pasteur could not stand the smell of tobacco smoke, and as +for wine and women, were not the sheep of France literally baa-ing to +be saved? So these young men who were slaves of this battler whose +one insane thought was “find-the-microbe-kill-the-microbe”--these +faithful fellows took off their coats and peered at anthrax bacilli +through the microscopes until their eye rims got red and their +eyelashes fell out. In the middle of this work--with the farmers of +France yelling for more vaccine--they began to have strange troubles: +contaminating germs that had no business there began to pop up among +the anthrax bacilli; all at once a weak vaccine that should have just +killed a mouse began to knock off large rabbits.... Then, just as the +scientific desperadoes got these messes straightened out, Pasteur +would come in, nagging at them, fuming, fussing because they took so +long at their experiments. + +He wanted to try to find the deadly virus of hydrophobia. + +And now at night the chittering of the guinea-pigs and the scurrying +fights of the buck-rabbits in their cages were drowned by the +eerie noise of mad dogs howling--sinister howls that kept Roux and +Chamberland and Thuillier from sleep.... What would Pasteur ever +have done--he surely would never have got far in his fight with the +messengers of death--without those fellows Roux and Chamberland and +Thuillier? + +Gradually, it was hardly a year after the miracle of Pouilly-le-Fort, +it began to be evident that Pasteur, though a most original microbe +hunter, was not an infallible God. Disturbing letters began to pile +up on his desk; complaints from Montpothier and a dozen towns of +France, and from Packisch and Kapuvar in Hungary. Sheep were dying +from anthrax--not natural anthrax they had picked up in dangerous +fields, but anthrax they had got from those vaccines that were +meant to save them! From other places came sinister stories of how +the vaccine had failed to work--the vaccine had been paid for, whole +flocks of sheep had been injected, the farmers had gone to bed +breathing Thank-God-For-Our-Great-Man-Pasteur, only to wake up in +the morning to find their fields littered with the carcasses of dead +sheep, and these sheep--which ought to have been immune--had died +from the lurking anthrax spores that lay in their fields.... + +Pasteur began to hate to open his letters; he wanted to stop his ears +against snickers that sounded from around corners, and then--the +worst thing that could possibly happen--came a cold terribly exact +scientific report from the laboratory of that nasty little German +Koch in Berlin, and this report ripped the practicalness of the +anthrax vaccine to tatters. Pasteur knew that Koch was the most +accurate microbe hunter in the world. + +There is no doubt that Pasteur lost some sleep from this aftermath of +his glorious discovery, but, God rest him, he was a gallant man. It +was not in him to admit, either to the public or to himself, that his +sweeping claims were wrong. + +“Have not _I_ said that my vaccines made sheep a little sick with +anthrax, but never killed them, and protected them perfectly? Well, I +must stick to that,” you can hear him mutter between his teeth. + +[Illustration: VACCINATING SHEEP FOR ANTHRAX] + +What a searcher this Pasteur was, and yet how little of that fine +selfless candor of Socrates or Rabelais is to be found in him. But +he is not in any way to be blamed for that, for those two last were +only, in their way, looking for truth, while Pasteur’s work carried +him more and more into the frantic business of saving lives, and in +this matter truth is not of the first importance.... + +In 1882, while his desk was loaded with reports of disasters, Pasteur +went to Geneva, and there before the cream of disease-fighters of +the world he gave a thrilling speech, subject: “How to guard living +creatures from virulent maladies by injecting them with weakened +microbes.” Pasteur assured them that: “The general principles have +been found and one cannot refuse to believe that the future is rich +with the greatest hopes.” + +“We are all animated with a superior passion, the passion for +progress and for truth!” he shouted--but unhappily he said no word +about those numerous occasions when his vaccine had killed sheep +instead of protecting them. + +At this meeting Robert Koch sat blinking at Pasteur behind his +gold-rimmed spectacles and smiling under his weedy beard at such +an unscientific inspirational address. Pasteur seemed to feel +something hanging over him, and he challenged Koch to argue with him +publicly--knowing that Koch was a much better microbe hunter than +an argufier. “I will content myself with replying to Mr. Pasteur’s +address in a written paper, in the near future,” said Koch--who +coughed, and sat down. + +In a little while this reply appeared. It was dreadful. In this +serio-comic answer Dr. Koch began by remarking that he had obtained +some of this precious so-called anthrax vaccine from the agent of Mr. +Pasteur. + +Did Mr. Pasteur say that his _first_ vaccine would kill mice, but not +guinea-pigs? Dr. Koch had tested it, and it wouldn’t even kill mice. +But some queer samples of it killed sheep! + +Did Mr. Pasteur maintain that his _second_ vaccine killed guinea-pigs +but not rabbits? Dr. Koch had carefully tested this one too, and +found that it often killed rabbits very promptly--and sometimes +sheep, poor beasts! which Mr. Pasteur claimed it would guard from +death. + +Did Mr. Pasteur really believe that his vaccines were really pure +cultivations containing nothing but anthrax microbes? Dr. Koch had +studied them carefully and found them to be veritable menageries of +hideous scum-forming bacilli and strange cocci and other foreign +creatures that had no business there. + +Finally, was Mr. Pasteur really burning so with a passion for truth? +Then why hadn’t he told of the bad results as well as the good ones, +that had followed the wholesale use of his vaccine? + +“Such goings-on are perhaps suitable for the advertising of a +business house, but science should reject them vigorously,” finished +Koch, drily, devastatingly. + +Then Pasteur went through the roof and answered Koch’s cool facts +in an amazing paper with arguments that would not have fooled the +jury of a country debating society. Did Koch dare to make believe +that Pasteur’s vaccines were full of contaminating microbes? “For +twenty years before Koch’s scientific birth in 1876, it has been my +one occupation to isolate and grow microbes in a pure state, and +therefore Koch’s insinuation that I do not know how to make pure +cultivations cannot be taken seriously!” shouted Pasteur. + +The French nation, even the great men of the nation, patriotically +refused to believe that Koch had demoted their hero from the rank of +God of Science--what could you expect from a German anyway?--and they +promptly elected Pasteur to the _Académie Française_, the ultimate +honor to bestow on a Frenchman. And on the day of Pasteur’s admission +this fiery yes-man was welcomed to his place among the Immortal Forty +by the skeptical genius, Ernest Renan, the author who had changed +Jesus from a God into a good human being, a man who could forgive +everything because he understood everything. Renan knew that even if +Pasteur sometimes did suppress the truth, he was still sufficiently +marvelous. Renan was not a scientist but he was wise enough to know +that Pasteur had done a wonderful thing when he showed that weak bugs +may protect living beings against virulent ones--even if they would +not do it one hundred times out of one hundred. + +Regard these two fantastically opposite men facing each other on +this solemn day. Pasteur the go-getter, an energetic fighter full of +a mixture of faiths that interfered, sometimes, with ultimate--and +maybe ugly--truth. And talking to him loftily sits the untroubled +Renan with the massiveness of Mount Everest, such a dreadful skeptic +that he probably was never quite convinced that he was himself +alive, so firmly doubting the value of doing anything that he had +become one of the fattest men in France. + +Renan called Pasteur a genius and compared him to some of the +greatest men that ever lived and then gave the excited, paralyzed, +gray-haired, microbe hunter this mild admonition: + +“Truth, Sir, is a great coquette; she will not be sought with too +much passion, but often is most amenable to indifference. She escapes +when apparently caught, but gives herself up if patiently waited for; +revealing herself after farewells have been said, but inexorable when +loved with too much fervor.” + +Surely Renan was too wise to think that his lovely words would +ever change Pasteur one jot from the headlong untruthful hunter +after truth that he was. But just the same, these words sum up the +fundamental sadness of Pasteur’s life, they tell of the crown of +thorns that madmen wear whose dream it is to change a world in the +little seventy years they are allowed to live. + + + VII + +And now Pasteur began--God knows why--to stick little hollow glass +tubes into the gaping mouths of dogs writhing mad with rabies. While +two servants pried apart and held open the jowls of a powerful +bulldog, Pasteur stuck his beard within a couple of inches of those +fangs whose snap meant the worst of deaths, and, sprinkled sometimes +with a maybe fatal spray, he sucked up the froth into his tube--to +get a specimen in which to hunt for the microbe of hydrophobia. +I wish to forget, now, everything that I have said about his +showmanship, his unsearcherlike go-gettings. This business of his +gray eyes looking that bulldog in the mouth--this was no grandstand +stuff. + +Why did Pasteur set out to trap the germ of rabies? That is a +mystery, because there were a dozen other serious diseases, just +then, whose microbes had not yet been found, diseases that killed +many more people than rabies had ever put to death, diseases that +were not nearly so surely deadly to an adventurous experimenter as +rabies would be--if one of those dogs should get loose.... + +It must have been the artist, the poet in him that urged him on to +this most hard and dangerous hunting, for Pasteur himself said: “I +have always been haunted by the cries of those victims of the mad +wolf that came down the street of Arbois when I was a little boy....” +Pasteur knew the way the yells of a mad dog curdle the blood of every +one. He remembered that less than a hundred years before in France, +laws had to be passed against the poisoning, the strangling, the +shooting of wretched people whom frightened fellow-townsmen just +suspected of having rabies. Doubtless he saw himself the deliverer of +men from such crazy fear--such hopeless suffering. + +And then, in this most magnificent and truest of all his searchings, +Pasteur started out, as he so often did, by making mistakes. In +the saliva of a little child dying from hydrophobia he discovered +a strange motionless germ that he gave the unscientific name +of “microbe-like-an-eight.” He read papers at the Academy that +hinted about this figure-eight germ having something to do with +the mysterious cause of hydrophobia. But in a little while this +trail proved to be a blind one, for with Roux and Chamberland +he found--after he had settled down and got his teeth into this +search--that this eight-microbe could be found in the mouths of many +healthy people who had never been anywhere near a mad dog. + +Presently, late in 1882, he ran on to his first clew. “Mad dogs are +scarce just now, old Bourrel the veterinarian brings me very few +of them, and people with hydrophobia are still harder to get hold +of--we’ve got to produce this rabies in animals in our laboratory and +keep it going there--otherwise we won’t be able to go on studying it +steadily,” he pondered. + +He was more than sixty, and he was tired. + +Then one day, a lassoed mad dog was brought into the laboratory; +dangerously he was slid into a big cage with healthy dogs and +allowed to bite them. Roux and Chamberland fished froth out of +the mouth of this mad beast and sucked it up into syringes and +injected this stuff into rabbits and guinea-pigs. Then they waited +eagerly to see this menagerie develop the first signs of madness. +Sometimes--alas--the experiment worked, but other very irritating +times it did not; four healthy dogs had been bitten and six weeks +later they came in one morning to find two of these creatures lashing +about their cages, howling--but for months after that the other +two showed no sign of rabies; there was no rime or reason to this +business, no regularity, confound it! this was not _science_! And it +was the same with the guinea-pigs and rabbits: two of the rabbits +might drag out their hind legs with a paralysis--then die in dreadful +convulsions, but the other four would go on chewing their greens as +if there were no mad-dog virus within a million miles of them. + +Then one day a little idea came to Pasteur, and he hurried to tell it +to Roux. + +“This rabies virus that gets into people by bites, it settles in +their brains and spinal cords.... All the symptoms of hydrophobia +show that it’s the nervous system that this virus--this bug we can’t +find--attacks.... + +“That’s where we have to look for the unknown microbe ... that’s +where we can grow it maybe, even without seeing it ... maybe we could +use the living animal’s brain instead of a bottle of soup ... a funny +culture-bottle that would be, but.... + +“When we inject it under the skin--the virus may get lost in the body +before it can travel to the brain--if I could only stick it right +into a dog’s brain...!” + +Roux listened to these dreamings of Pasteur, he listened bright-eyed +to these fantastic imaginings.... Another man than Roux might have +thought Pasteur completely crazy.... The brain of a dog or rabbit +instead of a bottle of broth, indeed! What nonsense! But not to Roux! + +“But why not put the virus right into a dog’s brain, master, I can +trephine a dog--I can drill a little hole in his skull--without +hurting him--without damaging his brain at all ... it would be easy +...” said Roux. + +Pasteur shut Roux up, furiously. He was no doctor, and he did not +know that surgeons can do this operation on human beings even, quite +safely. “What! bore a hole right through a dog’s skull--why, you’d +hurt the poor beast terribly ... you would damage his brain ... you +would paralyze him.... No! I will not permit it!” + +So near was Pasteur, by reason of his tender-heartedness, so close +was he to failing completely in winning to the most marvelous of his +gifts to men. He quailed before the stern experiment that his weird +idea demanded. But Roux--the faithful, the now almost forgotten +Roux--saved him by disobeying him. + +For, a few days later when Pasteur left the laboratory to go to some +meeting or other, Roux took a healthy dog, put him easily out of pain +with a little chloroform, and bored a hole in the beast’s head and +exposed his palpitating, living brain. Then up into a syringe he drew +a little bit of the ground-up brain of a dog just dead with rabies: +“This stuff must be swarming with those rabies microbes that are +maybe too small for us to see,” he pondered; and through the hole in +the sleeping dog’s skull went the needle of the syringe, and into the +living brain Roux slowly, gently shot the deadly rabid stuff.... + +Next morning Roux told Pasteur about it----“What!” shouted Pasteur. +“Where is the poor creature ... he must be dying ... paralyzed....” + +But Roux was already down the stairs, and in an instant he was back, +his operated dog prancing in ahead of him, jumping gayly against +Pasteur, sniffing ’round among the old broth bottles under the +laboratory benches. Then Pasteur realized Roux’s cleverness--and +the new road of experiment that lay before him, and though he was +not fond of dogs, his joy made him fuss over this one: “Good dog, +excellent beast!” Pasteur said, and dreamed: “This beast will show +that my idea will work....” + +Sure enough, less than two weeks later the good creature began to +howl mournful cries and tear up his bed and gnaw at his cage--and in +a few days more he was dead, and this brute died, as you will see, so +that thousands of mankind might live. + +Now Pasteur and Roux and Chamberland had a sure way, that worked one +hundred times out of one hundred, of giving rabies to their dogs +and guinea-pigs and rabbits. “We cannot find the microbe--surely it +must be too tiny for the strongest microscope to show us--there’s no +way to grow it in flasks of soup ... but we can keep it alive--this +deadly virus--in the brains of rabbits ... that is the only way to +grow it,” you can hear Pasteur telling Roux and Chamberland. + +Never was there a more fantastic experiment in all of microbe +hunting, or in any science, for that matter; never was there a more +unscientific feat of science than this struggling, by Pasteur and +his boys, with a microbe they couldn’t see--a weird bug of whose +existence they only knew by its invisible growth in the living brains +and spinal cords of an endless succession of rabbits and guinea-pigs +and dogs. Their only knowledge that there was such a thing as the +microbe of rabies was the convulsive death of the rabbits they +injected, and the fearful cries of their trephined dogs.... + +Then Pasteur and his assistants started on their outlandish--any wise +man would say their impossible--adventure of taming this vicious +virus that they could not see. There were little interruptions; +Roux went with Thuillier to fight the cholera in Egypt and there, +you will remember, Thuillier died; and Pasteur went out into the +rural pig-sties of France to discover the microbe and find a vaccine +against a disease that was just then murdering French swine. But +Pasteur stopped getting entangled in those vulgar arguments which +were so often to his discredit, and the three of them locked +themselves in their laboratory in the Rue d’Ulm with their poor +paralyzed and dangerous animals. They sweat through endless +experiments. + +Pasteur mounted guard over his young men and kept their backs bent +over their benches as if they were some higher kind of galley slave. +He watched their perilous experiments with one eye and kept the other +on the glass door of the workroom, and when he saw some of Roux’s and +Chamberland’s friends approaching, to ask them maybe to come out for +a glass of beer on the terrace of a near-by café, the master would +hurry out and tell the interlopers: “No. No! Not now! Cannot you see? +They are busy--it is a most important experiment they are doing!” + +Months--gray months went by during which it seemed to all of them +that there was no possible way of weakening the invisible virus of +rabies.... One hundred animals, alas, out of every hundred that they +injected--died. You would think that Roux and Chamberland, still +youngsters, would have been the indomitable ones, the never-say-die +men of this desperate crew. But on the contrary! + +“It’s no go, master,” said they, making limp waves of their hands +toward the cages with their paralyzed beasts--toward the tangled +jungles of useless tubes and bottles.... + +Then Pasteur’s eyebrows cocked at them, and his thinning gray hair +seemed to stiffen: “Do the same experiment over again--no matter if +it failed last time--it may look foolish to you, but the important +thing is not to leave the subject!” Pasteur shouted, in a fury. So +it was that this man scolded his monkish disciples and prodded them +to do useless tests over and over and over--with no reasons, with +complete lack of logic. With every fact against him Pasteur searched +and tried and failed and tried again with that insane neglect of +common sense that sometimes turns hopeless causes into victories. + +Indeed, why wasn’t this setting out to tame the hydrophobia +virus--why wasn’t it a nonsensical wild-goose chase? There was in all +human history no single record of any man or beast getting better +from this horrible malady, once the symptoms had declared themselves, +once the mysterious messengers of evil had wormed their unseen way +into the spinal cord and brain. It was this kind of murderous stuff +that Pasteur and his men balanced on the tips of their knives, sucked +up into their glass pipettes within an inch from the lips--stuff that +was separated from their mouths by a thin little wisp of cotton.... + +Then, one exciting day, the first sweet music of encouragement +came to these gropers in the dark--one of their dogs inoculated +with the surely fatal stuff from a rabid rabbit’s brain--this dog +came down with his weird barkings and portentous shiverings and +slatherings--and then miraculously got completely better! Excitedly, +a few weeks later, they shot this first of all recovered beasts +with a deadly virus, directly into his brain they injected the wee +murderers. The little wound on his head healed quickly--anxiously +Pasteur waited for his doomful symptoms to come on him, but these +signs never came. For months the dog romped about his cage. He was +absolutely immune! + +“Now we know it--we know we have a chance.... When a beast once has +rabies and gets better from it, there will be no recurrence.... We +must find a way to _tame_ the virus now,” said Pasteur to his men, +who agreed, but were perfectly certain that there was no way to tame +that virus. + +But Pasteur began inventing experiments that no god would have +attempted; his desk was strewn with hieroglyphic scrawls of them. +And at eleven in the morning, when the records of the results of +the day before had been carefully put down, he would call Roux and +Chamberland, and to them he would read off some wild plan for groping +after this unseen unreachable virus--some fantastic plan for getting +his fingers on it _inside_ the body of a rabbit--to weaken it. + +“Try this experiment to-day!” Pasteur would tell them. + +“But that is technically impossible!” they protested. + +“No matter--plan it any way you wish, provided you do it well,” +Pasteur replied. (He was, those days, like old Ludwig van Beethoven +writing unplayable horn parts for his symphonies--and then +miraculously discovering hornblowers to play those parts.) For, one +way or another, the ingenious Roux and Chamberland devised tricks to +do those crazy experiments.... + +And at last they found a way of weakening the savage hydrophobia +virus--by taking out a little section of the spinal cord of a rabbit +dead of rabies, and hanging this bit of deadly stuff up to dry in a +germ-proof bottle for fourteen days. This shriveled bit of nervous +tissue that had once been so deadly they shot into the brains of +healthy dogs--and those dogs did not die.... + +“The virus is dead--or better still very much weakened,” said +Pasteur, jumping at the latter conclusion with no sense or reason. +“Now we’ll try drying other pieces of virulent stuff for twelve +days--ten days--eight days--six days, and see if we can’t just give +our dogs a _little_ rabies ... then they ought to be immune....” + +Savagely they fell to this long will o’ the wisp of an experiment. +For fourteen days Pasteur walked up and down the bottle and +microscope and cage-strewn unearthly workshop and grumbled and +fretted and made scrawls in that everlasting notebook of his. The +first day the dogs were dosed with the weakened--the almost extinct +virus that had been dried for fourteen days; the second day they +received a shot of the slightly stronger nerve stuff that had been +thirteen days in its bottle; and so on until the fourteenth day--when +each beast was injected with one-day-dried virus that would have +surely killed a not-inoculated animal. + +For weeks they waited--hair graying again--for signs of rabies in +these animals, but none ever came. They were happy, these ghoulish +fighters of death! Their clumsy terrible fourteen vaccinations had +not hurt the dogs--but were they immune? + +Pasteur dreaded it--if this failed all of these years of work had +gone for nothing, and “I am getting old, old ...” you can hear him +whispering to himself. But the test had to be made. Would the dogs +stand an injection of the most deadly rabid virus--right into their +brains--a business that killed an ordinary dog one hundred times out +of one hundred? + +Then one day Roux bored little holes through the skulls of two +vaccinated dogs--and two not vaccinated ones: and into all four went +a heavy dose of the most virulent virus.... + +One month later, Pasteur and his men, at the end of three years of +work, knew that victory over hydrophobia was in their hands. For, +while the two vaccinated dogs romped and sniffed about their cages +with never a sign of anything ailing them--the two that had not +received the fourteen protective doses of dried rabbit’s brain--these +two had howled their last howls and died of rabies. + +Now immediately--the life-saver in this man was always downing the +mere searcher--Pasteur’s head buzzed with plans to wipe hydrophobia +from the earth, he had a hundred foolish projects, and he walked in a +brown world of thought, in a mist of plans that Roux and Chamberland, +and not even Madame Pasteur could penetrate. It was 1884, and when +Pasteur forgot their wedding anniversary, the long-suffering lady +wrote to her daughter: + +“Your father is absorbed in his thoughts, talks little, sleeps +little, rises at dawn, and, in one word, continues the life I began +with him this day thirty-five years ago.” + +At first Pasteur thought of shooting his weakened rabies virus +into all the dogs of France in one stupendous Napoleonic series of +injections: “We must remember that no human being is ever attacked +with rabies except after being bitten by a rabid dog.... Now if we +wipe it out of dogs with our vaccine ...” he suggested to the famous +veterinarian, Nocard, who laughed, and shook his head. + +“There are more than a hundred thousand dogs and hounds and puppies +in the city of Paris alone,” Nocard told him, “and more than two +million, five hundred thousand dogs in all of France--and if each of +these brutes had to get fourteen shots of your vaccine fourteen days +in a row ... where would you get the men? Where would you get the +time? Where the devil would you get the rabbits? Where would you get +sick spinal cord enough to make one-thousandth enough vaccine?” + +Then finally there dawned on Pasteur a simple way out of his trouble: +“It’s not the dogs we must give our fourteen doses of vaccine,” +he pondered, “it’s the human beings that have been bitten by mad +dogs....” + +“How easy!... After a person has been bitten by a mad dog, it is +always weeks before the disease develops in him.... The virus has +to crawl all the way from the bite to the brain.... While that is +going on we can shoot in our fourteen doses ... and protect him!” and +hurriedly Pasteur called Roux and Chamberland together, to try it on +the dogs first. + +They put mad dogs in cages with healthy ones, and the mad dogs bit +the normal ones. + +Roux injected virulent stuff from rabid rabbits into the brains of +other healthy dogs. + +Then they gave these beasts, certain to die if they were left +alone--they shot the fourteen stronger and stronger doses of vaccine +into them. It was an unheard-of triumph! For every one of these +creatures lived--threw off perfectly, mysteriously, the attacks of +their unseen assassins, and Pasteur--who had had a bitter experience +with his anthrax inoculations--asked that all of his experiments be +checked by a commission of the best medical men of France, and at the +end of these severe experiments the commission announced: + +“Once a dog is made immune with the gradually more virulent spinal +cords of rabbits dead of rabies, nothing on earth can give him the +disease.” + +From all over the world came letters, urgent telegrams, from +physicians, from poor fathers and mothers who were waiting +terror-smitten for their children, mangled by mad dogs, to +die--frantic messages poured in on Pasteur, begging him to send them +his vaccine to use on threatened humans. Even the magnificent Emperor +of Brazil condescended to write Pasteur, begging him.... + +And you may guess how Pasteur was worried! This was no affair like +anthrax, where, if the vaccine was a little, just a shade too strong, +a few sheep would die. Here a slip meant the lives of babies.... +Never was any microbe hunter faced with a worse riddle. “Not a single +one of all my dogs has ever died from the vaccine,” Pasteur pondered. +“All of the bitten ones have been perfectly protected by it.... It +must work the same way on humans--it _must_ ... but....” + +And then sleep once more was not to be had by this poor searcher who +had made a too wonderful discovery.... Horrid pictures of babies +crying for the water their strangled throats would not let them +drink--children killed by his own hands--such visions floated before +him in the dark.... + +For a moment the actor, the maker of grand theatric gestures, rose in +him again: “I am much inclined to begin on myself--inoculating myself +with rabies, and then arresting the consequences; for I am beginning +to feel very sure of my results,” he wrote to his old friend, Jules +Vercel. + +At last, mercifully, the worried Mrs. Meister from Meissengott in +Alsace took the dreadful decision out of Pasteur’s unsure hands. This +woman came crying into the laboratory, leading her nine-year-old boy, +Joseph, gashed in fourteen places two days before by a mad dog. He +was a pitifully whimpering, scared boy--hardly able to walk. + +“Save my little boy--Mr. Pasteur,” this woman begged him. + +Pasteur told the woman to come back at five in the evening, +and meanwhile he went to see the two physicians, Vulpian and +Grancher--admirers who had been in his laboratory, who had seen the +perfect way in which Pasteur could guard dogs from rabies after they +had been terribly bitten. That evening they went with him to see the +boy, and when Vulpian saw the angry festering wounds he urged Pasteur +to start his inoculations: “Go ahead,” said Vulpian, “if you do +nothing it is almost sure that he will die.” + +And that night of July 6, 1885, they made the first injection of +the weakened microbes of hydrophobia into a human being. Then, day +after day, the boy Meister went without a hitch through his fourteen +injections--which were only slight pricks of the hypodermic needle +into his skin. + +And the boy went home to Alsace and had never a sign of that dreadful +disease. + +Then all fears left Pasteur--it was very much like the case of that +first dog that Roux had injected years before, against the master’s +wishes. So it was now with human beings; once little Meister came +through unhurt, Pasteur shouted to the world that he was prepared to +guard the people of the world from hydrophobia. This one case had +completely chased his fears, his doubts--those vivid but not very +deep-lying doubts of the artist that was in Louis Pasteur. + +The tortured bitten people of the world began to pour into the +laboratory of the miracle-man of the Rue d’Ulm. Research for a moment +came to an end in the messy small suite of rooms, while Pasteur and +Roux and Chamberland sorted out polyglot crowds of mangled ones, +babbling in a score of tongues: “Pasteur--save us!” + +And this man who was no physician--who used to say with proud irony: +“I am only a chemist,”--this man of science who all his life had +wrangled bitterly with doctors, answered these cries and saved them. +He shot his complicated, illogical fourteen doses of partly weakened +germs of rabies--unknown microbes of rabies--into them and sent these +people healthy back to the four corners of the earth. + +From Smolensk in Russia came nineteen peasants, moujiks who had been +set upon by a mad wolf nineteen days before, and five of them were +so terribly mangled they could not walk at all, and had to be taken +to the Hotel Dieu. Strange figures in fur caps they came, saying: +“Pasteur--Pasteur,” and this was the only word of French they knew. + +Then Paris went mad--as only Paris can--with excited concern about +these bitten Russians who must surely die--it was so long since +they had been attacked--and the town talked of nothing else while +Pasteur and his men started their injections. The chances of getting +hydrophobia from the bites of mad wolves are eight out of ten: out +of these nineteen Russians, fifteen were sure to die.... + +“Maybe,” said every one, “they will all die--it is more than two +weeks since they were attacked, poor fellows; the malady must have a +terrible start, they have no chance....” Such was the gabble of the +Boulevards. + +Perhaps, indeed, it was too late. Pasteur could not eat nor did he +sleep at all. He took a terrible risk, and morning and night, twice +as quickly as he had ever made the fourteen injections--twice a day +to make up for lost time--he and his men shot the vaccine into the +arms of the Russians. + +And at last a great shout of pride went up for this man Pasteur, went +up from the Parisians, and all of France and all the world raised +a pæan of thanks to him--for the vaccine marvelously saved all but +three of the doomed peasants. The moujiks returned to Russia and were +welcomed with the kind of awe that greets the return of hopeless +sick ones who have been healed at some miraculous shrine. And the +Tsar of All the Russias sent Pasteur the diamond cross of Ste. Anne, +and a hundred thousand francs to start the building of that house of +microbe hunters in the Rue Dutot in Paris--that laboratory now called +the Institut Pasteur. From all over the world--it was the kind of +burst of generosity that only great disasters usually call out--from +every country in the earth came money, piling up into millions of +francs for the building of a laboratory in which Pasteur might have +everything needed to track down other deadly microbes, to invent +weapons against them.... + +The laboratory was built, but Pasteur’s own work was done; his +triumph was too much for him; it was a kind of trigger, perhaps, +that snapped the strain of forty years of never before heard-of +ceaseless searching. He died in 1895 in a little house near the +kennels where they now kept his rabid dogs, at Villeneuve l’Etang, +just outside of Paris. His end was that of the devout Catholic, the +mystic he had always been. In one hand he held a crucifix and in the +other lay the hand of the most patient, obscure and important of +his collaborators--Madame Pasteur. Around him, too, were Roux and +Chamberland and those other searchers he had worn to tatters with +his restless energy, those faithful ones he had abused, whom he had +above all inspired; and these men who had risked their lives in the +carrying out of his wild forays against death would now have died to +save him, if they could. + +That was the perfect end of this so human, so passionately imperfect +hunter of microbes and saver of lives. + +But there is another end of his career that I like to think of +more--and that was the day, in 1892, of Pasteur’s seventieth +birthday--when a medal was given to him at a great meeting held to +honor him, at the Sorbonne in Paris. Lister was there, and many other +famous men from other nations, and in tier upon tier, above these +magnificoes who sat in the seats of honor, were the young men of +France--the students of the Sorbonne and the colleges and the high +schools. There was a great buzz of young voices--all at once a hush, +as Pasteur limped up the aisle, leaning on the arm of the President +of the French Republic. And then--it is the kind of business that is +usually pulled off to welcome generals and that kind of hero who has +directed the futile butchering of thousands of enemies--the band of +the Republican Guard blared out into a triumphal march. + +Lister, the prince of surgeons, rose from his seat and hugged Pasteur +and the gray-bearded important men and the boys in the top galleries +cried and shook the walls with the roar of their cheering. At last +the old microbe hunter gave his speech--the voice of the fierce +arguments was gone and his son had to speak it for him--and his last +words were a hymn of hope, not so much for the saving of life as a +kind of religious cry for a new way of life for men. It was to the +students, to the boys of the high schools he was calling: + +“... Do not let yourselves be tainted by a deprecating and barren +skepticism, do not let yourselves be discouraged by the sadness of +certain hours which pass over nations. Live in the serene peace of +laboratories and libraries. Say to yourselves first: What have I done +for my instruction? and, as you gradually advance, What have I done +for my country? until the time comes when you may have the immense +happiness of thinking that you have contributed in some way to the +progress and good of humanity....” + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + ROUX AND BEHRING + + MASSACRE THE GUINEA-PIGS + + + I + +It was to save babies that they killed so many guinea-pigs! + +Émile Roux, the fanatical helper of Pasteur, in 1888 took up the +tools his master had laid down, and started on searches of his own. +In a little while he discovered a strange poison seeping from the +bacillus of diphtheria--one ounce of the pure essence of this stuff +was enough to kill seventy-five thousand big dogs. A few years later, +while Robert Koch was bending under the abuse and curses of sad ones +who had been disappointed by his supposed cure for consumption, Emil +Behring, the poetical pupil of Koch, spied out a strange virtue, an +unknown something in the blood of guinea-pigs. It could make that +powerful diphtheria poison completely harmless.... These two Emils +revived men’s hopes after Koch’s disaster, and once more people +believed for a time that microbes were going to be turned from +assassins into harmless little pets. + +What experiments these two young men made to discover this diphtheria +antitoxin! They went at it frantic to save lives; they groped at it +among bizarre butcherings of countless guinea-pigs; in the evenings +their laboratories were shambles like the battlefields of old days +when soldiers were mangled by spears and pierced by arrows. Roux dug +ghoulishly into the spleens of dead children--Behring bumped his nose +in the darkness of his ignorance against facts the gods themselves +could not have predicted. For each brilliant experiment these two had +to pay with a thousand failures. + +But they discovered the diphtheria antitoxin. + +They never could have done it without the modest discovery of +Frederick Loeffler. He was that microbe hunter whose mustache was so +militaristic that he had to keep pulling it down to see through his +microscope; he sat working at Koch’s right hand in that brave time +when the little master was tracking down the tubercle bacillus. It +was in the early eighteen eighties, and diphtheria, which several +times each hundred years seems to have violent ups and downs of +viciousness--diphtheria was particularly murderous then. The wards +of the hospitals for sick children were melancholy with a forlorn +wailing; there were gurgling coughs foretelling suffocation; on +the sad rows of narrow beds were white pillows framing small faces +blue with the strangling grip of an unknown hand. Through these +rooms walked doctors trying to conceal their hopelessness with +cheerfulness; powerless they went from cot to cot--trying now and +again to give a choking child its breath by pushing a tube into its +membrane-plugged windpipe.... + +Five out of ten of these cots sent their tenants to the morgue. + +Below in the dead house toiled Frederick Loeffler, boiling knives, +heating platinum wires red hot and with them lifting grayish stuff +from the still throats of those bodies the doctors had failed to keep +alive; and this stuff he put into slim tubes capped with white fluffs +of cotton, or he painted it with dyes, which showed him, through his +microscope, that there were queer bacilli shaped like Indian clubs +in those throats, microbes which the dye painted with pretty blue +dots and stripes and bars. In nearly every throat he discovered these +strange bacilli; he hurried to show them to his master, Koch. + +There is little doubt Koch led Loeffler by the hand in this +discovery. “There is no use to jump at conclusions,” you can hear +Koch telling him. “You must grow these microbes pure--then you must +inject the cultivations into animals.... If those beasts come down +with a disease exactly like human diphtheria, then....” How could +Loeffler have gone wrong, with that terribly pedantic, but careful, +truth-hunting little czar of microbe hunters squinting at him from +behind those eternal spectacles? + +One dead child after another Loeffler examined; he poked into every +part of each pitiful body; he stained a hundred different slices of +every organ; he tried--and quickly succeeded--in growing those queer +barred bacilli pure. But everywhere he searched, in every part of +each body, he found no microbes--except in the membrane-cluttered +throat. And always here, in every child but one or two, he came on +those Indian club-shaped rods. “How can these few microbes, growing +nowhere in the body but the throat--how can these few germs, staying +in that one place, kill a child so quickly?” pondered Loeffler. “But +I must follow Herr Koch’s directions!” and he proceeded to shoot the +germs of his pure cultivations into the windpipes of rabbits and +beneath the skins of guinea-pigs. Quickly these animals died--in two +or three days, like a child, or even more quickly--but the microbes, +which Loeffler had shot into them in millions, could only be found at +the spot where he had injected them.... And sometimes there were none +to be found even here, or at best a few feeble ones hardly strong +enough, you would think, to hurt a flea.... + +“But how is it these few bacilli--sticking in one little corner of +the body--how can they topple over a beast a million times larger +than they are themselves?” asked Loeffler. + +Never was there a more conscientious searcher than this Loeffler, +nor one with less of a wild imagination to liven--or to spoil--his +almost automatic exactness. He sat himself down; he wrote a careful +scientific paper; it was modest, it was cold, it was not hopeful, it +was a most unlawyer-like report reciting all of the fors and againsts +on the question of whether or no this new bacillus was the cause of +diphtheria. He leaned over backward to be honest--he put last the +facts that were against it! “This microbe _may_ be the cause,” you +can hear him mumbling as he wrote, “but in a few children dead of +diphtheria I could not find these germs ... none of my inoculated +animals get paralysis as children do ... what is most against me +is that I’ve discovered this same microbe--it was vicious against +guinea-pigs and rabbits too!--in the throat of a child with never a +sign of diphtheria.” + +He even went so far as to underestimate the importance of his exact +fine searching, but at the end of his treatise he gave a clew to the +more imaginative Roux and Behring who came after him. A strange man, +this Loeffler! Without seeming to be able to make a move to do it +himself, he predicted what others must find: + +“This bacillus stays on a little patch of dead tissue in the throat +of a baby; it lurks on a little point under a guinea-pig’s skin; it +never swarms in millions--yet it kills! How? + +“It must make a poison--a toxin that leaks out of it, sneaking from +it to some vital spot in the body. Such a toxin must be found, in +the organs of a dead child, in the carcass of a guinea-pig dead +of the disease--yes--and in the broth where the bacillus grows so +well.... The man finding this poison will prove what I have failed to +demonstrate.” Such was the dream Loeffler put into Roux’s head.... + + + II + +Four years later Loeffler’s words came true--by what seemed an +utterly silly, but what was surely a most fantastical experiment you +would have thought could only result in drowning a guinea-pig. What +a hectic microbe hunting went on in Paris just then! Pasteur, in a +state of collapse after his triumph of the dog bite vaccine, was +feebly superintending the building of his million-franc Institute +in the Rue Dutot. The wild, half-charlatan Metchnikoff had come out +of Odessa in Russia to belch quaint theories about how phagocytes +gobble up malignant germs. Pasteurians were packing microscopes in +satchels and hurrying to Saigon in Indo-China and to Australia to try +to discover microbes of weird diseases that did not exist. Hopefully +frantic women were burying Pasteur--he was too tired!--under letters +begging him to save their children from a dozen horrid diseases. + +“If you will,” one woman wrote him, “you can surely find a remedy +for the horrible disease called diphtheria. Our children, to whom we +teach your name as a great benefactor, will owe their lives to you!” + +Pasteur was absolutely done up, but Roux--and he was helped by the +intrepid Yersin who afterward brilliantly discovered the germ of the +black death--set out to try to find a way to wipe diphtheria from the +earth. It wasn’t a science--it was a crusade, this business. It was +full of passion, of purpose; it lacked skillful lying-in-wait, and +those long planned artistic ambushes you find in most discoveries. I +will not say Émile Roux began his searching because of this pitiful +note from that woman--but there is no doubt he worked to save +rather than to know. From the old palsied master down to the most +obscure bottle wiper, the men of this house in the Rue Dutot were +humanitarians; they were saviors--and that is noble!--but this drove +them sometimes into strange byways far off the road where you find +truth.... And in spite of this Roux made a marvelous discovery. + +Roux and Yersin went to the Hospital for Sick Children--diphtheria +was playing hell with Paris--and here they ran on to the same +bacillus Loeffler had found. They grew this microbe in flasks of +broth, and did the regular accepted thing first, shooting great +quantities of this soup into an assorted menagerie of unfortunate +birds and quadrupeds who had to die without the satisfaction of +knowing they were martyrs. It wasn’t particularly enlightened +searching, this, but almost from the tap of the gong, they stumbled +on one of the proofs Loeffler had failed to find. Their diphtheria +soup paralyzed rabbits! The stuff went into their veins; in a few +days the delighted experimenters watched these beasts drag their +hind legs limply after them; the palsy crept up their bodies to +their front legs and shoulders--they died in a clammy, dreadful +paralysis.... + +“It hits rabbits just the way it does children,” muttered Roux, full +of a will to believe----“This bacillus must be the true cause of +diphtheria.... I shall find the germ in these rabbits’ bodies now!” +And he clawed tissues out of a dozen corners of their carcasses; he +made cultivations of their spleens and hearts--but never a bacillus! +Only a few days before he had pumped a billion or so into them, each +of them. Here they were, drawn and quartered, carved up and searched +from their pink noses to the white under-side of their tails. And not +a bacillus. What had killed them then? + +Then Loeffler’s prediction flashed over Roux: “It must be the germs +make a poison, in this broth, to paralyze and kill these beasts ...” +he pondered. + +For a while the searcher came uppermost in him. He forgot about +possible savings of babies; he concentrated on vast butcheries of +guinea-pigs and rabbits--he must prove that the diphtheria germ drips +a toxin out of its wee body.... Together with Yersin he began a good +unscientific fumbling at experiments; they were in the dark; there +were no precedents nor any kind of knowledge to go by. No microbe +hunter before them had ever separated a deadly poison (though Pasteur +had once made something of a try at it) from the bodies of microbes. +They were alone in the dark, Roux and Yersin--but they lighted +matches.... “The bacilli _must_ pour out a poison into the broth we +grow them in--just as they pour it from their membrane in a child’s +throat into his blood!” Of course that last was not proved. + +Then Roux stopped arguing in a circle. He searched. He worked with +his hands. It was worse, this fumbling of his, than trying to get a +stalled motor to go when you know nothing about internal combustion +machinery. He took big glass bottles and put pure microbeless soup +into them, and sowed pure cultivations of the diphtheria bacillus +in this broth; into the incubating oven went the large-bellied +bottles----“Now we will try separating the germs from the soup in +which they grow,” said Roux, after the bottle had ripened for four +days. They rigged up a strange apparatus--it was a filter, shaped +like a candle, only it was hollow, and made of fine porcelain that +would let the soup through, but so tight-meshed that it would hold +the tiniest bacilli back. With tongue-protruding care to keep +themselves from being splashed with this deadly stuff, they poured +the microbe-teeming broth around the candles held rigid in shiny +glass cylinders. They fussed--maybe, or at least I hope so, with +the blessed relief of profanity--but the broth wouldn’t run through +the porcelain. But at last they pushed it through with high air +pressure--and finally they breathed easy, arranging little flasks +full of a clear, amber-colored filtered fluid (it had never a germ in +it) on their laboratory bench. + +“This stuff should have the poison in it ... the filter has held back +all the microbes--but this stuff should kill our animals,” muttered +Roux. The laboratory buzzed with eager animal-boys getting ready the +rabbits and guinea-pigs. Into the bellies of these beasts went the +golden juice propelled from the syringe by Roux’s deft hands.... + +He became a murderer in his heart, this Émile Roux, and in his head +as he came down to the laboratory each morning were half-mad wishes +for the death of his beasts. “The stuff should be hitting them by +now,” you can hear him growling to Yersin, but they looked in vain +for the ruffled hair, the dragging hind legs, the cold shivering +bodies to tell them their wish was coming true. + +It was beastly! All of this fussing with the delicate filter +experiments--and the animals munched at the greens in their cages, +they hopped about, males sniffed at females and engaged in those +absurd scufflings with other males which guinea-pigs and rabbits hold +to be necessary to the propagation of their kind.... Let these giants +(who fed them well) inject more of this stuff into their veins, their +bellies--poison? Imagination! It made them feel happy.... + +Roux tried again. He shot bigger doses of his filtered soup into the +animals, other animals, still more animals. It was no go, there was +no poison. + +That is, for a merely sensible man there would have been no poison +in the filtered soup that had stood in the incubator for four +days. Hadn’t enough animals been wasted trying it? But Roux (let +all mothers and children and the gods caring for insane searchers +bless him!) was no reasonable man just then. For a moment he had +caught Pasteur’s madness, his strange trick of knowing what all men +thought wrong to be right, his flair for good impossible experiments. +“There is a poison there!” you can hear that hawk-faced consumptive +Roux shout to himself, to the dusty, bottle-loaded shelves of his +laboratory, to the guinea-pigs who would have snickered--if they +could have--at his earnest futile efforts to murder them. “There must +be a poison in this soup where the diphtheria germs have grown--else +why should those rabbits have died?” + +Then--I have told scientific searchers about this and they have held +their noses at such an experiment--Roux nearly drowned a guinea-pig. +For weeks he had been injecting more and more of his filtered soup, +but now (it was like facing a night on a park bench with your last +dime on the two dice) he injected thirty times as much! Not even +Pasteur would have risked such an outlandish dose--thirty-five cubic +centimeters Roux shot under the guinea-pig’s skin and you would +expect that much water would kill such a little beast. If he died it +would mean nothing.... But into the belly of a guinea-pig and into +the ear-vein of a rabbit went this ocean of filtered juice--it was as +if he had put a bucketful of it into the veins of a middle-sized man. + +But that was the way Roux carved his name on those tablets which men +while they are on earth must never allow to crumble; for, though the +rabbit and the guinea-pig stood the mere bulk of the microbe-less +broth very well, and appeared perfectly chipper for a day or so +afterwards, in forty-eight hours their hair was on end, their breath +began to come in little hiccups. In five days they were dead, with +exactly those symptoms their brothers had, after injections of the +living diphtheria bacilli. So it was that Émile Roux discovered the +diphtheria poison.... + +By itself this weird experiment of the gigantic dose of feebly +poisonous soup would only have made microbe hunters laugh. It was +scandalous. “What!--if a great flask of diphtheria microbes can make +so little poison that it takes a good part of a bottle of it to kill +a small guinea-pig--how can a few microbes in a child’s throat make +enough to do that child to death? It is idiotic!” + +But Roux had got his start. With this silly experiment as an +uncertain flashlight, he went tripping and stumbling through the +thickets, he bent his sallow bearded face (sometimes it was like the +face of some unearthly bird of prey) over a precise long series of +tests. Then suddenly he was out in the open. Presently, it was not +more than two months later, he hit on the reason his poison had been +so weak before--he simply hadn’t left his germ-filled bottles in the +incubator for long enough; there hadn’t been time enough for them +really to get down to work to make their deadly stuff. So, instead +of four days, he left the microbes stewing at body temperature in +their soup for forty-two days, and when he ran that brew through the +filter--presto! With bright eyes he watched unbelievably tiny amounts +of it do dreadful things to his animals--he couldn’t seem to cut down +the dose to an amount small enough to keep it from doing sad damage +to his guinea-pigs. Exultant he watched feeble drops of it do away +with rabbits, murder sheep, lay large dogs low. He played with this +fatal fluid; he dried it; he tried to get at the chemistry of it (but +failed); he got out a very concentrated essence of it though, and +weighed it, and made long calculations. + +One ounce of that purified stuff was enough to kill six hundred +thousand guinea-pigs--or seventy-five thousand large dogs! And the +bodies of those guinea-pigs who had got a six hundred thousandth of +an ounce of this pure toxin--the tissues of those bodies looked like +the sad tissues of a baby dead of diphtheria.... + +So it was Roux made Loeffler’s prophecy come true; it was that way +he discovered the fluid messenger of death which trickles from the +insignificant bodies of diphtheria bacilli. But he stuck here; +he had explained how a diphtheria germ murders babies but he had +found no way to stop its maraudings. There was that letter from the +mother--but Roux’s researches petered out into various directions +to doctors how to grow germs pure out of children’s throats at the +bedside, and into suggestions for useful gargles.... He hadn’t +Pasteur’s tremendous grim stick-to-itiveness, nor his resourceful +brain. + + + III + +But away in Berlin there toiled another Émile--the Germans leave off +the last “e”--Emil August Behring. He worked in Koch’s laboratory, +in the dilapidated building called the “Triangel” in the Schumann +street. Here great things were stirring. Koch was there, no longer +plain Doctor Koch of Wollstein, but now a Herr Professor, an eminent +Privy Councilor. But his hat still fitted him; he peered through his +spectacles, saying little; he was enormously respected, and against +his own judgment he was trying to convince himself he had discovered +a cure for tuberculosis. The authorities (scientists have reason +occasionally to curse all authorities no matter how benevolent) were +putting pressure on him. At least so it is whispered now by veteran +microbe hunters who were there and remember those brave times. + +“We have showered you with medals and microscopes and +guinea-pigs--take a chance now, and give us a big cure, for the glory +of the Fatherland, as Pasteur has done for the glory of France!” It +was ominous stuff like this Koch was always hearing. He listened +at last, and who can blame him, for what man can remain at his +proper business of finding out the ways of microbes with Governments +bawling for a place in the sun--or with mothers calling? So Koch +listened and prepared his own disaster by telling the world about +his “Tuberculin.” But at the same time he guided his youngsters in +fine jobs they were doing--and among these young men was Emil August +Behring. How Koch pointed the gun of his cold marvelous criticism at +that poet’s searchings! + +And what a house of microbe hunters it was, that dingy Triangel! Its +walls shook under the arguments and guttural cries and incessant +experiments of Koch’s young men. Paul Ehrlich was there, smoking +myriads of cigars, smearing his clothes and his hands and even his +face with a prismatic array of dyes, making bold experiments to find +out how baby mice inherit immunity to certain vegetable poisons from +their mothers.... Kitasato, the round-faced Japanese, was shooting +lock-jaw bacilli into the tails of mice and solemnly amputating these +infected tails--to see whether the creatures would perish from the +poisons the microbes had made while the tails were still attached.... +And there were many others there, some forgotten and some whose names +are now famous. With a vengeance the Germans were setting out to beat +the French, to bury them under a vast confusion of experiments, to +save mankind first. + +But particularly, Emil Behring was there. He was a little over +thirty; he was an army doctor; he had a little beard, neater than +Koch’s scraggly one, but with less signs of originality. Just the +same Behring’s head, in spite of that prosaic beard, was the head of +a poet; and yet, though he was fond of rhetoric, no one stuck closer +to his laboratory bench than Behring. He compared the grandeur of +the Master’s discovery of the tubercle bacillus to the rosy tip of +the snow-capped peak of his favorite mountain in Switzerland, while +he probed by careful experiments into why animals are immune to +microbes. He compared the stormy course of human pneumonia to the +rushing of a mountain stream, while he discovered a something in the +blood of rats--this stuff would kill anthrax bacilli! He had two +scientific obsessions, which were also poetical: one was that blood +is the most marvelous of the juices circulating in living things +(what an extraordinary mysterious sap it was, this blood!)--the +other was the strange notion (not a new one) that there must exist +chemicals to wipe invading microbes out of animals and men--without +hurting the men or the animals. + +“I will find a chemical to cure diphtheria!” he cried, and inoculated +herds of guinea-pigs with cultivations of virulent diphtheria +bacilli. They got sick, and as they got sicker he shot various +chemical compounds into them. He tried costly salts of gold, he +tried naphthylamine, he tested more than thirty different strange +or common substances. He believed innocently because these things +could kill microbes in a glass tube without damaging the tube, they +would also hit the diphtheria bacilli under a guinea-pig’s hide +without ruining the guinea-pig. But alas, from the slaughter house +of dead and dying guinea-pigs his laboratory was, you would suppose +he would have seen there was little to choose between the deadly +microbes and his equally murderous cures.... Nevertheless, being +a poet, Behring did not have too great a reverence for facts; the +hecatombs of corpses went on piling up, but they failed to shake +his faith in some marvelous unknown remedy for diphtheria hidden +somewhere among the endless rows of chemicals in existence. Then, in +his enthusiastic--but random--search he came upon the tri-chloride of +iodine. + +Under the skins of several guinea-pigs he shot a dose of diphtheria +bacilli sure to kill them. In a few hours these microbes began their +work; the spot of the injection became swollen, got ominously hot, +the beasts began to droop--then, six hours after the fatal dose of +the bacilli, Behring shot in his iodine tri-chloride.... “It is no +good, once more,” he muttered. The day passed with no improvement and +the next morning the beasts began to go into collapses. Solemnly he +put the guinea-pigs on their backs, then poked them with his finger +to see if they could still scramble back on their feet.... “If the +guinea-pig can still get up when you poke him, there may be yet a +chance for him,” explained Behring to his amazed assistants. What +a test that was--think of a doctor having a test like this to see +whether or no his patient would live! And what an abominably crude +test! Less and less the iodine-treated guinea-pigs moved when he +poked them--there was now no longer any hope.... + +Then one morning Behring came into his laboratory to see those +guinea-pigs on their feet! Staggering about, and dreadfully scraggly +looking beasts they were, but they were getting better from +diphtheria, these creatures whose untreated companions had died days +before.... + +“I have cured diphtheria!” whispered Behring. + +In a fever he went at trying to cure more guinea-pigs with this +iodine stuff; sometimes the diphtheria bacilli killed these poor +beasts; sometimes the cure killed them; once in a while one or two +of them survived and crawled painfully back to their feet. There was +little certainty of this horrible cure and no rime or reason. The +guinea-pigs who survived, probably wished they were dead, for while +the tri-chloride was curing them it was burning nasty holes in their +hides too--they squeaked pitifully when they bumped these gaping +sores. It was an appalling business! + +Just the same, here were a few guinea-pigs, sure--except for this +iodine--to have died of diphtheria; and they were alive! I often +ponder how terrible was the urge forcing men like Behring to try +to cure disease--they were not searchers for truth, but rabid, +experimenting healers rather; ready to kill an animal or even a +child maybe with one disease to cure him of another. They stopped +at nothing.... For, with no evidence save these few dilapidated +guinea-pigs, with no other proof of the virtues of this blistering +iodine tri-chloride, Behring proceeded to try it on babies sick with +diphtheria. + +And he reported: “I have not been encouraged by certain carefully +instituted tests of iodine tri-chloride on children sick with +diphtheria....” + +But here were still some of those feeble but cured guinea-pigs, and +Behring clutched at some good his murderous gropings might do. The +gods were kind to him. He pondered, and at last he asked himself: +“Will these cured animals be immune to diphtheria now?” He took these +creatures and shot an enormous dose of diphtheria bacilli into them. +They stood it! They never turned a hair at millions of bacilli, +enough to kill a dozen ordinary animals. They were immune! + +Now Behring no longer trusted chemicals (think of the beasts that +had gone down to the incinerator!) but he still had his fixed notion +that blood was the most marvelous of the saps coursing through living +things. He worshiped blood; his imagination gave it unheard-of +excellences and strange virtues. So--with more or less discomfort +to his decrepit cured guinea-pigs--he sucked a little blood with a +syringe out of an artery in their necks; he let the tubes holding +this blood stand until clear straw-colored serum rose over the red +part of the blood. With care he drew this serum off with a tiny +pipet--he mixed the serum with a quantity of virulent diphtheria +bacilli: “Surely there is something in the blood of these creatures +to make them so immune to diphtheria,” pondered Behring; “undoubtedly +there is something in this serum to kill the diphtheria microbes....” + +He expected to see the germs shrivel up, to watch them die, but +when he looked, through his microscope, he saw dancing masses of +them--they were multiplying, “exuberantly multiplying,” he wrote in +his notes with regret. But blood is wonderful stuff. Some way it must +be at the bottom of his guinea-pigs’ immunity. “After all,” muttered +Behring, “this Frenchman, Roux, has proved it isn’t the diphtheria +germ but the poison it makes--it is the poison kills animals, and +children.... Maybe these iodine-cured guinea-pigs are immune to the +poison too!” + +He tried it. With sundry guttural gruntings, with a certain poetic +sloppiness, Behring got ready a soup which held poison but had +been freed of microbes. Huge doses of this stuff he pumped from a +syringe under the hides of his decreasing number of desolate cured +guinea-pigs. Again, they were immune! Their sores went on healing, +they grew fat. The poison bothered them no more than had the bacilli +which made it. Here was something entirely new in microbe hunting, +something Roux maybe dreamed of but couldn’t make come true. Pasteur +had guarded sheep against anthrax, and children from the bites of mad +dogs, but here was something incredible--Behring, giving guinea-pigs +diphtheria and then nearly killing them with his frightful cure, +had made them proof against the microbe’s murderous toxin. He had +made them immune to the stuff of which one ounce was enough to kill +seventy-five thousand big dogs.... + +“Surely it is in the blood I will find this antidote which protects +the creatures!” cried Behring. + +He must get some of their blood. There were hardly any of the +battered but diphtheria-proof guinea-pigs left now, but he must have +blood! He took one of the veterans, and cut into its neck to find +the artery; there was no artery left--his numerous blood lettings +had obliterated it. He poked about (let us honor this animal!) and +finally got a driblet of blood out of a vessel in its leg. What a +nervous time it was for Behring, and I do not know whether it is +Behring or his beasts who is most to be pitied, for every morning he +came down to the laboratory wondering whether any of his priceless +animals were left alive.... But he had a few drops of serum now, from +a cured guinea-pig. He mixed this, in a glass tube, with a large +amount of the poisonous soup in which the diphtheria microbes had +grown. + +Into new, non-immune guinea-pigs went this mixture--_and they did not +die_! + +“How true are the words of Goethe!” cried Behring. “Blood is an +entirely wonderful sap!” + +Then, with Koch the master blinking at him, and with the entire small +band of maniacs in the laboratory breathless for the result, Behring +made his famous critical experiment. He mixed diphtheria poison with +the serum of a healthy guinea-pig who was _not_ immune, who had never +had diphtheria or been cured from it either, and this serum did +not hinder one bit the murderous action of the poison. He shot this +mixture into new guinea-pigs; in three days they grew cold; when he +laid them on their backs and poked them with his finger they did not +budge. In a few hours they had coughed their last sad hiccup and +passed beyond.... + +“It is only the serum of immune animals--of beasts who have had +diphtheria and have been cured of it--it is only such serum kills the +diphtheria poison!” cried Behring. Healer that he was, you can hear +him muttering: “Now, maybe, I can make larger animals immune too, and +get big batches of their poison-killing serum, then I’ll try that +on children with diphtheria ... what saves guinea-pigs should cure +babies!” + +By this time nothing could discourage Behring. Like some victorious +general swept on by the momentum of his first bloody success, he +began shooting diphtheria microbes, and iodine tri-chloride, and the +poison of diphtheria microbes, into rabbits, into sheep, into dogs. +He tried to turn their living bodies into factories for making the +healing serum, the toxin-killing serum. “Antitoxin” he called such +serum. And he succeeded, after those maimings and holocausts and +mistakes, always the necessary preludes to his triumphs. In a little +while he had sheep powerfully immune, and from them he got plenty of +blood. “Surely the antitoxin [he hadn’t the faintest notion what the +chemistry of this mysterious stuff was] certainly it will prevent +diphtheria,” said Behring. + +He injected little doses of the sheep serum into guinea-pigs; the +next day he pumped virulent diphtheria bacilli into these same +beasts. It was marvelous to watch them. There they were, scampering +about with never a sign of sickness, while their companions (who had +got no protecting dose of serum) perished miserably in a couple of +days. How good it was to see them die, those unguarded beasts! For +it was these creatures told him how well the serum saved the other +ones. Hundreds of pretty experiments of this kind Behring made (there +was little sloppiness now) and his helpers maybe pointed to their +foreheads, asking whether their chief would ever have done saving one +set of guinea-pigs and killing another set to prove he had saved the +first. But Behring had reasons. “We made so many experiments because +we wanted to show Herr Koch how far we had come in our immunizing of +laboratory animals,” he wrote in one of his early reports. + +There was only one fly in the ointment of his success--the guarding +action of the antitoxin serum didn’t last long. For a few days after +guinea-pigs had got their injections of serum they stood big doses of +the poison, but presently, in a week or two weeks, it took less and +less of the toxin to kill them. Behring pulled at his beard: “This +isn’t practical,” he muttered, “you couldn’t go around giving all the +children of Germany a shot of sheep serum every few weeks!” And alas, +his eagerness for something to make the authorities wide-eyed, led +him away from his fine fussings with a way to prevent diphtheria--it +sent him a-whoring after the pound of cure.... + +“Iodine tri-chloride is almost as bad for guinea-pigs as the microbes +are--but this antitoxin serum, it doesn’t give them sores and +ulcers.... I know it won’t hurt my animals.... I know it kills poison +... now, if it would cure!” + +Carefully he shot fatal doses of diphtheria bacilli into a lot +of guinea-pigs. Next day, they were seedy. The second day their +breath came anxiously. They stayed on their backs with that fatal +laziness.... Then Behring took half of this lot of dying beasts, and +into their bellies he injected a good heavy dose of the antitoxin +from his immune sheep. Miracles! Nearly every one of them (but not +all) began to breathe more easily in a little while. Next day, when +he put them on their backs, they hopped nimbly back to their feet. +They stayed there. By the fourth day they were as good as new, while +their untreated companions, cold, dead, were being carried out by the +animal boy.... The serum cured! + +The old laboratory of the Triangel was in a furor now, over this +triumphant finish of Behring’s sloppy stumbling Odyssey. The hopes +of everybody were purple--surely now he would save children! While +he was getting ready his serum for the first fateful test on some +baby near to death with diphtheria, Behring sat down to write his +classic report on how he could cure beasts sure to die, by shooting +into them a new, an unbelievable stuff their brother beasts had made +in their own bodies--at the risk of nearly dying themselves. “We +have no certain recipe for making animals immune,” wrote Behring; +“these experiments I have recorded do not include only my successes.” +Surely they did not, for Behring set down the messings and the +fiascoes along with the few lucky stabs that gave him his sanguinary +victory.... How _could_ this pottering poet have pulled off the +discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin? But then, come to think of it, +those first ancient nameless men who invented sails to carry swift +boats across the water--they must have groped that way too.... How +many of the crazy craft of those anonymous geniuses turned turtle? It +is the way discoveries are made.... + +Toward the end of the year 1891, babies lay dying of diphtheria in +the Bergmann clinic in the Brick Street in Berlin. On the night of +Christmas, a child desperately sick with diphtheria cried and kicked +a little as the needle of the first syringe full of antitoxin slid +under its tender skin. + +The results seemed miraculous. A few children died; the little son of +a famous physician of Berlin passed out mysteriously a few minutes +after the serum went into him and there was a great hullabaloo about +that--but presently large chemical factories in Germany took up the +making of the antitoxin in herds of sheep. Within three years twenty +thousand babies had been injected and like a rumor spread the news, +and Biggs, the eminent American Health Officer, then in Europe, +was carried away by the excitement. He cabled dramatically and +authoritatively to Dr. Park in New York: + + DIPHTHERIA ANTITOXIN IS A SUCCESS; BEGIN TO PRODUCE IT. + +In the excitement of this cure, those sad ones, who had lost dear +ones through the first enthusiasm about the dangerous injections of +the consumption cure of Koch, forgot their sorrow and forgave Koch +because of his brilliant pupil Behring. + + + IV + +But there were still criticisms and muttered complaints, and this +was natural, for the serum was no sure-fire, one hundred per cent +curative stuff for babies--any more than it was for guinea-pigs. Then +too, learned doctors pointed out that what happened under the hide +of a guinea-pig was not the same--necessarily--as the savage thing +going on in the throat of a child. Thousands of children were getting +the diphtheria serum, but some children (maybe not so many as before +perhaps?) kept dying horribly in spite of it. Doctors questioned.... +Some parents had their hopes dashed.... + +Then Émile Roux came back into the battle. He discovered brilliantly +an easy way to make horses immune to the poison--they did not die, +they developed no horrid abscesses, and, best of all, they furnished +great gallon bottles full of the precious antitoxin--powerful stuff +this serum was; little bits of it destroyed large doses of that +poison fatal to so many big dogs. + +Like Behring--perhaps he was even more passionately sure than +Behring--Roux believed in advance this antitoxin would save suffering +children from death. He thought nothing of prevention, he forgot +about his gargles. He hurried to and fro between his workroom and +the stables, carrying big-bellied flasks, jabbing needles into those +patient horse’s necks. Just then, a particularly virulent breed (so +Roux thought) of diphtheria bacillus was crawling through the homes +of Paris. At the Hospital for Sick Children, fifty out of every +hundred children (at least the statistics said so) were being carried +blue-faced to the morgue. At the Hospital Trousseau as many as sixty +out of a hundred were dying (but it is not clear whether the doctors +there knew all these deaths to be from diphtheria). On the first of +February, 1894, Roux of the narrow chest and hatchet face and black +skull cap, walked into the diphtheria ward of the Hospital for sick +children, carrying bottles of his straw-colored, miracle-working +stuff. + +In his study in the Institute in the Rue Dutot with a gleam in his +eye that made his dear ones forget he was marked for death, there +sat a palsied man, who must know, before he died, whether one of his +boys had wiped out another pestilence. Pasteur waited for news from +Roux.... Then too, all over Paris there were fathers and mothers of +stricken ones, praying for Roux to hurry--they had heard of this +marvelous cure of Doctor Behring. It could almost bring babies back +to life, folks said--and Roux could see these people holding out +their hands to him.... + +He got ready his syringes and bottles with the same cold steadiness +the farmers had marveled at, long before, in those great days of the +anthrax vaccine tests at Pouilly-le-Fort. His assistants, Martin and +Chaillou, lighted the little alcohol lamp and hurried to anticipate +his slightest order. Roux looked at the helpless doctors, then at +the little lead-colored faces and the hands that picked and clutched +at the edges of the covers, the bodies twisting to get a little +breath.... + +Roux looked at his syringes--did this serum really save life? + +“Yes!” shouted Émile Roux, the human being. + +“I don’t know--let us make an experiment,” whispered Émile Roux, the +searcher for truth. + +“But, to make an experiment, you will have to withhold the serum from +half at least of these children--you may not do that.” So said Émile +Roux, the man with a heart, and all voices of all despairing parents +were joined to the pleading voice of this Émile Roux. + +“True, it is a terrible burden,” answered the searcher that was Roux, +“but just because this serum has cured rabbits, I do not _know_ it +will cure babies.... And I must know. I must find truth. Only by +comparing the number of children who die, not having been given this +serum, with the number who perish, having received it--only so can I +ever know.” + +“But if you find out the serum is good, if it turns out from your +experiment that the serum really cures--think of your responsibility +for the death of those children, those hundreds of babies who did not +get the antitoxin!” + +It was a dreadful choice. There was one more argument the searcher +that was Roux could have brought against the man of sentiment, for +he might have asked: “If we do not find out surely, by experiment +on these babies, the world may be lulled into the belief it has a +perfect remedy for diphtheria--microbe hunters will stop looking for +a remedy, and in the years that follow, thousands of children will +die who might have been saved if hard scientific searching had gone +on....” + +That would have been the final, the true answer of science to +sentiment. But it was not made, and who after all can blame the +pitying human heart of Roux for leaving the cruel road that leads +to truth? The syringes were ready, the serum welled up into them as +he gave a strong pull at the plungers. He began his merciful and +maybe life-saving injections, and _every one_ of the more than three +hundred threatened children who came into the hospital during the +next five months received good doses of the diphtheria antitoxin. +Praise be, the results were a great vindication for the human Roux, +for that summer, the experiment over, he told a congress of eminent +medical men and savants from all parts of the world: + +“The general condition of the children receiving the serum improves +rapidly ... in the wards there are to be seen hardly any more faces +pale and lead-blue ... instead, the demeanor of the children is +lively and gay!” + +He went on to tell the Congress of Buda-Pesth how the serum chased +away the slimy gray membrane--that breeding place where the bacilli +made their terrible poison--out of the babies’ throats. He related +how their fevers were cooled by this marvelous serum (it was like +some breeze blowing from a lake of northern water across the fiery +pavements of a city). The most dignified congress of prominent and +celebrated physicians cheered. It rose to its feet.... + +[Illustration: _à M^r. le D^r. Kruif + Souvenir amical + Dr. Roux. + 18 Octobre 1923._] + + +And yet--and yet--twenty-six out of every hundred babies Roux had +treated--died, in spite of this marvelous serum.... + +But it was an emotional time, remember, and Roux, and the Congress +of Buda-Pesth were not assembled to serve truth but to discuss and +to plan and to celebrate the saving of lives. They cared little for +figures then; they cared less for annoying objectors who carped about +comparing figures; they were swept away by Roux’s report of how the +serum cooled fevered brows. Then, Roux could have answered such +annoying critics (with the applause of his famous audience): “What if +twenty-six out of a hundred did die--you must remember that for years +before this treatment _fifty_ out of a hundred died!” + +And yet--I, who believe in this antitoxin, I say this, twenty years +after--diphtheria is a disease having strange ups and downs of +viciousness. In some terrible decades it kills its sixty out of a +hundred; then some mysterious thing happens and the virus seems to +weaken and only ten children are taken where sixty died before. So +it was, in those brave days of Roux and Behring, for in a certain +hospital in England, in those very days, the death rate from +diphtheria had gone down from forty in a hundred to twenty-nine in a +hundred--before the serum was ever used! + +But the doctors at Buda-Pesth did not think of figures and they +carried home the tidings of the antitoxin to all corners of the +world, in a few years the antitoxin treatment of diphtheria became +orthodox, and now there is not one doctor out of a thousand who will +not swear that this antitoxin is a beautiful cure. Probably they are +right. Indeed, there is evidence that when antitoxin is given on the +first day of the disease, all but a few babies are saved--and if +there is delay, many are lost.... Surely, any doctor should be called +guilty, in the light of what is known, who did not give the antitoxin +to a threatened child. I would be quick to call a doctor to give it +to one of my own children. Why not, indeed? Perhaps the antitoxin +cures. But it is not completely proved, and it is too late now to +prove it one way or another to the hilt, because, since all the world +believes in the antitoxin, no man can be found heartless enough or +bold enough to do the experiment which science demands. + +Meanwhile the searchers, believing, are busy with other things--and +I can only hope, if another wave of the dreadful diphtheria of the +eighties sweeps over the world again, I can only hope that Roux was +right. + +But even if the diphtheria antitoxin is not a sure cure, we already +know that the experiments of Roux and Behring have not been in +vain. It is a story still too recent, too much in the newspapers +to be a part of this history--but to-day, in New York under the +superb leadership of Dr. Park, and all over America, and in Germany, +hundreds of thousands of babies and school-children are being +ingeniously and safely turned into so many small factories for the +making of antitoxin, so that they will never get diphtheria at all. +Under the skins of these youngsters go wee doses of that terrible +poison fatal to so many big dogs--but it is a poison fantastically +changed so that it is harmless to a week-old baby! + +There is every hope, if fathers and mothers can only be convinced and +allow their children to undergo three small safe pricks of a syringe +needle, that diphtheria will no longer be the murderer that it has +been for ages. + +And for this men will thank those first crude searchings of Loeffler +and Roux and Behring. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + METCHNIKOFF + + THE NICE PHAGOCYTES + + + I + +Microbe hunting has always been a queer humpty-dumpty business. + +A janitor with no proper education was the first man to see microbes; +a chemist put them on the map and made people properly afraid of +them; a country doctor turned the hunting of them into something that +came near to being a science; to save the lives of babies from the +poison of one of the deadliest of them, a Frenchman and a German had +to pile up mountains of butchered guinea-pigs and rabbits. Microbe +hunting is a story of amazing stupidities, fine intuitions, insane +paradoxes. If that is the history of the hunting of microbes, it is +the same with the story of the science, still in its babyhood, of +why we are immune to microbes. For Metchnikoff, the always excited +searcher who in a manner of speaking founded that science--this +Metchnikoff was not a sober scientific investigator; he was more like +some hysterical character out of one of Dostoevski’s novels. + +Élie Metchnikoff was a Jew, and was born in southern Russia in +1845, and before he was twenty years old, he said: “I have zeal +and ability, I am naturally talented--I am ambitious to become a +distinguished investigator!” + +He went to the University of Kharkoff, borrowed the then rare +microscope from one of his professors, and after peering (more or +less dimly) through it, this ambitious young man sat himself down +and wrote long scientific papers before he had any idea at all +of what science was. He bolted his classes for months on end, not +to play, but to read; not to read novels mind you but to wallow +through learned works on the “Crystals of Proteic Substances” and to +become passionate about inflammatory pamphlets whose discovery by +the police would have sent him to the mines in Siberia. He sat up +nights, drinking gallons of tea and haranguing his young colleagues +(all of them forefathers of the present Bolsheviki) on atheism until +they nicknamed him “God-Is-Not.” Then, a few days before the end of +the term, he crammed up the neglected lessons of months; and his +prodigious memory, which was more like some weird phonograph record +than any human brain, made it possible for him to write home to his +folks that he had passed first and got a gold medal. + +Metchnikoff was always trying to get ahead of himself. He sent +papers to scientific journals while he was still in his teens; he +wrote these papers frantically a few hours after he had trained his +microscope on some bug or beetle; the next day he would look at +them again, and find that what he had been so certain of, was not +quite the same now. Hastily he wrote to the editor of the scientific +journal: “Please do not publish the manuscript I sent you yesterday. +I find I have made a mistake.” At other times he was furious because +his enthusiastic discoveries were turned down by the editors. “The +world does not appreciate me!” he cried, and he went to his room, +ready to die, dolefully whistling: “Were I small as a snail, I would +hide myself in my shell.” + +But if Metchnikoff sobbed because his vivid talents were +underestimated by his professors, he was also irrepressible. He +forgot his contemplated suicides and his violent headaches in his +incessant interest in all living things, but he was constantly +spoiling his chances to do a good steady piece of scientific work by +getting into quarrels with his teachers. Finally he told his mother +(who had always spoiled him and believed in him): “I am especially +interested in the study of protoplasm ... but there is no science in +Russia,” so he rushed off to the University of Würzburg in Germany, +only to find that he had arrived there six weeks ahead of the opening +of school. He sought out some Russian students there, but they gave +him the cold shoulder--he was a Jew--then, tired of life, he started +back home, thinking of killing himself but with a few books in his +satchel--and one of these was the just-published “Origin of Species” +of Darwin. He read it, he swallowed the Theory of Organic Evolution +with one great mental gulp, he became a bigoted supporter of it--from +then on evolution was his religion until he began founding new +scientific religions of his own. + +He forgot his plans for suicide; he planned strange evolutionary +researches; he lay awake nights, seeing visions--huge panoramas they +were, of all beasts from cockroaches to elephants, as the children of +some one remote and infinitely tiny ancestor.... + +That conversion was Metchnikoff’s real start in life, for now he set +out (and kept at it for ten years), quarreling and expostulating his +way from one laboratory to another, from Russia through Germany to +Italy, and from Italy to the island of Heligoland. He worked at the +evolution of worms. He accused the distinguished German zoölogist +Leuckart of stealing his stuff; incurably clumsy with his fingers, he +clawed desperately into a lizard to find the story of evolution its +insides might tell him--and when he could not find what he wanted, he +threw what was left of the reptile across the laboratory. Unlike Koch +or Leeuwenhoek, who were great because they knew how to ask questions +of nature, Metchnikoff read books on Evolution, was inspired, shouted +“Yes!” and then by vast sloppy experiments proceeded to try to force +his beliefs down nature’s throat. Strange to say, sometimes he was +right, importantly right as you will see. Up till now (it was in the +late eighteen seventies) he knew nothing about microbes, but all the +time his mania to prove the survival of the fittest was driving him +toward his fantastic theory--partly true--of how mankind resists the +assaults of germs. + +Metchnikoff’s first thirty-five years were a hubbub and a +perilously near disastrous groping toward this event--toward that +great notoriety that waited for him on the Island of Sicily in +the Mediterranean Sea. At twenty-three he had married Ludmilla +Feodorovitch, who was a consumptive and had to be carried to the +wedding in an invalid’s chair. Then followed a pitiful four years +for them. They dragged about Europe, looking for a cure; Metchnikoff +trying in odd moments snatched from an irritatedly tender nursing +of his wife, to do experiments on the development of green flies +and sponges and worms and scorpions--trying above all to make some +sensational discovery which might land him a well-paid professorship. +“The survivors are not the best but the most cunning,” he whispered, +as he published his scientific papers and pulled his wires.... + +Finally Ludmilla died; she had spent her last days solaced by +morphine, and now Metchnikoff, who had caught the habit from her, +wandered from her grave through Spain to Geneva, taking larger and +larger doses of the drug--meanwhile, his eyes hurt him terribly, and +what is a naturalist, a searcher, without eyes? + +“Why live?” he cried, and took a dose of morphine that he knew must +kill him, but the dose was too large, he became nauseated and threw +it up. “Why live?” he cried again and took a hot bath and rushed +out in the open air right afterwards to try to catch his death +of pneumonia. But it seems that the wise witty gods who fashion +searchers had other purposes for him. That very night he stopped, +agape at the spectacle of a cloud of insects swirling round the +flame of a lantern. “These insects live only a few hours!” he cried +to himself. “How can the theory of the survival of the fittest be +applied to them?” So he plunged back into his experiments. + +Metchnikoff’s grief was terrific but it did not last long. He was +appointed Professor at the University of Odessa, and there he taught +the Survival of the Fittest and became respected for his learning, +and grew in dignity, and in less than two years after the death of +Ludmilla, he had met Olga, a bright girl of fifteen, the daughter +of a man of property. “His appearance is not unlike that of the +Christ--he is so pale and seems so sad,” whispered Olga. Soon after +they were married. + +From then on Metchnikoff’s life was much less disastrous; he tried +far less often to commit suicide; his hands began to catch up with +his precocious brain--he was learning to do experiments. Never was +there a man who tried more sincerely to apply his religion (which was +science) to every part of his life. He took Olga in hand and taught +her science and art, and even the art and science of marriage! She +worshiped the profound certainties that science gave him, but said, +long afterwards: “The scientific methods which Metchnikoff applied +to everything might have been a grave mistake at this delicate +psychological moment....” + + + II + +It was in 1883, when the discoveries of Pasteur and Koch had made +everybody mad about microbes, that Metchnikoff turned suddenly +from a naturalist into a microbe hunter. He had wrangled with the +authorities of the University of Odessa, and departed for the Island +of Sicily with Olga and her crowd of little brothers and sisters, +and here he set up his amateur laboratory in the parlor of their +cottage looking across the magic water to the blue Calabrian shore. +His intuition told him that microbes were now the thing in science +and he dreamed about making great discoveries of new microbes--he was +sincerely interested in them as well, but he knew nothing about the +subtle ways of hunting them, indeed he had hardly seen a germ. He +stamped about his parlor-laboratory, expounding biological theories +to Olga, studying starfish and sponges, telling the children fairy +stories, doing everything in short that was as far as possible +removed from those thrilling researches of Koch and Pasteur.... + +Then, one day, he began to study the way sponges and starfishes +digest their food. Long before he had spied out strange cells inside +these beasts, cells that were a part of their bodies, but cells that +were free-lances, as it were, moving from place to place through +the carcasses of which they formed a part, sticking out one part +of themselves and dragging the rest of themselves after the part +they had stuck out. Such were the _wandering cells_, which moved by +flowing, exactly like that small animal, the ameba. + +Metchnikoff sat down before his parlor table, and with that impatient +clumsiness of a man whose hands seem unable to obey his brain, he +got some little particles of carmine into the insides of the larva +of a starfish. This was an ingenious and very original trick of +Metchnikoff’s, because these larvæ are as transparent as a good +glass window; so he could see, through his lens, what went on +inside the beast; and with excited delight he watched the crawling, +flowing free-lance cells in this starfish ooze toward his carmine +particles--and eat them up! Metchnikoff still imagined he was +studying the digestion of his starfish, but strange thoughts--that +had nothing to do with such a commonplace thing as digestion--little +fog-wraiths of new ideas began to flutter through his head.... + +The next day Olga took the children to the circus to see some +extraordinary performing monkeys. Metchnikoff sat alone in his +parlor, tugging at his biblical beard, gazing without seeing them at +his bowls of starfish. Then--it was like that blinding light that +bowled Paul over on his way to Damascus--in one moment, in the most +fantastical, you would say impossible flash of a second, Metchnikoff +changed his whole career. + +“These wandering cells in the body of the larva of a starfish, these +cells eat food, they gobble up carmine granules--but they must eat +up microbes too! Of course--the wandering cells are what protect the +starfish from microbes! _Our_ wandering cells, the white cells of our +blood--they must be what protects us from invading germs ... they are +the cause of immunity to diseases ... they are what keep the human +race from being killed off by malignant bacilli!” + +Without one single bit of evidence, without any research at all, +Metchnikoff jumped from the digestions of starfish to the ills of +men.... + +“I suddenly became a pathologist,” he wrote in his diary (and this +was not much more strange than if a cornet player should suddenly +announce himself an astrophysicist!) “... Feeling that there was in +this idea something of surpassing interest, I became so excited that +I began striding up and down the room, and even went to the seashore +to collect my thoughts.” + +Now Koch, precise microbe hunter that he was, would hardly have +trusted Metchnikoff with the wiping of his microscope, but his +ignorance of germs was nothing to this wild Russian. + +“I said to myself that, if my theory was true, a sliver put into +the body of a starfish larva ... should soon be surrounded by +wandering cells....” And he remembered that when men run splinters +into their fingers, and neglect to pull them out, those splinters +are soon surrounded by pus--which consists largely of the wandering +white cells of the blood. He rushed out into the garden back of the +cottage, pulled some rose thorns off a little shrub which he had +decorated as a Christmas tree for Olga’s brother and sisters; he +dashed back into his absurd laboratory and stuck these thorns into +the body of one of his water-clear young starfish.... + +Up he got, at dawn the next morning, full of wild hopes,--and he +found his guess had come true. Around the rose-slivers in the +starfish were sluggish crawling masses of its wandering cells! +Nothing more was necessary (such a jumper at conclusions was he) to +stamp into his brain the fixed idea that he now had the explanation +of all immunity to diseases; he rushed out that morning to tell +famous European professors, who happened then to be in Messina, all +about his great idea. “Here is why animals can withstand the attacks +of microbes,” he said, and he talked with such enthusiastic eloquence +about how the wandering cells of the starfish tried to eat the rose +thorns (and he could show it so prettily too) that even the most +eminent and pope-like Professor Doctor Virchow (who had sniffed at +Koch) believed him! + +Metchnikoff was now a microbe hunter.... + + + III + +With Olga and the children flapping along and keeping up as best they +could, Metchnikoff hurried to Vienna to proclaim his theory that +we are immune to germs because our bodies have wandering cells to +gobble germs up; he made a bee-line for the laboratory of his friend, +Professor Claus--who was a zoölogist, and knew nothing about microbes +either, and so was properly amazed: + +“I would be greatly honored to have you publish your theory in my +Journal,” said Claus. + +“But I must have a scientific name for these cells that devour +microbes--a Greek name--what would be a Greek name for such cells?” +cried Metchnikoff. + +Claus and his learned colleagues scratched their heads and peered +into their dictionaries and at last they told him: “Phagocytes! +Phagocyte is Greek for devouring cell--phagocytes is what you must +call them!” + +Metchnikoff thanked them, tacked the word “phagocyte” to the head +of his mast, and set sail on the seas of his exciting career as +a microbe hunter with that word as a religion, an explanation of +everything, a slogan, a means of gaining a living--and, though you +may not believe it, that word did result in something of a start +at finding out how it is we are immune! From then on he preached +phagocytes, he defended their reputations, he did some real research +on them, he made enemies about them, he doubtless helped to start the +war of 1914 with them, by the bad feeling they caused between France +and Germany. + +He went from Vienna to Odessa, and there he gave a great scientific +speech on “The Curative Forces of the Organism” to the astonished +doctors of the town. His delivery was superb; his sincerity was +undoubted--but there is no record of whether or not he told the +amazed doctors that he had not, up till then, so much as seen one +phagocyte gobble up a single malignant microbe. Everybody--and this +includes learned doctors--will stop to watch a dog fight; so this +idea of Metchnikoff’s, this story of our little white blood cells +rushing to an endless series of Thermopylæs to man the pass against +murderous germs--this yarn excited them, convinced them.... + +But Metchnikoff knew he would have to have real evidence, and +presently he found it, beautifully clear, in water fleas. For a time +he forgot speeches and began fishing water fleas out of ponds and +aquariums; here he was deucedly ingenious again, for these small +animals, like starfish larvæ, were transparent so that he could see +through his lens what went on inside them. For once he grew patient, +and searched, like the real searcher that he so rarely was, for +some disease that a water flea perchance might have. This history +has already made it clear that microbe hunters usually find other +things than they set out to look for--but Metchnikoff just now had +different luck; he watched his water fleas in their aimless daily +life, and suddenly, through his lens he saw one of these beasts +swallow the sharp, needle-like spores of a dangerous yeast. Down +into the wee gullet went these needles, through the walls of the +flea’s stomach they poked their sharp points, and into the tiny +beast’s body they glided. Then--how could the gods favor such a wild +man so!--Metchnikoff saw the wandering cells of the water flea, the +_phagocytes_ of this creature, flow towards those perilous needles, +surround them, eat them, melt them up, digest them.... + +When--and this happened often too and so made his theory perfect--the +phagocytes failed to go out to battle against the deadly yeast +needles, these invaders budded rapidly into swarming yeasts, which in +their turn ate the water flea, poisoned him--and that meant good-by +to him! + +Here Metchnikoff had peeped prettily into a thrilling, deadly +struggle on a tiny scale, he had spied upon the up till now +completely mysterious way in which _certain_ living creatures defend +themselves against their would-be assassins. His observations were +true as steel, and you will have to grant they were devilishly +ingenious, for who would have thought to look for the why of immunity +in such an absurd beast as the water flea? Now Metchnikoff needed +nothing more to convince him of the absolute and final rightness of +his theory, he probed no deeper into this struggle (which Koch would +have spent years over) but wrote a learned paper: + +“The immunity of the water flea, due to the help of its phagocytes, +is an example of natural immunity ... for, once the wandering cells +have not swallowed the yeast spore at the moment of its penetration +into the body, the yeast germinates ... secretes a poison which +drives the phagocytes back not only, but kills them by dissolving +them completely.” + + + IV + +Then Metchnikoff went to see if this same battle took place in +frogs and rabbits, and suddenly, in 1886, the Russian people were +thrilled by Pasteur’s saving of sixteen of their folk from the bite +of the mad wolf. The good people of Odessa and the farmers of the +Zemstvo round about gave thanks to God, hurrahs for Pasteur, and a +mighty purse of roubles for a laboratory to be started at once in +Odessa. And Metchnikoff was appointed Scientific Director of the +new Institute--for had not this man (they forgot for a moment he +was Jewish) studied in all the Universities of Europe, and had he +not lectured learnedly to the doctors of Odessa, telling about the +phagocytes of the blood, which gobble microbes? + +“Who knows?” you can hear the people saying. “Maybe in our new +Institute, Professor Metchnikoff can train these little phagocytes to +gobble up all microbes?” + +Metchnikoff accepted the position, but told the authorities, +shrewdly: “I am only a theoretician; I am overwhelmed with +researches--some one else will have to be trained to make vaccines, +to do the practical work.” + +Nobody in Odessa knew anything about microbe hunting then, so +Metchnikoff’s friend, Doctor Gamaléia, was sent to the Pasteur +Institute in Paris posthaste. The citizens were anxious to begin +to be prevented from having diseases; they bawled for vaccines. +So Gamaléia, after a little while in Paris, where he watched Roux +and Pasteur and learned a great deal from them, but not quite +enough--this Gamaléia came back and started to make anthrax vaccines +for the sheep of the Zemstvo, and rabies vaccines for the people +of the town. “All should now go very well!” cried Metchnikoff (he +knew nothing of the nasty tricks virulent microbes can play) and +he retired to his theoretical fastnesses to grapple with rabbits +and dogs and monkeys, to see if their phagocytes would swallow +the microbes of consumption and relapsing fever and erysipelas. +Scientific papers vomited from his laboratory, and the searchers +of Europe began to be excited by the discoveries of this strange +genius in the south of Russia. But he began to have troubles with his +theory, for dogs and rabbits and monkeys--alas--are not transparent, +like water fleas.... + +Then the shambles began. Gamaléia and the other members of +Metchnikoff’s practical staff began to fight among themselves and +mix up vaccines; microbes spilled out of tubes; the doctors of the +town--naturally a little jealous of this new form of healing--started +to snoop into the laboratory, to ask embarrassing questions, to +start whispers going through the town: “Who is this Professor +Metchnikoff--he hasn’t even a doctor’s certificate. He is only +a naturalist, a mere bug-hunter--how can he know anything about +preventing diseases?” + +“Where are those cures?” demanded the people. “Give us our +preventions!” shouted the farmers--who had gone down into their socks +for good roubles. Metchnikoff came out of the fog of his theory of +phagocytes for a moment, and tried to satisfy them by sowing chicken +cholera bacilli among the meadow mice which were eating up the +crops. But, alas, a lying, inflammatory report appeared in the daily +paper, screaming that this Metchnikoff was sowing death--that chicken +cholera could change into human cholera.... + +“I am overwhelmed with my researches,” muttered Metchnikoff. “I am +a theoretician--my researches need a peaceful shelter in which to +be developed....” So he asked for a vacation, got it, packed his +bag, and went to the Congress of Vienna to tell everybody about +phagocytes, and to look for a quiet place in which to work. He _must_ +get away from that dreadful need to prove that his theories were +true by dishing out cures to impatient authorities and peasants who +insisted on getting their money’s worth out of research. From Vienna +he went to Paris to the Pasteur Institute, and there a great triumph +and surprise waited for him. He was introduced to Pasteur, and at +once Metchnikoff exploded into tremendous explanations of his theory +of phagocytes. He made a veritable movie of the battle between the +wandering cells and microbes.... + +The old captain of the microbe hunters looked at Metchnikoff out +of tired gray eyes that now and then sparkled a little: “I at +once placed myself on your side, Professor Metchnikoff,” said +Pasteur, “for I have been struck by the struggle between the divers +microörganisms which I have had occasion to observe. I believe you +are on the right road.” + +Although the struggles Pasteur mentioned had nothing to do with +phagocytes gobbling up microbes, Metchnikoff--and this is not +unnatural--was filled with a proud joy. The greatest of all microbe +hunters really understood him, believed in him.... Olga’s father +had died, leaving them a modest income, here in Paris his theory of +phagocytes would have the prestige of a great Institute back of it. +“Is there a place for me here?” he asked. “I wish only to work in one +of your laboratories in an honorary capacity,” begged Metchnikoff. + +Pasteur knew how important it was to keep the plain people thrilled +about microbe hunting--it is the _drama_ of science that they can +understand--so Pasteur said: “You may not only come to work in our +laboratory, but you shall have an entire laboratory to yourself!” +Metchnikoff went back to Odessa, getting a dreadful snubbing from +Koch on the way, and wondered whether it would not be best to give +up his tidy salary at the Russian Institute, to get away from these +people yelling for results.... But he began to take up his work +again, when suddenly something happened that left no doubt in his +mind as to what he had better do. + +In response to the farmer’s complaints of “Where are your vaccines, +our flocks are perishing from anthrax!” Metchnikoff had told Dr. +Gamaléia to start giving sheep the anthrax vaccine on a large scale. +Then, one bright morning, while the Director was with Olga in their +summer home, in the country, a fearful telegram came to him from +Gamaléia: + + “MANY THOUSANDS OF SHEEP KILLED BY THE ANTHRAX VACCINE.” + +A few months later they were safely installed in the new Pasteur +Institute in Paris, and Olga (who enjoyed painting and sculpture +much better--but who would do anything for her husband because he +was a genius, and always kind to her) this good wife, Olga, held his +animals and washed his bottles for Metchnikoff. From then on they +marched, hand in hand, over a road strewn with their picturesque +mistakes, from one triumph to always greater victories and +notorieties. + + + V + +Metchnikoff bounced into the austere Pasteur Institute and started a +circus there which lasted for twenty years; it was as if a skilled +proprietor of a medicine show had become pastor of a congregation of +sober Quakers. He came to Paris and found himself already notorious. +His theory of immunity--it would be better to call it an exciting +romance, rather than a theory--this story that we are immune because +of a kind of battle royal between our phagocytes and marauding +microbes, this yarn had thrown the searchers of Europe into an +uproar. The microbe hunters of Germany and Austria for the most part +did not believe it--on the contrary, tempted to believe it by its +simplicity and prettiness, they denied it with a peculiar violence. +They denounced Metchnikoff in congresses and by experiments. One +old German, Baumgarten, wrote a general denunciation of phagocytes, +on principle, once a year, in an important scientific journal. For +a little while Metchnikoff wavered; he nearly swooned, he couldn’t +sleep nights, he thought of going back to his soothing morphine; he +even contemplated suicide once more--oh! why could not those nasty +Germans see that he was right about phagocytes? Then he recovered. +Something seemed to snap in his brain, he became courageous as a +lion, he started a battle for his theory--it was a grotesque, partly +scientific wrangle--but, in spite of all its silliness, it was an +argument that laid the foundations of the little that is known to-day +about why we are immune to microbes. + +“I have demonstrated that the serum of rats kills anthrax germs--it +is the _blood_ of animals not their phagocytes, that makes them +immune to microbes,” shouted Emil Behring, and all the bitter +enemies of Metchnikoff sang Aye in the chorus. The scientific papers +published to show that blood is the one important thing would fill +three university libraries. + +“It is the phagocytes that eat up germs and so defend us,” roared +Metchnikoff in reply. And he published ingenious experiments which +proved anthrax bacilli grow exuberantly in the blood of sheep which +have been made immune by Pasteur’s vaccine. + +Neither side would budge from this extreme, prejudiced position. For +twenty years both sides were so enraged they could not stop to think +that perhaps both our blood _and_ our phagocytes might work together +to guard us from germs. That fight was a kind of magnificent but +undignified shouting of “You’re a liar--On the contrary, it’s you +that’s the liar!” which blinded Metchnikoff and his opponents to the +idea that it might be neither the blood nor the phagocytes which are +at the bottom of our resistance to some diseases. If they had only +stopped for a moment, wiped their brows and cleaned the blood from +their mental noses, to remember how little they knew, how slowly they +should go--considering what subtle complicated stuff this blood and +those phagocytes are--if they had only remembered how foolish, in the +darkness of their ignorance, it was to cook up any explanation at +all of why we are immune! If Metchnikoff had only kept on, obscure +in Odessa, with his beautiful researches on the why of the wandering +cells of the water fleas eating up those terrible little yeasts.... +If he had only been patient and tried to get to the bottom of that! + +But the stumbling strides of microbe hunters are not made by any +perfect logic, and that is the reason I may write a grotesque, but +not perfect story of their deeds. + +In the grand days of Pasteur’s fight with anthrax and his victory +against rabies, he had worked like some subterranean distiller of +secret poisons, with only Roux and Chamberland and one or two others +to help him. In that dingy laboratory in the Rue d’Ulm he had been +very impolite, even nasty, to all curious intruders and ambitious +persons. He even chased adoring pretty ladies away. But Metchnikoff! + +Here was an entirely different sort of searcher. Metchnikoff had +an immensely impressive beard and a broad forehead that crowned +eyes which squinted vividly--and intelligently--from behind his +spectacles. His hair grew down over the back of his neck in a way +that showed you he was too deep in thoughts to think of having it +cut. He knew everything! He could tell--and it was authentic--of +countless biological mysteries; he had seen the wandering cells of +a tadpole turn it into a frog by eating the tadpole’s tail, and +he had built circles of fire around scorpions to show that these +unhappy creatures, failing to find a way out, do not commit suicide +by stinging themselves to death. He told these horrors in a way +to make you feel the remorseless flowing and swallowing of the +wandering cells--you could hear the hissing of the doomed and baffled +scorpion.... + +He had brilliant ideas for experiments and was always trying to carry +out these ideas--intensely--but at any moment he was ready to drop +his science to praise the operas of Mozart or whistle the symphonies +of Beethoven, and sometimes he seemed to be more learned about the +dramas and the loves of Goethe than about those phagocytes upon which +his whole fame rested. He refused to wear a high hat toward lesser +men; he would see any one and was ready to believe anything--he even +tried the remedies of patent medicine quacks on dying guinea-pigs. +And he was a kind man. When his friends were sick he overwhelmed +them with delicacies and advice and shed sincere tears on their +pillows--so that finally they nicknamed him “Mamma Metchnikoff.” +His views on the intimate instincts and necessities of life were +astoundingly unlike those of any searcher I have ever heard of. +“The truth is that artistic genius and perhaps all kinds of genius +are closely associated with sexual activity ... so, for example, +an orator speaks better in the presence of a woman to whom he is +devoted.” + +He insisted that he could experiment best when pretty girls were +close by! + +Metchnikoff’s workshop in the Pasteur Institute was more than a mere +laboratory; it was a studio, it had the variegated attractions of +a country fair; it radiated the verve and gusto of a three-ringed +circus. Is it any wonder, then, that young doctors, eager to learn +to hunt microbes, flocked to him from all over Europe? Their brains +responded to this great searcher who was also a hypnotist, and their +fingers flew to perform the ten thousand experiments, ideas for which +belched out of the mind of Metchnikoff like an incessant eruption of +fireworks. + +“Mr. Saltykoff!” he would cry. “This student of Professor Pfeiffer +in Germany claims that the serum of a guinea-pig will keep other +guinea-pigs from dying of hog-cholera. Will you be so good as to +perform an experiment to see if that is so?” And the worshiping +Saltykoff rushed off--knowing what the master wanted to prove--to +show that the German claims were nonsense. For a hundred other +intricate tests, for which his own fingers were too impatient, +Metchnikoff called upon Blagovestchensky, or Hugenschmidt, or Wagner, +or Gheorgiewski, or the now almost forgotten Sawtchenko. Or when +these were all busy, then there was Olga to be lured away from her +paints and clay models--Olga could be depended upon to prove the +most delicate points. In that laboratory there were a hundred hearts +that beat as one and a hundred minds with but a single thought--to +write the epic of those tiny, roundish, colorless, wandering cells +of our blood, those cells, which, smelling from afar the approach +of a murderous microbe, swam up the current of the blood, crawled +strangely through the walls of the blood vessels to do battle with +the germs and so guard us from death. + +The great medical congresses of those brave days were exciting +debating societies about microbes, about immunity, and it was in +the weeks before a congress (Metchnikoff always went to them) that +his laboratory buzzed with an infernal rushing to and fro. “We must +hurry,” Metchnikoff exclaimed, “to make all of the experiments +necessary to support my arguments!” The crowd of adoring assistants +then slept two hours less each night; Metchnikoff rolled up his +sleeves, too, and seized a syringe. Young rhinoceros beetles, green +frogs, alligators, or weird Mexican axolotls were brought from the +animal house by the sweating helpers (sometimes the ponds were +dredged for perch and gudgeon). Then the mad philosopher, his eyes +alight, his broad face so red that it glowed like some smoldering +brush-fire under his beard, his mustaches full of bacilli spattered +into it by his excited and poetic gestures--this Metchnikoff, I say, +proceeded to inject swarms of microbes into one or another of his +uncomplaining, cold-blooded menagerie. “I multiply experiments to +support my theory of phagocytes!” he was wont to say. + + + VI + +It is amazing, when you remember that his brain was always inventing +stories about nature, how often these stories turned out to be true +when they were put to the test of experiment. A German hunter had +claimed: “There is nothing to Metchnikoff’s theory of phagocytes. +Everybody knows that you can see microbes inside of phagocytes--they +have undoubtedly been gobbled up by the phagocytes. But these +wandering cells are not defenders, they are mere scavengers--they +will only swallow dead microbes!” The London Congress of 1891 was +drawing near; Metchnikoff shouted for some guinea-pigs, vaccinated +them with some cholera-like bacilli that his old friend, the +unfortunate Gamaléia, had discovered. Then, a week or so later, the +big-bearded philosopher shot some of these living, dangerous bacilli +into the bellies of vaccinated beasts. Every few minutes, during the +next hours, he ran slender glass tubes into their abdomens, sucked +out a few drops of the fluid there, and put it before the more or +less dirty lens of his microscope, to see whether the phagocytes of +the immune beasts were eating up Gamaléia’s bacilli. Presto! These +roundish crawling cells were crammed full of the microbes! + +“Now I shall prove that these microbes inside the phagocytes are +still alive!” cried Metchnikoff. He killed the guinea-pig, slashed it +open, and sucked into another little glass tube some of the grayish +slime of wandering cells which had gathered in the creature’s belly +to make meals off the microbes. In a little while--for they are +very delicate when you try to keep them alive outside the body--the +phagocytes had died, burst open, and the _live_ bacilli they had +swallowed galloped out of them! Promptly, when Metchnikoff injected +them, these microbes that had been swallowed, murdered guinea-pigs +who were not immune. + +By dozens of brilliant experiments of this kind, Metchnikoff forced +his opponents to admit that phagocytes, sometimes, can eat vicious +microbes. But the pitiful waste of this brainy Metchnikoff’s life +was that he was always doing experiments to defend an idea, and +not to find the hidden truths of nature. His experiments were +weird, they were often fantastically entertaining, but they were so +artificial--they were so far away from the point of what it is that +makes us immune. You would think that his brain, which seemed to be +able to hold all knowledge, would have dreamed of subtle tests to +find out just how it is that one child can be exposed to consumption +and never get it, while some carefully and hygienically raised young +girl dies from consumption at twenty. _There_ is the riddle of +immunity (and it is still completely a riddle!). “Oh! it is doubtless +due to the fact that her phagocytes are not working!” Metchnikoff +would have exclaimed, and then he might rush off to flabbergast +some opponent by proving that the phagocytes of an alligator eat up +typhoid fever bacilli--which never bother alligators anyway. + +The devotion of the workers in his laboratory was amazing. They let +him feed them virulent cholera bacilli (even one of those pretty +inspirational girls swallowed them!) to prove that the blood has +nothing to do with our immunity to cholera. For years--he himself +said that it was an insanity of his--he was fond of toying with the +lives of his researching slaves, and the only thing that excused him +was his perfect readiness to risk death along with them. He swallowed +more tubes of cholera bacilli than any of them. In the midst of this +dangerous business, one of the assistants, Jupille, became violently +sick with real Asiatic cholera and Metchnikoff’s remorse was +immoderate. “I shall never survive the death of Jupille!” he moaned, +and Olga, that good wife, had to be on her guard day and night to +keep her famous husband from one of his (always fruitless) attempts +at suicide. At the end of these strange experiments, Metchnikoff +jabbed needles into the arms of the survivors, drew blood from them, +and triumphantly found that this blood did not protect guinea-pigs +from doses of virulent cholera germs. How he hated the idea of blood +having any importance! “Human cholera gives us another example,” he +wrote, “of a malady whose cure cannot be explained by the preventive +properties of the blood.” + +When some more than ordinarily independent student would come +whispering to him that he had discovered a remarkable something about +blood, Metchnikoff became magnificent like Moses coming down off Mt. +Sinai--searchers for mere truth had a bad time in that laboratory, +and you can imagine the great dauntless champion of phagocytes +ordering a dissenter from his theory to be burned, and then weeping +inconsolably over him afterwards. But, just the same, Metchnikoff--so +great was the number of experiments made by an always changing crowd +of eager experimenters in his laboratory--this Metchnikoff was partly +responsible for the discovery of some of the most astounding virtues +of blood. For, in the midst of his triumphs, Jules Bordet came to +work with the master. This Bordet was the son of the schoolmaster +of the village of Soignies in Belgium. He was timid, he seemed +insignificant, he had careless ways and watery-blue, absent-minded +eyes--eyes that saw things nobody else was looking for. Bordet set +to work there, and right in the shadow of the master’s beard, while +the walls shook with the slogan “Phagocytes!”--the Belgian pried into +the mystery of how blood kills germs; he laid the foundation for +those astounding delicate tests which tell whether blood is human +blood, in murder cases. It was here too, that Bordet began the work +which led, years later, to the famous blood test for syphilis--the +Wassermann reaction. Metchnikoff was often annoyed with Bordet, but +he was proud of him too, and whenever Bordet found anything in blood +that was harmful to microbes, and might help to make people immune +to them, Metchnikoff consoled himself by inventing more or less +accurate experiments which showed that these microbe-killing things +came from the phagocytes, after all. Bordet did not remain long in +Metchnikoff’s laboratory.... + +Toward the end of the nineteenth century, when romantic microbe +hunting began to turn into a regular profession, recruited from good +steady law-abiding young doctors who were not prophets or reckless +searchers--in those days Metchnikoff’s bitter trials with people who +didn’t believe him began to be less terrible. He received medals and +prizes of money, and even the Germans clapped their hands and were +respectful when he walked majestically into some congress. A thousand +searchers had spied phagocytes in the act of gobbling harmful +germs--and although that did not explain at all why one man dies from +an attack of pneumonia microbes, while another breaks into a sweat +and gets better--just the same there is no doubt that pneumonia germs +are sometimes eaten and so got rid of by phagocytes. So Metchnikoff, +after you discount his amazing illogic, his intolerance, his +bullheadedness, really did discover a fact which may make life easier +for suffering mankind. Because, some day, a dreamer, an experimenting +genius like the absent-minded Bordet may come along--and he may solve +the riddle of why phagocytes sometimes gobble germs and sometimes do +not--he might even teach phagocytes always to eat them.... + + + VII + +At last Metchnikoff began really to be happy. His opponents were +partly convinced, and partly they stopped arguing with him because +they found it was no use--he could always experiment more tirelessly +than they, he could talk longer, he could expostulate more loudly. +So Metchnikoff, at the beginning of the twentieth century, sat down +to write a great book on all that he had found out about why we are +immune. It was an enormous treatise you would think it would take +a lifetime to write. It was written in a style Flaubert might have +envied. He made every one of the ten thousand facts in it vivid, and +every one of them was twisted prettily to prove his point. It is +a strange novel with a myriad of heroes--the wandering cells, the +phagocytes of all the animals of the earth. + +His fame made him take a real delight in being alive. Twenty years +before, detesting the human race, sorry for himself, and hating life, +he had told Olga: “It is a crime to have children--no human being +should consciously reproduce himself.” But now that he had begun to +take delight in existence, the children of Sèvres, the suburb where +he lived, called him “Grandpa Christmas” as he patted their heads and +gave them candy. “Life is good!” he told himself. But how to hang +onto it, now that it was slipping away so fast? In only one way, of +course--by science! + +“Disease is only an episode!” he wrote. “It is not enough to cure +(he had discovered no cures) ... it is necessary to find out what +the destiny of man is, and why he must grow old and die when his +desire to live is strongest.” Then Metchnikoff abandoned work on his +dead phagocytes and set out to found fantastic sciences to explain +man’s destiny, and to avoid it. To one of these, the science of old +age, he gave the sonorous name “Gerontology,” and he gave the name +“Thanatology” to the science of death. What awful sciences they were; +the ideas were optimistic; the observations he made in them were so +inaccurate that old Leeuwenhoek would have turned over in his grave +had he known about them; the experiments Metchnikoff made, to support +these sciences, would have caused Pasteur to foam with indignation +that he had ever welcomed this outlandish Russian to his laboratory. +And yet--and yet--the way really to prevent one of the most hideous +microbic diseases came out of them.... + +[Illustration: ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF] + +Metchnikoff dreaded the idea of dying but knew that he and everybody +else would have to--so he set out to devise a hope (there was not one +particle of science in this) for an easy death. Somewhere in his vast +hungry readings, he had run across the report of two old ladies +who had become so old that they felt no more desire for life--they +wanted to die, just as all of us want to go to sleep at the end of +a hard day’s work. “Ha!” cried Metchnikoff, “that shows that there +is an instinct for death just as there is an instinct for sleep! The +thing to do is to find a way to live long enough in good health until +we shall really crave to die!” + +Then he set out on a thorough search for more of such lucky old +ladies, he visited old ladies’ homes, he rushed about questioning old +crones, with their teeth out, who were too deaf to hear him. He went +all the way from Paris to Rouen to interview (on the strength of a +newspaper rumor) a dame reported to be a hundred and six. But, alas, +all of the oldsters he talked to were strong for life, he never found +any one like the two legendary old ladies. Just the same he cried: +“There is a death instinct!” Contrary facts never worried him. + +He studied old age in animals; and people were always sending him +gray-haired dogs and dilapidated ancient cats; he published a solemn +research on why a superannuated parrot lived to be seventy. He owned +an ancient he-turtle, who lived in his garden, and Metchnikoff was +overjoyed when this venerable beast--at the great age of 86--mated +with two lady turtles and became the father of broods of little +turtles. He dreaded the passing of the delights of love, and +exclaimed, remembering his turtle: “Senility is not so profoundly +seated as we suppose!” + +But to push back old age? What is at the bottom of it? A Scandinavian +scientist, Edgren, had made a deep study of the hardening of the +arteries--that was the cause of old age, suggested Edgren, and among +the causes of the hardening of the arteries were the drinking of +alcohol, syphilis, and certain other diseases. + +“A man is as old as his arteries, that is true,” muttered +Metchnikoff, and he decided to study the riddle of how that +loathsome disease hardens the arteries. It was in 1903. He had just +received a prize of five thousand francs, and Roux--who, though +so different, so much more the searcher, had always stuck by this +wild Metchnikoff--Roux had got the grand Osiris prize of one hundred +thousand francs. Never were there two men so different in their ways +of doing science, but they were alike in caring little for money, and +together they decided to use all of these francs--and thirty thousand +more which Metchnikoff had wheedled out of some rich Russians--to +study that venereal plague, to attempt to give it to apes, to try +to discover its then mysterious virus, to prevent it, to cure it if +possible. And Metchnikoff wanted to study how syphilis hardened the +arteries. + +So they bought apes with this money. French governors in the Congo +sent black boys to scour the jungles for them, and presently large +rooms at the Pasteur Institute were a-chatter with chimpanzees +and orang-outangs, and the cries of these were drowned out by the +shrieking of the sacred monkey of the Hindoos, and the caterwaulings +of the comical little _Macacus cynemolgus_. + +Almost at once Roux and Metchnikoff made an important find; their +experiments were ingenious and they had about them a certain +tautness and clearness that was strangely un-Metchnikoffian. Their +laboratory began to be the haunt of unfortunate men who had just got +syphilis; from one of these they inoculated an ape--and the very +first experiment was a success. The chimpanzee developed the disease. +From then on, for more than four years they toiled, transmitting +the diseases from one ape to another, looking for the sneaking +slender microbe but not finding it, trying to find ways to weaken +the virus--as Pasteur had done with the unknown germ of rabies--in +order to discover a preventive vaccine. Their monkeys died miserably +of pneumonia and consumption, they got loose and ran away. While +Metchnikoff, not too deftly, scratched the horrible virus into them, +the apes bit him and scratched him back--and then Metchnikoff did a +strange and clever experiment. He scratched a little syphilitic virus +into the ear of an ape, and twenty-four hours later he cut off that +ear! The ape never showed one sign of the disease in any other part +of his body.... + +“That means,” cried Metchnikoff, “that the germ lingers for hours +at the spot where it gets into the body--now, as in men we know +exactly where the virus gets in, maybe we can kill it before it ever +spreads--since in this disease we know just when it gets in, too!” + +So Metchnikoff, with Roux always being careful and insisting upon +good check experiments--so Metchnikoff, after all of his theorizing +about why we are immune, performed one of the most profoundly +practical of all the experiments of microbe hunting. He sat himself +down and invented the famous calomel ointment--that now is chasing +syphilis out of armies and navies the world over. He took two apes, +inoculated them with the syphilitic virus fresh from a man, and then, +one hour later, he rubbed the grayish ointment into that scratched +spot on one of his apes. He watched the horrid signs of the disease +appear on the unanointed beast, and saw all signs of the disease stay +away from the one that had got the calomel. + +Then for the last time Metchnikoff’s strange insanity got hold +of him. He forgot his vows and induced a young medical student, +Maisonneuve, to volunteer to be scratched with syphilis from an +infected man. Before a committee of the most distinguished medical +men of France, this brave Maisonneuve stood up, and into six long +scratches he watched the dangerous virus go. It was a more severe +inoculation than any man would ever get in nature. The results of it +might make him a thing for loathing, might send him, insane, to his +death.... For one hour Maisonneuve waited, then Metchnikoff, full +of confidence, rubbed the calomel ointment into the wounds--but not +into those which had been made at the same time on a chimpanzee and +a monkey. It was a superb success, for Maisonneuve showed never a +sign of the ugly ulcer, while the simians, thirty days afterwards, +developed the disease--there was no doubt about it. + +Moralists--and there were many doctors among these, mind you--raised +a great clamor against these experiments of Metchnikoff. “It will +remove the penalty of immorality!” said they, “to spread abroad +such an easy and a perfect means of prevention!” But Metchnikoff +only answered: “It has been objected that the attempt to prevent +the spread of this disease is immoral. But since all means of moral +prophylaxis have not prevented the great spread of syphilis and the +contamination of innocents, the immoral thing is to restrain any +available means we have of combating this plague.” + + + VIII + +Meanwhile he was scheming and groping about and having dreams about +other things that might cause the arteries to harden, and suddenly +he invented another cause--surely no one can say he discovered +it!--“auto-intoxication, poisoning from the wild, putrefying bacilli +in our large intestines--that is surely a cause of the hardening of +the arteries, that is what helps us to grow old too soon!” he cried. +He devised chemical tests--what awful ones they were--that would show +whether the body was being poisoned from the intestine. “We would +live much longer,” he said, “if we had no large intestine, indeed, +two people are on record, who had their large intestine cut out, and +live perfectly well without it.” Strange to say, he did not advocate +cutting the bowels out of every one, but he set about thinking up +ways of making things there uncomfortable for the “wild bacilli.” + +His theory was a strange one, and caused laughter and jeers and he +began to get into trouble again. People wrote in, reminding him that +elephants had enormous large intestines but lived to be a hundred in +spite of them; that the human race, in spite of its large intestine, +was one of the longest-lived species on earth. He engaged in vast +obscene arguments about why evolution has allowed animals to keep +a large intestine--then suddenly he hit on his great remedy for +auto-intoxication. There were villages in Bulgaria where people +were alleged to live to be more than a hundred. Metchnikoff didn’t +go down there to see--he believed it. These ancient people lived +principally upon sour milk, so went the story. “Ah! there’s the +explanation,” he muttered. He put the youngsters in his laboratory +to studying the microbe that made milk sour--and in a little while +the notorious Bulgarian bacillus made its bow in the rank of patent +medicines. + +“This germ,” explained Metchnikoff, “by making the acid of sour milk, +will chase the wild poisonous bacilli out of the intestine.” He began +drinking huge draughts of sour milk himself, and later, for years, he +fed himself cultivations of the Bulgarian bacillus. He wrote large +books about his new theory and a serious English journal acclaimed +them to be the most important scientific treatises since Darwin’s +“Origin of Species.” The Bulgarian bacillus became a rage, companies +were formed, and their directors grew rich off selling these silly +bacilli. Metchnikoff let them use his name (though Olga insists he +never made a franc from that) for the label. + +For nearly twenty years Metchnikoff austerely lived to the letter of +his new theory. He neither drank alcoholic drinks nor did he smoke. +He permitted himself no debaucheries. He was examined incessantly by +the most renowned specialists of the age. His rolls were sent to him +in separate sterilized paper bags so that they would be free from the +wild, auto-intoxicating bacilli. He constantly tested his various +juices and excretions. In those years he got down untold gallons +of sour milk and swallowed billions of the beneficent bacilli of +Bulgaria.... + +And he died at the age of seventy-one. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + THEOBALD SMITH + + TICKS AND TEXAS FEVER + + + I + +It was Theobald Smith who made mankind turn a corner. He was the +first, and remains the captain of American microbe hunters. He poked +his nose--following the reasoning of some plain farmers--around a +sharp turn and came upon amazing things; and now this history tells +what Smith saw and what the trail-breakers who came after him found. + +“It is in the power of man to make parasitic maladies disappear from +the face of the globe!” So promised Pasteur, palsied but famous +after his fight with the sicknesses of silkworms. He promised +that, you remember, with a kind of enthusiastic vehemence, making +folks think they might be rid of plagues by a year after next at +the latest. Men began to hope and wait.... They cheered as Pasteur +invented vaccines--marvelous these were but not what you would call +microbe-exterminators. Then Koch came, to astound men by his perilous +science of finding the tubercle bacillus, and, though Koch promised +little, men remembered Pasteur’s prophecy and waited for consumption +to vanish.... Years went by while Roux and Behring battled bloodily +to scotch the poison of diphtheria; mothers crooned hopeful songs +into the ears of their children.... Some men giggled, but secretly +hoped a little too, that the mighty (albeit windy) Metchnikoff might +teach his phagocytes to eat up every germ in the world.... Diseases +were getting a bit milder maybe--the reason is still mysterious--but +they seemed in no hurry to vanish, and men had to keep on waiting.... + +Then arose a young man, Theobald Smith, at the opening of the last +ten years of the eighteen hundreds, to show why northern cows get +sick and die of Texas fever when they go south, and to explain why +southern cows, though healthy, go north and trail along with them a +mysterious death for northern cattle. In 1893 Theobald Smith wrote +his straight, clear report of the answer to this riddle; there was +certainly no public horn-tooting about it and the report is now out +of print--but that report gave an idea to the swashbuckling David +Bruce; it gave hints to Patrick Manson; it set thoughts flickering +through the head of the brilliant but indignant Italian, Grassi; that +report gave confidence in his dangerous quest to the American Walter +Reed and that gang of officers and gallant privates who refused extra +pay for the job of being martyrs to research. + +What kind of man is this Theobald Smith (safe to say all but a few +thousand Americans have never even heard of him), and how could his +discoveries about a cow disease set such dreams stirring--how could +those farmers’ reasonings that he proved, show microbe hunters a way +to begin to realize the poetic promise of Pasteur to men? + + + II + +In 1884 Theobald Smith was in his middle twenties; he was a Bachelor +of Philosophy of Cornell University; he was a doctor of medicine +from the Albany Medical College. But he detested the idea of going +through life solemnly diagnosing sicknesses he could not hope to +cure, offering sympathy where help was needed, trying to heal +patients for whom there was no hope--in brief, medicine seemed to +him to be a mixed-up, illogical business. He was all for biting into +the unknown in places where there was a chance of swallowing it--a +little of it--without having mental indigestion. In short, though a +physician, he wanted to do science! In especial he was eager--as what +searcher was not in those piping days--about microbes. At Cornell +(it was before the days of jazz) he had played psalms and Beethoven +on the pipe organ; here too (college activities had not yet engulfed +mere learning) Theobald Smith dug thoroughly into mathematics, +into physical science, into German, and particularly he became +enthusiastic about looking through microscopes. Maybe then he saw his +first microbe.... + +But when he came to the medical school at Albany, he found no +excitement about possibly dastardly bacilli among the doctors of the +faculty; germs had not yet been set up as targets for the healing +shots of the medical profession; there was no course in bacteriology +there--nor, for that matter, in any medical school in America. +But he wanted to do science! And, caring nothing for the healthy +drunkennesses and scientific obscenities of the ordinary medical +student, Theobald Smith soothed himself with the microscopic study of +the interiors of cats. In his first published paper he made certain +shrewd observations on peculiar twists of anatomy in the depths of +the bellies of cats--that was his bow as a searcher. + +He graduated and wanted above everything to be an experimenter, but +he had, before anything, to make a living. Just then young American +doctors were hurrying to Europe, eager to look over Koch’s shoulder +to learn ways to paint bacilli, to breed them true, to shoot them +under the skins of animals, and to talk like real experts about +them. Theobald Smith would have liked to go but he had to find a +job. And presently, while those other well-off young Americans were +getting in on the ground floor of the new exciting science (afterward +they told how they had actually worked in the same room with those +great Germans!) and when they were getting ready to land important +professorships, Theobald Smith got his job. A humble and surely +not academically respectable job it was too! For he was appointed +one of the staff of the then feeble, struggling, insignificant, +financially rather ill-nourished, and in general almost negligible +Bureau of Animal Industry at Washington. Counting Smith, there were +four members of the staff of this Bureau. The Chief was a good man +named Salmon. He was enthusiastically interested in what germs might +do to cows and sincerely passionate about the importance of bacilli +to pigs--but he knew nothing of how to find the microbes harassing +these valuable creatures. Then there was Mr. Kilborne who rejoiced in +the degree of Bachelor of Agriculture and was something of a horse +doctor (he now runs a hardware store in New York, up-state). And +finally, this staff to which Smith came, was glorified by the ancient +and redoubtable Alexander, a darky ex-slave who sat about solemnly, +and when urged, got up to wash the dirty bottles or chaperon the +guinea-pigs. + +In a little room lighted by a dormer window under the roof in the +attic of a government building, Smith set out to hunt microbes. It +was his proper business! Naturally he went at it, as if he had been +born with a syringe in his hand and a platinum wire in his mouth. +Though a university graduate, he read German well, and of nights, +with gulps, he gobbled up the brave doings of Robert Koch; like a +young duck taking to the water he began to imitate Koch’s subtle ways +of nursing and waylaying hideous bacilli and those strange spirilla +who swim about like living corkscrews.... “I owe everything to Robert +Koch!” he said, and thought of that far-off genius as some country +baseball slugger might think of Babe Ruth. + +In his dingy attic he was tireless. It made no difference that he +was not strong--all day and part of the night he hunted microbes. +And he had musician’s fingers that helped him to brew microbe soups +with very few spillings. In off moments he would swat the regiments +of cockroaches who marched without stopping into his attic from +the lumber room close by. In a remarkably short time he had taught +himself everything needful and began to make cautious discoveries--he +invented a queer new safe kind of vaccine, which contained no bacilli +but only their filtered formless protein stuff. The heat of his attic +was an intensification of the shimmering hell Washington knows how to +be, but he wiped the sweat from the end of his nose and set to work +in the right, classic way of Koch--with an astounding instinct he +avoided the cruder methods of Pasteur. + + + III + +You talk about freedom of science! You think a free choice to dig +in any part of the Unknown is needed by searchers? I used to think +so, and I have got into trouble with eminent authorities for saying +so--too loudly. Wrong! For Theobald Smith, with little more freedom +to start with than some low government clerk--had to research into +things Dr. Salmon told him to research at, and Dr. Salmon was paid to +direct Smith to solve puzzles which were bothering the farmers and +stock-raisers. Such was science in the Bureau of Animal Industry. Dr. +Salmon and Bachelor Kilborne and Theobald Smith--to say nothing of +the indispensable Alexander--were expected to rush out like firemen +and squirt science on the flaming epidemics threatening the pigs and +heifers and bulls and rams of the farmers of the land. Just then the +stock-raisers were seriously upset by a very weird disease, the Texas +fever. + +Southern cattlemen bought northern cattle; they were unloaded from +their box-cars and put to graze on the fields along with perfectly +healthy southern cows; everything would go well for a month or +so, and then, bang! an epidemic burst out among northern cows. +They stopped eating, they lost dozens of pounds a day, their urine +ran strangely red, they stood aimless with arched backs and sad +eyes--and in a few days every last one of the fine northern herd lay +stiff-legged on the field. The same thing happened when southern +steers and heifers were shipped North; they were put into northern +fields, grazed there awhile, were driven away perhaps; when northern +cows were turned into those fields where their southern sisters had +been, in thirty days or so they began to die--in ten days after that +a whole fine herd might be under the ground. + +What was this strange death, brought from the South by cattle +never sick with it themselves, and left invisibly in ambush on the +fields? Why did it take more than a month for those fields to become +dangerous? Why were they only dangerous in the hot summer months? + +The whole country was excited about it; there was bad feeling between +the meridional cowmen and their colleagues of the North; New York +City went into a panic when carloads of stock shipped East for beef +began to die in hundreds on the trains. Something must be done! And +the distinguished doctors of the Metropolitan Health Board went to +work to try to find the microbe cause of the disease.... + +Meanwhile certain wise old Western cattle growers had a theory--it +was just what you would call a plain hunch got from smoking their +pipes over disastrous losses of cows--they had a notion that Texas +fever was caused by an insect living on the cattle and sucking blood; +this bug they called a _tick_. + +The learned doctors of the Metropolitan Board and all of the +distinguished horse doctors of the various state Experiment Stations +laughed. Ticks cause disease! Any insect cause disease! It was +unheard of. It was against all science. It was silly! “... A little +thought should have satisfied any one of the absurdity of this +idea,” pronounced the noted authority, Gamgee. This man was up to +his nose in the study of Texas fever, and never mentioned a tick; +the scientists all over gravely cut up the carcasses of cows and +discovered bacilli there (but never saw a tick). “It is the dung +spreads it!” said one. “You are wrong, it is the saliva!” said +another. There were as many theories as there were scientists. And +the cattle kept on dying. + + + IV + +Then, in 1888, Dr. Salmon put Theobald Smith, with Kilborne to help +him, and Alexander to clean up after them--saying nothing about ticks, +Salmon put his entire staff to work on Texas fever. “Discover the +germ!” he told Smith. That year they had nothing but the spleens and +livers of four dead Texas fever cows to investigate; packed in pails +of ice, from Virginia and Maryland to his furnace-like attic came +those livers and spleens. Theobald Smith had what so many of those +mystified scientists and baffled horse doctors lacked--horse sense. +He turned his microscope on to different bits of the first sample of +spleen; he spied microbes in it; there was a veritable menagerie of +different species of them. + +Then Smith sniffed at that bit of spleen. He wrinkled up his nose--it +smelled. It was spoiled. + +At once he sent out messages, asking the stockmen to get the insides +out of their cattle right away after they died, to pack them quickly +in ice, to see they got to the laboratory more quickly. It was done, +and in the next spleen he found no microbes at all--but only a great +quantity of mysteriously broken up red corpuscles of the blood. “They +look wrecked!” he said. But he could find no microbes. He was still +young, and sarcastic, and impatient with any searcher who couldn’t +do close hard thinking. A man named Billings had claimed a foolish +common bacillus (which he found in every part of every dead cow and +in every corner of the barnyard--including the manure pile--as well) +was the cause of Texas fever. Billings wrote a spread-eagle paper, +saying: “The sun of original research, in disease, seems to be rising +in the West instead of the East!” + +“Somewhat pompous claims,” said Smith, and he blew away all that +pseudo-scientific rubbish in a few dry sentences. Smith knew it was +no good sitting in a laboratory, with no matter how many guinea-pigs +and what an array of fine syringes, simply to peer at the spleens +and livers of more or less odoriferous cows. He was an experimenter; +he must study the living disease; be there while the cows kicked +their last quivering spasms; he must follow nature. He began to get +ready for the summer of 1889, when, one day, Kilborne told him of the +cattlemen’s ridiculous theory about the ticks. + +In a moment he pricked up his mental ears. “The farmers, the ones who +lose the stock, who see most of Texas fever, they think that?” + +Now, though Theobald Smith was born in a city, he liked the smell +of hay just cut and the brown furrows of fresh-turned fields. There +was something sage--something as near as you can come to _truth_ for +him in a farmer’s clipped sentences about the crops or the weather. +Smith was learned in the marvelous shorthand of mathematics; men +of the soil don’t know that stuff. He was absolutely at home among +the scopes and tubes and charts of shining laboratories--in short, +this young searcher was full of sophisticated wisdom that laughs +at common sayings, that often jeers at peasant platitudes. But in +spite of all of his learning (and this was an arbitrary strange +thing about him!) Theobald Smith did not confuse fine buildings and +complicated apparatus with clear thinking--he seemed always to be +distrusting what he got out of books or what he saw in tubes.... He +felt the dumbest yokel to be profoundly right when that fellow took +his corn-cob pipe from his maybe unbrushed teeth to growl that April +showers brought May flowers. + +He listened to Kilborne’s gossip about that idiotic theory of ticks; +Kilborne told him the cattlemen of the West were pretty well agreed +it was ticks. Well, pondered Smith, those fellows were surely +innocent of any fancy reasoning to corrupt their brains, they reeked +of the smell of steers and heifers, they were almost, you might say, +a part of their animals; and they were the ones who had to lay awake +nights knowing this dreadful disease was turning their cattle’s blood +to water, to taking the bread from their children’s mouths. They had +to bury those poor wasted beasts. And these experienced farmers one +and all said: “No ticks--no Texas fever!” + +Theobald Smith would follow the farmers. He would watch the disease +as nearly as possible as those stockmen had watched it. Here was a +new kind of microbe hunting--following nature, and changing her by +just the smallest tricks.... The summer of 1889 came, the days grew +hot; the year before the cattlemen had complained bitterly about +their losses. It was urgent to do something, even the government +saw that. The Department of Agriculture loosened up with a good +appropriation, and Dr. Salmon, the Director, directed that the work +begin--luckily he knew so little about experiments that his direction +never bothered Smith in the slightest. + + + V + +With Kilborne, Theobald Smith now built an outlandish laboratory, not +between four walls but under the hot sky, and the rooms of that place +of science were nothing more than five or six little dusty fenced off +fields. On June 27 of 1889, seven rather thin but perfectly healthy +cows came off a little boat which brought them from farms in North +Carolina, from the heart of the Texas fever country, where it was +death for northern cattle to go. And these seven cows were, one and +all of them, decorated, infested and plagued by several thousands of +ticks, assorted sizes of them, some so tiny they needed a magnifying +glass to be seen--and then there were splendid female ticks half an +inch long, puffed up with blood sucked from their long-suffering +hosts. + +Into securely fenced Field No. 1, Smith and Kilborne drove four of +these tick-loaded southern cattle, and with them they put six healthy +northern beasts----“Pretty soon the northerners will be getting the +ticks on them too, they have never been near Texas fever.... They are +susceptible, and then...?” said Smith. “And now for a little trick to +see if it is the ticks we have to blame!” + +So Theobald Smith did his first little trick--call it an experiment +if you wish--it was a stunt a shrewd cattleman might have thought +of if he hadn’t been too busy to try it; it was an experiment all +other American scientists considered it silly to attempt. Smith and +Kilborne set out to pick off, with their hands, every single tick +from the remaining three southern cattle! The beasts kicked and +switched their tails in these strange experimenters’ faces; it was +way over a hundred in the sun, and the dust from the rampaging of the +offended cows hung in clouds around them and stuck to their sweaty +foreheads. Buried away under the matted hair of the cattle hid those +ticks, and the little ones out in the open seemed to crawl away under +the hair when the cramped fingers of the searchers went after them. +And how those damned parasites stuck to their cow-hosts--there were +magnificent blood-gorged lady ticks who mashed up into nasty messes +when you tried to pull them off--it was a miserable business! + +But toward evening of that day they could find never a tick on any +of those three North Carolina cows, and into Field No. 2 they put +them, along with four healthy northern beasts. “These northerners, +perfectly fit for a fatal attack of Texas fever, will be rubbing +noses with the southerners, will be nibbling the same grass, +drinking from the same water, sniffing at the North Carolina cow’s +excretions--but they’ll get no ticks from them. Well--now to wait and +see if it’s the ticks who are to blame!” + +July and the first of August were two months of hot but strenuous +waiting. Smith, with a Government bug-expert named Cooper Curtice, +kept himself busy with vast studies of the lives and works and ways +of ticks. They discovered how a six-legged baby tick climbs up onto a +cow, how it fastens itself to the cow’s hide, begins to suck blood, +sheds its skin, proudly acquires two more legs, sheds its skin again; +they found out the eight-legged females then marry (on the cow’s +back) each of them a little male, how the lady-ticks then have great +feasts of blood, grow to tick womanhood--and at last drop off the cow +to the ground to lay their two thousand or more eggs; so, hardly more +than twenty days after their journey up the leg of the cow, their +mission in life is done, and they shrivel up and die--while strange +doings begin in each of those two thousand eggs.... + +Meanwhile, every day--it was a relief to get out of that cockroachy +attic even to those burning fields--Theobald Smith journeyed out to +his open air laboratory where Kilborne the future hardware dealer +was in command. He went to Field No. 1 to see if ticks had got on +to any of the northern cattle yet, to see if they were getting hot, +if their heads drooped; he crossed over to Field No. 2 to pick a +few more ticks off those three North Carolina cows--a few new ones +always seemed to be popping up, grown from ones too small to see that +first day!--it was nervous business, making sure those three cows +stayed clean of ticks.... It was, to tell the truth, a perspiring and +not too interesting waiting until that day a little past the middle +of August, when the first northern cow began to show ticks, and +presently to stand with her back arched, refusing to eat. Then the +ticks appeared on all the northerners; they burned with fever, their +blood turned to water, their ribs stuck out and their flanks grew +bony--and ticks? They seemed to be alive with ticks! + +But on Field No. 2, where there were no ticks, the northern cows +stayed as healthy as their North Carolina mates.... + +Each day the fever of the northern beasts in Field No. 1 went +higher--then one by one they died; the barns ran red with the +blood of the post mortems, and there were rushings to and fro +between the dead beasts on the field and the microscopes in the +attic--even Alexander, dimly sensing the momentous things afoot, +even Alexander got busy. And Theobald Smith looked at the thin blood +of the dead cows. “It is the blood the unknown Texas fever microbe +attacks--something seems to get into the blood corpuscles of the +cows and burst them open--it is _inside_ the blood cells I must look +for the germ,” pondered Smith. Now, though he distrusted the reports +of alleged microscope experts, he was nevertheless himself mighty +sharp with this machine. He turned his most powerful lens onto the +blood of the first cow that died, and--here was luck!--in the very +first specimen he spied queer little punched-out pear-shaped spaces +in the otherwise solid discs of the blood corpuscles. At first they +simply looked like holes, but he focussed up and down, and fussed, +and looked at a dozen thin bits of glass with blood between them. +Presently these spaces began to turn into queer pear-shaped living +creatures for him. In the blood of every beast dead of Texas fever he +found them--always inside the corpuscles, wrecking the corpuscles, +turning the blood to water. Never did he find them in the blood of a +healthy northern cow.... “It may be the microbe of Texas fever,” he +whispered, but like a good peasant he did not jump to conclusions--he +must look at the blood of a hundred cows, sick and healthy, he must +examine millions of red blood cells to be sure.... + +By now the hottest weather had passed, it was September, and in +Field No. 2, the northern cattle, all four of them, kept on grazing +and grew fat--there were no ticks there. And Smith muttered: “We’ll +see if it’s the ticks who are to blame!” and he took two of these +unharmed northern beasts and led them into Field No. 1, where so many +beasts had died--in a week a few of the little red-brown bugs were +crawling up these new cow’s legs. In a little more than two weeks one +of these cows was dead, and the other sick, of Texas fever. + +But there never was a man who needed more experiences to convince him +of something he wanted to believe. He must be sure! And there was +still another simple trick he could try--call it an experiment if you +wish. From North Carolina, from the fatal fields down there, came +large cans and these cans were filled with grass, that swarmed with +ticks, crawling, thirsty for the blood of cows. These cans Theobald +Smith took on to Field No. 3, where no southern cattle or their +blood-sucking parasites had ever been, and he plodded up and down +this field, and all over it he sowed his maybe fatal seed--of ticks. +Then four northern cattle were led by Kilborne on to this field--and +in a few weeks their blood ran thin, and one died, and two of the +remaining three had severe bouts of Texas fever but recovered. + + + VI + +So, first of all microbe hunters, Theobald Smith traced out the exact +path by which a sub-visible assassin goes from one animal to another. +In the field where there were southern cattle and ticks, the northern +cattle died of Texas fever; in the field where there were southern +cattle _without_ ticks the northern cows grew fat and remained +happy; in the field where there were no southern cattle but _only_ +ticks--there too, the northern cattle came down with Texas fever. +It must be the tick. By such simple, two-plus-two-make-four--but +oh! what endlessly careful experiments, Theobald Smith proved those +western cowmen to have observed a great new fact of nature.... He +chiseled that fact out of folk-shrewdness, just as the anonymous +invention of the wheel has been taken out of folk-inventiveness and +put to the uses of modern whirring dynamos.... + +You would think he thought he had proved enough--those experiments +were so clear. You would think he would have advised the government +to start an exterminating war on ticks, but that was not the kind +of searcher Theobald Smith was. Instead, he waited for the heat +of the summer of 1890 to come, and then he started doing the same +experiments over, and some new ones too, all of them simple tricks, +but each of them necessary to nail down the fact that the tick was +the real criminal. “How do those bugs carry the disease from a +southern cow to a northern one?” he pondered. “We know now one tick +lives its whole life on just one cow--it doesn’t flit from beast to +beast like a fly....” This was a knotty question--too subtle for the +crude science of the ranchers--and Smith set himself to chew that +knot.... + +“It must be,” he meditated, “that ticks, when they have sucked enough +blood, and are ripe, drop off, and are crushed, and leave the little +pear-shaped microbes on the grass--to be eaten by the northern +cattle!” + +So he took thousands of ticks, sent up in those cans from North +Carolina, and mixed them with hay, and fed them to a susceptible +northern cow kept carefully in a special stable. But nothing +happened; the cow seemed to relish her new food; she got fat. +He tried drenching another cow with mashed up ticks made into +a soup--but that cow too seemed to enjoy her strange dose. She +prospered on it. + +It was no go--cows didn’t, apparently, get the microbe by eating +ticks; he was mixed up for a while. And other plaguey questions kept +him awake nights. Why was it that it took thirty days or more, after +the southern tick-loaded cows came on the field, for such a field to +become dangerous? Stockmen knew this too; they knew they could mix +just-arrived southern cows with northern ones, and keep them together +twenty days or so, and then if they took the northern ones away--they +would never get Texas fever; but if you left them in that field a +little longer (even if the southern cows were taken away) bang! would +come the fatal epidemic into the herd of northerners. That was a +poser! + +Then one day in this summer of 1890, by the most strange, the most +completely unforeseen of accidents, every jagged piece of the puzzle +fell into its proper place. The solution of the riddle fairly clubbed +Theobald Smith; it yelled at him; it forced itself on him while he +was busy doing other things. He was at all kinds of experiments just +then; he was bleeding northern cows for gallons of blood to give them +an anemia--to make sure those funny little pear-shaped objects he +had found in the corpuscles of Texas fever cattle were microbes, and +not simply little changes in blood that might come from anemia. He +was learning to hatch nice clean young ticks artificially in glass +dishes in his laboratory; he was still laboriously picking ticks +off southern cows--and sometimes he failed to get them all off and +the experiments went wrong--to prove that tickless southern cows +are harmless to northern ones; he was discovering the strange fact +that northern calves get only a mild fever on a field fatal to their +mothers. He fussed about finding every single effect a tick might +have on a northern cow--it might do other damages besides giving her +Texas fever...? + +Then came that happy accident. He asked himself: “If I should put +good clean young ticks, hatched in glass dishes in my attic, ticks +who never have been on cattle or on a dangerous field--if I should +put such ticks on a northern cow and let them suck their fill of +her blood--could those ticks take out enough blood to give the cow +an anemia?” It seems to me to have been an aimless question. His +thoughts were a thousand miles away from Texas fever.... + +But he tried it. He took a good fat yearling heifer, put her in +a box-stall, and day after day put hundreds of clean baby ticks +on her, holding her while these varmints crawled away beneath her +hair to get a good grip on her hide. Then day after day, while the +ticks made their meals, he cut little gashes in her skin to get a +drop of blood to see if she was becoming anemic. And one morning +Theobald Smith came into her stall--for the usual routine--he put +his hand on that heifer.... What was this? She felt hot! Very hot! +Suspiciously too hot! She drooped her head, and would not eat--and +her blood which before had welled out from the gashes thick and rich +and red--that blood ran very thin and darkish. He hurried back to his +attic with samples of the blood between little pieces of glass.... +Under the microscope it went, and sure enough!--here were twisted, +jagged, wrecked blood corpuscles instead of good even round ones with +edges smooth as a worn dime. And inside these broken cells--it was +fantastical, this business!--were the little pear-shaped microbes.... +Here was the fact, stranger than any pipe-dream--for these microbes +must have come up from North Carolina on old ticks, had gone out of +the old ticks into the eggs they had laid in the glass dishes, they +had survived in the baby ticks hatched out these eggs--and these +babies had at last shot them back, ready to kill, into their destined +but completely accidental victim, that yearling heifer! + +In a flash all those mysterious questions cleared up for Theobald +Smith. + +It was not the old, blood-stuffed tick but its child, the baby tick, +who sneaked the assassin into the northern cows; it was this little +five- or ten-day-old bug who carried the murderer. + +Now he saw why it was that fields took so long to become +dangerous--the mother ticks have to drop off the southern cattle; +it takes them some days to lay their eggs; these eggs take twenty +days or more to hatch; the tick babies have to scamper about to find +a cow’s leg to crawl up on--all that takes many days, weeks. Never +was there a simpler answer to a problem which, without this strange +chance, might not yet be solved.... + +So soon as he could hatch out other thousands of ticks in warm glass +dishes, Theobald Smith proceeded to confirm his marvelous discovery; +he proved it clean. For every northern cow, on whom he stuck his +regiments of incubator ticks, came down with Texas fever. But he +was a glutton for proofs, as you have seen, and when the summer of +1890 waned and it grew cold, he installed a coal-stove in a stable, +hatched the ticks in a heated place, put a cow in the hot stable, +stuck the little ticks diligently onto the hide of the cow, the stove +instead of the sun made them grow as they should--and the cow got +Texas fever in the winter, a thing which never happens in nature! + +For two more summers Smith and Kilborne tramped about their fields, +caulking up every seam in the ship of their research, answering every +argument, devising astounding simple but admirably adequate answers +to every objection the savant horse doctors might make--before these +critics ever had a chance to make objections. They found strange +facts about immunity. They saw northern calves get mild attacks of +Texas fever, a couple of attacks in one summer maybe, and then next +year, more or less grown up, graze unconcerned on fields absolutely +murderous to a non-immune northern cow.... So they explained why +southern cattle never die of Texas fever. This fell disease is +everywhere that ticks are in the South--and ticks are everywhere; +ticks are biting southern cattle and shooting the fatal queer pears +into them all the time; these cattle carry the microbes about with +them in their blood--but it doesn’t matter, for the little sickness +in their calfhood has made them immune. + +Finally, after four of these stifling but triumphant summers, +Theobald Smith sat down, in 1893, to answer all the perplexing +questions about Texas fever--and to tell how the disease can +be absolutely wiped out (just then the ancient Pasteur who had +prophesied that about _all_ disease was getting ready to die). +Never--and I do not forget the masterpieces of Leeuwenhoek or Koch or +any genius in the line of microbe hunters--never, I say, has there +been written a more simple but at the same time more solid answer to +an enigma of nature. A bright boy could understand it; Isaac Newton +would have taken off his hat to it. He loved Beethoven, did young +Smith, and for me this “Investigation into the Nature, Causation, and +Prevention of Texas or Southern Cattle Fever” has the quality of that +Eighth Symphony of Beethoven’s sour later years. Absurdly simple in +their themes they both are, but unearthly varied and complete in the +working out of those themes--just as nature is at once simple and +infinitely complex.... + + + VII + +And so, with this report, Theobald Smith made mankind turn a +corner, showed men an entirely new and fantastic way a disease may +be carried--by an insect. And only by that insect. Wipe out that +insect, dip all of your cattle to kill all their ticks, keep your +northern cattle in fields where there are no ticks, and Texas fever +will disappear from the earth. To-day whole states are dipping +their cattle and to-day Texas fever which once threatened the great +myriads of American cattle is no longer a matter for concern. But +that is only the beginning of the beneficent deeds of this plain +report, this classic unappreciated and completely out of print. +For presently, on the veldt and in the dangerous bush of southern +Africa, a burly Scotch surgeon-major swore at the bite of a tsetse +fly--and wondered what else besides merely annoying one, these tsetse +flies might do. And a little later in India, and at the same time in +Italy, an Englishman and an Italian listened to the whining song of +swarms of mosquitoes, and dreamed and wondered and planned strange +experiments---- + +But those are the stories the next chapters will celebrate. They tell +of ancient plagues now in reach of mankind’s complete control--they +tell of a deadly yellow disease now almost entirely abolished. They +tell of men projecting pictures of swarming human life and turreted +cities of the future reaching up and up, built on jungles now fit +only for man-killing wild beasts and lizards. It was this now nearly +forgotten microbe hunting of Theobald Smith that first gave men the +right to have visions of a world transformed. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + BRUCE + + TRAIL OF THE TSETSE + + + I + +“Young man!”--the face of the Director-General of the British Army +Medical Service changed from an irritated red to an indignant +mauve-color--“young man, I will send you to India, I will send you to +Zanzibar, I will send you to Timbuctoo--I will send you anywhere I +please”--(the majestic old gentleman was shouting now, and his face +was a positively furious purple) “but you may be damned sure I shall +not send you to Natal!...” Reverberations.... + +What could David Bruce do, but salute, and withdraw from his +Presence? He had schemed, he had begged, and pulled wires, finally +he had dared the anger of this Jupiter, so that he might go hunt +microbes in South Africa. It was in the early eighteen nineties; +Theobald Smith, in America, had just made that revolutionary jump +ahead in microbe hunting--he had just shown how death may be carried +by a tick, and only by a tick, from one animal to another. And now +this David Bruce, physically as adventurous as Theobald Smith was +mildly professorial, wanted to turn that corner after Smith.... +Africa swarmed with mysterious viruses that made the continent a hell +to live in; in the olive-green mimosa thickets and the jungle hummed +and sizzled a hundred kinds of flies and ticks and gnats.... What a +place for discoveries, for swashbuckling microscopings and lone-wolf +bug-huntings Africa must be! + +It was in the nature of David Bruce to do things his superiors +and elders didn’t want him to do. Just out of medical school in +Edinburgh, he had joined the British Army Medical Service, not to +fight, nor to save lives, nor (at that time) to get a chance to hunt +microbes--not for any such noble objects. He had joined it because +he wanted to marry. They hadn’t a shilling, neither Bruce nor his +sweetheart; their folks called them thirteen kinds of romantic +idiots--why couldn’t they wait until David had established himself in +a nice practice? + +So Bruce joined the army, and married on a salary of one thousand +dollars a year. + +In certain ways he was not a model soldier. He was disobedient, +and, what is much worse, tactless. Still a lieutenant, he one day +disapproved of the conduct of his colonel, and offered to knock him +down.... If you could see him now, past seventy, with shoulders of a +longshoreman and a barrel-chest sloping down to his burly equator, +if you could hear him swear through a mustache Hindenburg would be +proud to own, you would understand he could, had it been necessary, +have put that colonel on his back, and laughed at the court-martial +that would have been sure to follow. He was ordered to the English +garrison on the Island of Malta in the Mediterranean; with him went +Mrs. Bruce--it was their honeymoon. Here again he showed himself to +be things soldiers seldom are. He was energetic, as well as romantic. +There was a mysterious disease in the island. It was called Malta +fever. It was an ill that sent pains up and down the shin bones of +soldiers and made them curse the day they took the Queen’s shilling. +Bruce saw it was silly to sit patting the heads of these sufferers, +and futile to prescribe pills for them--he must find the cause of +Malta fever! + +So he got himself into a mess. In an abandoned shack he set up a +laboratory (little enough he knew about laboratories!) and here he +spent weeks learning how to make a culture medium, out of beef broth +and agar-agar, to grow the unknown germ of Malta fever in. It ought +to be simple to discover it. His ignorance made him think that; and +in his inexperience he got the sticky agar-agar over hands and face; +it stained his uniform; the stuff set into obstinate jelly when he +tried to filter it; he spent weeks doing a job a modern laboratory +helper would accomplish in a couple of hours. He said unmentionable +things; he called Mrs. Bruce from the tennis lawn, and demanded +(surely any woman knew better how to cook) that she help him. Out of +his thousand dollars a year he bought monkeys--improvidently--at one +dollar and seventy-five cents apiece. He tried to inject the blood +of the tortured soldiers into these creatures; but they wriggled +out of his hands and bit him and scratched him and were in general +infernally lively nuisances. He called to his wife: “Will you hold +this monkey for me?” + +That was the way she became his assistant, and as you will see, for +thirty years she remained his right hand, going with him into the +most pestilential dirty holes any microbe hunter has ever seen, +sharing his poverty, beaming on his obscure glories; she was so +important to his tremendous but not notorious conquests.... + +They were such muddlers at first, it is hard to believe it, but +together these newly wed bacteriologists worked and discovered the +microbe of Malta fever--and were ordered from Malta for their pains. +“What was Bruce up to, anyway?” So asked the high medical officers of +the garrison. “Why wasn’t he _treating_ the suffering soldiers--what +for was he sticking himself away there in the hole he called his +laboratory?” And they denounced him as an idiot, a visionary, a +good-for-nothing monkey-tamer and dabbler with test-tubes. And +just--he did do this twenty years later--as he might have discovered +how the little bacillus of Malta fever sneaks from the udders of +goats into the blood of British Tommies, he was ordered away to Egypt. + + + II + +Then he was ordered back to England, to the Army Medical School at +Netley, to teach microbe hunting there--for hadn’t he discovered +the germ of an important disease? Here he met (at last God was good +to him) His Excellency, the Honorable Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, +Governor of Natal and Zululand, et cetera, et cetera. Together +these two adventurers saw visions and made plans. His Excellency +knew nothing about microbes and had perhaps never heard of Theobald +Smith--but he had a colonial administrator’s dream of Africa buzzing +with prosperity under the Union Jack. Bruce cared no fig for +expansion of the Empire, but he knew there must be viruses sneaking +from beast to beast and man to man on the stingers of bugs and flies. +He wanted (and so did Mrs. Bruce) to investigate strange diseases in +impossible places. + +It was then that he, only a brash captain, went to the majestic +Director-General, and I have just told how he was demolished. But +even Directors-General cannot remember the uppish wishes of all +of their pawns and puppets; directors may propose, but adroit +wire-pulling sometimes disposes, and presently in 1894, Surgeon-Major +David Bruce and Mrs. Bruce are in Natal, traveling by ox-team ten +miles a day towards Ubombo in Zululand. The temperature in the shade +of their double-tent often reached 106; swarms of tsetse flies +escorted them, harassed them, flopped on them with the speed of +express trains and stung them like little adders; they were howled at +by hyenas and growled at by lions.... They spent part of every night +scratching tick bites.... But Bruce and his wife, the two of them, +were the First British Nagana Commission to Zululand. So they were +happy. + +They were commanded to find out everything about the disease called +nagana--the pretty native name for an unknown something that made +great stretches of South Africa into a desolate place, impossible +to farm in, dangerous to hunt big game in, suicidal to travel in. +Nagana means “depressed and low in spirits.” Nagana steals into fine +horses and makes their coats stare and their hair fall out; while the +fat of these horses melts away nagana grows watery pouches on their +bellies and causes a thin rheum to drip from their noses; a milky +film spreads over their eyes and they go blind; they droop, and at +last die--every last horse touched by the nagana dies. It was the +same with cattle. Farmers tried to improve their herds by importing +new stock; cows sent to them fat and in prime condition came +miserably to their kraals--to die of nagana. Fat droves of cattle, +sent away to far-off slaughter-houses, arrived there hairless, +hidebound skeletons. There were strange belts of country through +which it was death for animals to go. And the big game hunters! They +would start into these innocent-seeming thickets with their horses +and pack-mules; one by one--in certain regions mind you--their +beasts wilted under them. When these hunters tried to hoof it back, +sometimes they got home. + +Bruce and Mrs. Bruce came at last to Ubombo--it was a settlement on +a high hill, looking east toward the Indian Ocean across sixty miles +of plain, and the olive-green of the mimosa thickets of this plain +was slashed with the vivid green of glades of grass. On the hill they +set up their laboratory; it consisted of a couple of microscopes, a +few glass slides, some knives and syringes and perhaps a few dozen +test-tubes--smart young medical students of to-day would stick up +their noses at such a kindergarten affair! Here they set to work, +with sick horses and cattle brought up from the plain below--for +Providence had so arranged it that beasts could live on the barren +hill of Ubombo, absolutely safe from nagana, but just let a farmer +lead them down into the juicy grass of that fertile plain, and the +chances were ten to one they would die of nagana before they became +fat on the grass. Bruce shaved the ears of the horses and jabbed them +with a scalpel, a drop of blood welled out and Mrs. Bruce, dodging +their kicks, touched off the drops onto thin glass slides. + +It was hot. Their sweat dimmed the lenses of their microscopes; they +rejoiced in necks cramped from hours of looking; they joked about +their red-rimmed eyes. They gave strange nicknames to their sick cows +and horses, they learned to talk some Zulu. It was as if there were +no Directors-General or superior officers in existence, and Bruce +felt himself for the first time a free searcher. + +And very soon they made their first step ahead: in the blood of +one of their horses, sick to death, Bruce spied a violent unwonted +dancing among the faintly yellow, piled-up blood corpuscles; he slid +his slide along the stage of his microscope, till he came to an open +space in the jungle of blood cells.... + +[Illustration: (line drawing of trypanosomes)] + +There, suddenly, popped into view the cause of the commotion--a +curious little beast (much bigger than any ordinary microbe though), +a creature with a blunt rear-end and a long slim lashing whip with +which he seemed to explore in front of him. A creature shaped like a +panatella cigar, only it was flexible, almost tying itself in knots +sometimes, and it had a transparent graceful fin running the length +of its body. Another of the beasts swam into the open space under +the lens, and another. What extraordinary creatures! They didn’t go +stupidly along like common microbes--they acted like intelligent +little dragons. Each one of them darted from one round red blood cell +to another; he would worry at it, try to get inside it, tug at it and +pull it, push it along ahead of him--then suddenly off he would go +in a straight line and bury himself under a mass of the blood cells +lining the shore of the open space.... + +“Trypanosomes--these are!” cried Bruce, and he hurried to show +them to his wife. In all animals sick with nagana they found these +finned beasts, in the blood they were, and in the fluid of their +puffy eyelids, and in the strange yellowish jelly that replaced the +fat under their skins. And never a one of them could Bruce find in +healthy dogs and horses and cows. But as the sick cattle grew sicker, +these vicious snakes swarmed more and more thickly in their blood, +until, when the animals lay gasping, next to death, the microbes +writhed in them in quivering masses, so that you would swear their +blood was made up of nothing else.... It was horrible! + +But how did these trypanosomes get from a sick beast to a healthy +one? “Here on the hill we can keep healthy animals in the same +stables with the sick ones--and never a one of the sound animals +comes down ... here on the hill no cow or horse has ever been known +to get nagana!” muttered Bruce. “Why?...” + +He began to dream experiments, when the long arm of the +Authorities--maybe it was that dear old Director-General +remembering--found him again: Surgeon-Major Bruce was to proceed to +Pietermaritzburg for duty in the typhoid epidemic raging there. + + + III + +Only five weeks they had been at this work, when they started back +to Pietermaritzburg, ten miles a day by ox-team through the jungle. +He started treating soldiers for typhoid fever, but as usual--thief +that he was--he stole time to try to find out something about typhoid +fever, in a laboratory set up, since there was no regular one, of +all places--in the morgue. There in the sickening vapors of the dead +house Bruce puttered in snatched moments, got typhoid fever himself, +nearly died, and before he got thoroughly better was sent out as +medical officer to a filibustering expedition got up to “protect” a +few thousand square miles more of territory for the Queen. It looked +like the end for him, Hely-Hutchinson’s wires got tangled--there +seemed no chance ever to work at nagana again; when the expedition +had pierced a couple of hundred miles into the jungle, all of the +horses and mules of this benevolent little army up and died, and what +was left of the men had to try to hoof it back. A few came out, and +David Bruce was among the lustiest of those gaunt hikers.... + +Nearly a year had been wasted. But who can blame those natural +enemies of David Bruce, the High Authorities, for keeping him from +research? They looked at him; they secretly trembled at his burliness +and his mustaches and his air of the Berserker. This fellow was +born for a soldier! But they were so busy, or forgot, and presently +Hely-Hutchinson did his dirty work again, and in September, 1895, +Bruce and his wife got back to Ubombo, to try to untangle the knot of +how nagana gets from a sick animal to a healthy one. And here Bruce +followed, for the first time, Theobald Smith around that corner.... +Like Theobald Smith, Bruce was a man to respect and to test +folk-hunches and superstitions. He respected the beliefs of folks, +himself he had no fancy super-scientific thoughts and never talked +big words--yes, he respected such hunches--but he must test them! + +“It is the tsetse flies cause nagana,” said some experienced +Europeans. “Flies bite domestic animals and put some kind of poison +in them.” + +“Nagana is caused by big game,” said the wise Zulu chiefs and +medicine men. “The discharges of the buffalo, the quagga, and +waterbuck, the koodoo--these contaminate the grass and the watering +places--so it is horses and cattle are hit by the nagana.” + +“But why do we always fail to get our horses safe through the fly +country--why is nagana called the fly disease?” asked the Europeans. + +“Why, it’s easy to get animals through the fly belt so long as you +don’t let them eat or drink!” answered the Zulus. + +Bruce listened, and then proceeded to try out both ideas. He took +good healthy horses, and tied heavy canvas bags round their noses +so they couldn’t eat nor drink; he led them down the hill to the +pleasant-looking midday hell in the mimosa thickets; here he kept +them for hours. While he watched to see they didn’t slip their +nose bags, swarms of pretty brown and gold tsetses buzzed around +them--flopped on to the kicking horses and in twenty seconds swelled +themselves up into bright balloons of blood.... The world seemed made +of tsetse flies, and Bruce waved his arms. “They were enough to drive +one mad!” he told me, thirty years afterward I can see him, talking +to those pests in the language of a dock-foreman, to the wonder of +his Zulus. Day after day this procession of Bruce, the Zulus, and the +experimental horses went down into the thorns, and each afternoon, as +the sun went down behind Ubombo, Bruce and his migrating experiment +grunted and sweated back up the hill. + +Then, in a little more than fifteen days, to the delight of Bruce +and his wife, the first of those horses who had served as a +fly-restaurant turned up seedy in the morning and hung his head. And +in the blood of this horse appeared the vanguard of the microscopic +army of finned wee devils--that tussled so intelligently with the red +blood cells.... + +So it was with every horse taken down into the mimosa--and not one +of them had eaten a blade of grass nor had one swallow of water down +there; one and all they died of the nagana. + +“Good, but it is not proved yet, one way or another,” said Bruce. +“Even if the horses didn’t eat or drink, they may have _inhaled_ +those trypanosomes from the air--that’s the way the greatest +medical authorities think malaria is passed on from one man to the +next--though it sounds like rot to me.” But for Bruce nothing was rot +until experiment proved it rot. “Here’s the way to see,” he cried. +“Instead of taking the horses down, I’ll bring the flies up!” + +So he bought more healthy horses, kept them safe on the hill, +thousands of feet above the dangerous plain, then once more he went +down the hill--how that man loved to hunt, even for such idiotic game +as flies!--and with him he took a decoy horse. The tsetses landed on +the horse; Bruce and the Zulus picked them off gently, hundreds of +them, and stuck them into an ingenious cage, made of muslin. Then +back up the hill, to clap the cage buzzing with flies on to the back +of a healthy horse. Through a clever glass window in one of the +cage-sides they watched the greedy brutes make their meal by sticking +their stingers through the muslin. And in less than a month it was +the same with these horses, who had never eaten, nor drunk, nor even +inhaled the air of the plain--every one died of the nagana. + +How they worked, Bruce and his wife! They post-mortemed dead horses; +they named a sick horse “The Unicorn” and tried to keep him alive +with arsenic. To find out how long a tsetse fly can carry the +trypanosomes on his stinger they put cages of flies on sick dogs and +then at intervals of hours, and days, let them feed on healthy ones. +They fed dying heifers hot pails of coffee, mercifully they shot dogs +thinned by the nagana to sad bags of bones. Mrs. Bruce sterilized +silk threads, to dip in blood swarming with trypanosomes, then sewed +these threads under the hides of healthy dogs--to find out how long +such blood might remain deadly.... There was now no doubt the tsetse +flies, and only the flies, could carry the nagana, and now Bruce +asked: + +“But where do the tsetses of the plain _get_ the trypanosomes they +stick into cows and horses? In those fly belts there are often no +horses or cattle sick with nagana, for months. Surely the flies [he +was wrong here] can’t stay infected for months--it must be they get +them from the wild animals, the big game!” That was a possibility +after his heart. Here was a chance to do something else than sit at a +microscope. He forgot instantly about the more patient, subtle jobs +that demanded to be done--teasing jobs, for a little man, jobs like +tracing the life of the trypanosomes in the flies.... “The microbes +must be in game!” and he buckled on his cartridge belt and loaded +his guns. Into the thickets he went, and shot Burchell’s zebras; he +brought down koodoos and slaughtered water-bucks. He slashed open +the dead beasts and from their hot hearts sucked up syringes full of +blood, and jogged back up the hill with them. He looked through his +microscopes for trypanosomes in these bloods--but didn’t find them. +But there was a streak of the dreamer in him. “They may be there, too +few to see,” he muttered, and to prove they were there he shot great +quantities of the blood from ten different animals into healthy dogs. +So he discovered that the nagana microbes may lurk in game, waiting +to be carried to gentler beasts by the tsetse. So it was Bruce made +the first step towards the opening up of Africa. + + + IV + +And Hely-Hutchinson saw how right he had been about David Bruce. +“’Ware the tsetse fly,” he told his farmers, “kill the tsetse fly, +clear the thickets in which it likes to breed--drive out, exterminate +the antelope from which it sucks the trypanosomes.” So Bruce began +ridding Africa of nagana. + +Then came the Boer War. Bruce and Mrs. Bruce found themselves +besieged in Ladysmith with nine thousand other Englishmen. There were +thirty medical officers in the garrison--but not one surgeon. With +each whine and burst of the shells from the Boer’s “Long Tom” the +rows of the wounded grew--there were moanings, and a horrid stench +from legs that should be amputated.... “Think of it! Not one of those +medicoes could handle a knife! Myself, I was only a laboratory man,” +said Bruce, “but I had cut up plenty of dogs and guinea-pigs and +monkeys--so why not soldiers? There was one chap with a bashed-up +knee ... well, they chloroformed him, and while they were at that, +I sat in the next room reading Treve’s Surgery on how to take out a +knee-joint. Then I went in and did it--we saved his leg.” So Bruce +became Chief Surgeon, and fought and starved, nearly to death, +with the rest. What a boy that Bruce was! In 1924 in Toronto, in a +hospital as he lay propped up, a battered bronchitic giant, telling +me this story, his bright eye belied his skin wrinkled and the +color of old parchment--and there was no doubt he was as proud of +his slapdash surgery and his sulky battles with the authorities, as +of any of his discoveries in microbe hunting. He chuckled through +phlegm that gurgled deep in his ancient air-tubes: “Those red-tape +fellows--I always had to fight their red-tape--until at last I got +too str-r-rong for them!” + + + V + +Presently, two years after Ladysmith, he became stronger than +they--and they came asking him to hunt microbes.... + +For death was abroad on the shores of Lake Victoria Nyanza, in +Central Africa, on the Equator. It crept, it jumped, it kept popping +up in new villages, it was in a way a very merciful death--though +slow--for it was without pain, turning from a fitful fever into an +unconquerable laziness strange to see in the busy natives of the +lake shore; it passed, this death, from lethargy into a ridiculous +sleepiness that made the mouths of the negroes fall open while they +ate; it went at last from such a drowsiness into a delicious coma--no +waking from this!--and into a horrible unnatural coldness that merged +with the chill of the grave. Such was the African sleeping sickness. +In a few years it had killed hundreds of thousands of the people of +Uganda, it had sent brave missionaries to meet their God, and English +colonial administrators home to their final slumber. It was turning +the most generous soil on earth back into an unproductive preserve +for giraffes and hyenas. The British Colonial Office was alarmed; +shareholders began to fear for their dividends; natives--those who +were left--began to leave their villages of shaggy, high-pitched, +thatch-roofed huts. And the scientists and doctors? + +Well, the scientists and doctors were working at it. Up till now the +wisest ones were as completely ignorant of what was this sleeping +death as the blackest trader in bananas was ignorant. No one could +tell how it stole from a black father to his neighbor’s dusky +pickaninnies. But now the Royal Society sent out a commission made +up of three searchers; they sailed for Uganda and began researches +with the blood and spinal fluid of unhappy black men doomed with this +drowsy death. + +They groped; they sweat in the tropic heat; they formed different +opinions: one was pretty sure a curious long worm that he found in +the black men’s blood was the cause of this death; a second had +no definite opinion that I know of; the third, Castellani, thought +at first that the wee villain back of the sleeping death was a +streptococcus--like the microbe that causes sore throats. + +That was way off the truth, but Castellani had the merit of working +with his hands, trying this, trying that, devising ingenious ways +of looking at the juices of those darkies. And so one day--by one +of those unpredictable stumbles that lie at the bottom of so many +discoveries--Castellani happened on one of those nasty little old +friends of David Bruce, a trypanosome. From inside the backbone of +a deadly drowsy black man Castellani had got fluid--to look for +streptococcus. He put that fluid into a centrifuge--that works like a +cream separator--to try to whirl possible microbes down to the bottom +of the tube in the hope to find streptococcus. Down the barrel of his +microscope Castellani squinted at a drop of the gray stuff from the +bottom of the fluid and saw---- + +A trypanosome, and this beast was very much the same type of wiggler +David Bruce had fished out of the blood of horses dying of nagana. +Castellani kept squinting, found more trypanosomes, in the spinal +juices and even in the blood of a half a dozen doomed darkies.... + +That was the beginning, for if Castellani had not seen them, told +Bruce about them, they might never have been found. + +Meanwhile the smolder of the sleeping death broke into a flare that +threatened English power in Africa. And the Royal Society sent the +veteran David Bruce down there, with the trained searcher Nabarro, +with Staff-Sergeant Gibbons, who could do anything from building +roads to fixing a microscope. Then of course Mrs. Bruce was along; +she had the title of Assistant--but Bruce paid her fare. + +They came down to Uganda, met Castellani. He told Bruce about the +streptococcus--and the trypanosomes. Back to the laboratory went +these two; microscopes were unpacked, set up; doomed darkies carried +in. Heavy needles were jabbed into these sad people’s spines. +Castellani, the young Nabarro, and Mrs. Bruce bent over their +microscopes to find the yes or no of the discovery of Castellani. +There they sat, in this small room on the Equator, squinting down the +barrels of their machines at a succession of gray nothingnesses. + +A bellow from Bruce: “I’ve got one!” The rest crowd round, squint +in turn, exclaim as they watch the writhing trypanosome poke his +exploring whip about in the gray field of the lens. Then they go back +to their places--to shout discovery in their turn. So it went, from +breakfast till the swift dusk of evening. In every single sample of +spinal fluid from each one of his more than forty sleeping-sickness +patients, Bruce and his companions found those trypanosomes. + +“But they may be in healthy people’s spines too!” said Bruce. Bruce +knew that if he found them in healthy negroes, all this excitement +would be only a wild-goose chase--he must prove they were to be +found only in folks with sleeping sickness. But to get fluid out of +healthy people’s spines? Folks dopey from the sleeping death didn’t +mind it so much--but to jab one of those big needles into the back of +healthy wide-awake colored people, who had no wish to be martyrs to +science.... Can you blame them? It is no picnic having such a spear +stuck into your spine. Then Bruce hit on a crafty scheme. He went to +the hospital, where there was a fine array of patients with all kinds +of diseases--but no sleeping sickness--and then, flimflamming them +into thinking the operation would do them good, this liar in the holy +cause of microbe hunting jabbed his needles into the smalls of the +backs of negroes with broken legs and with headaches, into youngsters +who had just been circumcised, and into their brothers or sisters who +were suffering from yaws, or the itch; from all of them he got spinal +fluid. + +And it was a great success. Not one of these folks--who had no +sleeping sickness--harbored a single trypanosome in the fluid of +their spines. Maybe the operation did do them some good--but no +matter, they had served their purpose. The trypanosome, Castellani +and Bruce now knew, was the cause of sleeping sickness! + +Now--and this is rare in the dreamers who find fundamental facts in +science--Bruce was a fiend for practical applications, not poetically +like Pasteur, for Bruce wasn’t given to such lofty soarings, nor was +he practical in the dangerous manner of the strange genius I tell of +in the last chapter of this story; but the moment he turned to the +study of a new plague, Bruce’s gray eyes would dart round, he would +begin asking himself questions: What is the natural home of the virus +of this disease?--How does it get from sick to healthy?--What is its +fountain and origin?--Is there anything _peculiar_ in the way this +sleeping sickness has spread? + +That was the way he went at it now. He had discovered the trypanosome +that was the cause. There were a thousand pretty little researches to +tempt the scholar in him, but he brushed all these aside. Old crafty +hand at searching that he was, he fished round in his memories, and +came to nagana, and screwed up his eyes: “Is there anything peculiar +about the way sleeping sickness is _located_ in this country?” He +pondered. + +He sniffed around. With Mrs. Bruce he explored the high-treed +shores of the lake, the islands, the rivers, the jungle. Then the +common-sense eye which sees things a hundred searchers might stumble +over and go by--showed him the answer. It was strange--suspiciously +strange--that sleeping sickness was only found in a very narrow strip +of country--along the water, only along the water, on the islands, +up the river--even by the Ripon Falls where Victoria Nyanza gives +herself up to the making of the Nile, there were cases of it, but +never inland. That must mean some insect, a blood-sucking insect, +which lives only near water, must carry the disease. That was his +guess, why, I cannot tell you. “Maybe it is a tsetse fly, a special +one living only near lake shores and river banks!” + +So Bruce went around asking everybody about tsetse flies in Uganda. +He inquired of local bug experts: no, they were sure tsetse flies +could not live at an altitude above three thousand feet. He asked the +native headmen, even the black Prime Minister of Uganda: sorry, we +have a blood-sucking fly, called Kivu--but there are no tsetse flies +in Uganda. + +But there must be! + + + VI + +And there were. One day, as they walked through the Botanical Garden +at Entebbe, Bruce pushing his bulky body between the rows of tropic +plants ahead of his small wife--there was a glad shriek from her.... +“Why, David! There are two tsetse--on your back!” That woman was a +scientific Diana. She swooped on those two tsetses, and caught them, +and gave them a practical pinch--just enough to kill them, and then +showed them to her husband. They had been perched, ready to strike, +within a few inches of his neck. Now they knew they were on the trail. + +Hard work began in the laboratory; already Bruce had found an +excellent experimental animal--the monkey, which he could put into a +beautiful fatal sleep, just like that of a man, by injecting fluid +from the spines of doomed negroes. But now to catch tsetse flies. +They armed themselves with butterfly nets and the glass-windowed +cages they had invented in Zululand. Then these inseparable searchers +climbed into canoes; lusty crews of black boys shot them across the +lake. Along the banks they walked--it was charming in the shade +there--but listen! Yes, there was the buzz of the tsetse.... They +tried to avoid being bitten. They were bit--and stayed awake nights +wondering what would happen--they went back to the laboratory and +clapped the cages on the backs of monkeys. It was a good time for +them. + +That is the secret of those fine discoveries Bruce made. It was +because he was a hunter. Not only with his mind--but a bold +everlastingly curious snouting hunter with his body too. If he had +sat back and listened to those missionaries, or stayed listening to +those bug experts--he would never have learned that Kivu was the +Uganda name for the tsetse. He would never have found the tsetse. But +he carried the fight to the enemy--and as for Mrs. Bruce, that woman +was better than a third hand or two extra pairs of eyes for him. + +Now they planned and did terrible experiments. Day after day they +caused tsetse flies to feed on patients near to death (already too +deep in sleep to be annoyed by the insects); they interrupted the +flies in the midst of their meal, and put the angry, half-satisfied +cages of them on the backs of monkeys. With all the tenderness of +high-priced nurses watching over Park Avenue babies they saw to it +that only their experimental flies, and no chance flies from outside, +got a meal off those beasts. Other searchers might have rolled their +thumbs waiting to see what happened to the monkeys, but not Bruce. + +He proceeded to call in a strange gang of co-workers to help him in +one of the most amazing tests of all microbe hunting. Bruce asked for +an audience from the high-plumed gay-robed potentate, Apolo Kagwa, +Prime Minister of Uganda. He told Apolo he had discovered the microbe +of the sleeping death which was killing so many thousands of his +people. He informed him many thousands more already had the parasite +in their blood, and were doomed. “But there is a way to stop the +ruin that faces your country, for I have reason to believe it is the +tsetse fly--the insect you call Kivu--and _only_ this insect, that +carries the poisonous germ from a sick man to a healthy one----” + +The magnificent Apolo broke in: “But I cannot believe that is +so--Kivu has been on the Lake shore always, and my people have only +begun to be taken by the sleeping sickness during the last few +years----” + +Bruce didn’t argue. He bluffed, as follows: “If you do not believe +me, give me a chance to prove it to you. Go down, Apolo Kagwa, to +the Crocodile Point on the Lake shore where Kivu swarms so. Sit on +the shore there with your feet in the water for five minutes. Don’t +keep off the flies--and I’ll promise you’ll be a dead man in two +years!” + +The bluff was perfect: “What then, is to be done, Colonel Bruce?” +asked Apolo. + +“Well, I must be dead sure I am right,” Bruce told him. Then he +showed Apolo a great map of Uganda. “If I’m right, where there is +sleeping sickness--there we will find tsetse flies too. Where there +are no tsetse--there should be no sleeping sickness.” + +So Bruce gave Apolo butterfly nets, and killing bottles, and +envelopes; he gave directions about the exact way to set down all +the facts, and he told how Apolo’s darky minions might pinch the +flies without getting stabbed themselves. “And then we will put our +findings down on this map--and see if I’m right.” + +Apolo was nothing if not intelligent, and efficient. He said he would +see what could be done. There were bows and amiable formalities. In +a jiffy the black Prime Minister had called for his head chief, the +Sekibobo, and all the paraphernalia, with rigid directions, went from +the Sekibobo to the lesser headmen, and from them down to the canoe +men--the wheels of that perfect feudal system were set going.... + +Presently the envelopes began to pour in on Bruce and called him +away from his monkey experiments. They cluttered the laboratory, +they called him from his peerings into the intestines of tsetse +flies where he looked for trypanosomes. Rapidly, with perfectly +recorded facts--most of them set down by intelligent blacks and some +by missionaries--the envelopes came in. It was a kind of scientific +co-working you would have a hard time finding among white folks, +even white medical men. Each envelope had a grubby assorted mess of +biting flies, they had a dirty time sorting them, but every time they +found a tsetse, a red-headed pin went into that spot on the map--and +if a report of “sleeping sickness present” came with that fly, a +black-headed pin joined it. From the impressive Sekibobo down to the +lowest fly-boy, Apolo’s men had done their work with an automatic +perfection. At last the red and black dots on the map showed that +where there were tsetses, there was the sleeping death--and where +there were no tsetses--there was no single case of sleeping sickness! + +The job looked finished. The unhappy monkeys bit by the flies who had +sucked the blood of dying negroes--these monkeys’ mouths fell open +while they tried to eat their beloved bananas; they went to sleep and +died. Other monkeys never bit by flies--but kept in the same cages, +eating out of the same dishes--those monkeys never showed a sign of +the disease. Here were experiments as clean, as pretty as the best +ones Theobald Smith had made.... + + + VII + +But now for action! Whatever of the dreamer and laboratory +experimenter there was in him--and there was much--those creative +parts of David Bruce went to sleep, or evaporated out of him; he +became the surgeon of Ladysmith once more, and the rampageous +shooter of lions and killer of koodoos.... To wipe out the sleeping +sickness! That seemed the most brilliantly simple job now. Not that +there weren’t countless thousands of blacks with trypanosomes in +their blood, and all these folks must die, of course; not that there +weren’t buzzing billions of tsetses singing their hellish tune on the +Lake shore--but here was the point: _Those flies lived only on the +Lake shore!_ And if they had no more sleeping-sickness blood to suck, +then.... And Apolo Kagwa was absolute Tsar of all Uganda ... Apolo, +Bruce knew, trusted him, adored him.... + +Now to wipe sleeping sickness from the earth! + +To conference with Bruce once more came Apolo and the Sekibobo and +the lesser chiefs. Bruce told them the simple logic of what was to be +done. + +“Of course--that can be done,” said Apolo. He had seen the map. +He was convinced. He made a dignified wave of the hand to his +chiefs, and gave a few words of explanation. So Bruce and Mrs. +Bruce went back to England. Apolo gave his order, and then the +pitiful population of black men and their families streamed inland +out of the lake shore villages, away--not to return for years, or +ever--from those dear shady places where they and the long line of +their forefathers had fished and played and bargained and begot their +kind; canoes, loaded with mats and earthen pots and pickaninnies set +out (not to return) from the thickly peopled island--and the weird +outlandish beating of the tom-toms no longer boomed across the water. + +“Not one of you,” commanded Apolo, “may live within fifteen miles +of the Lake shore--not one of you is to visit the Lake again. Then +the sleeping death will die out, for the fly Kivu lives only by the +water, and when you are gone she will no longer have a single sick +one from whom to suck the fatal poison. When all of our people who +are now sick have died, you may go back--and it will be safe to live +by the Lake shore for always.” + +Without a word--it is incredible to us law-abiding folks--they obeyed +their potentate. + +The country around Lake Victoria Nyanza grew, in the frantic way +tropical green things grow, back into the primordial jungle; +crocodiles snoozed on the banks where big villages had been. +Hippopotami waddled onto the shore and sniffed in the deserted +huts.... The tribes of the lake, inland, were happy, for no more of +them came down with that fatal drowsiness. So Bruce began to rid +Africa of sleeping sickness. + +It was a triumph--in a time of great victories in the fight of men +against death. The secret of the spread of malaria--you will hear +the not too savory story of it presently--had been found in India +and Italy. And as for yellow fever--it seemed as if the yellow +jack was to be put to sleep for good. Great Eminences of the +medical profession pointed in speeches amid cheers to the deeds of +medicine.... The British Empire rang with hosannahs for David Bruce. +He was promoted Colonel. He was dubbed Knight Commander of the Bath. +Lady Bruce? Well, she was proud of him and stayed his assistant, +obscurely. And Bruce still paid, out of his miserable colonel’s +salary, her fare on those expeditions they were always making. + +Africa looked safe for the black men, and open to the benevolent +white men. But nature had other notions. She had cards up her +sleeve. She almost never lets herself be conquered at a swoop, +Napoleonically--as Bruce and Apolo (and who can blame them?) thought +they had done. Nature was not going to let her vast specimen cabinet +be robbed so easily of every last one of those pretty parasites, the +trypanosomes of sleeping sickness. A couple of years passed, and +suddenly the Kavirondo people, on the east shore of the Lake where +sleeping death had never been--these folks began to go to sleep and +not wake up. And there were disturbing reports of hunters coming down +with sleeping sickness, even in those places that should have been +safe, in the country from which all human life had been moved away. +The Royal Society sent out another Commission (Bruce was busy with +that affair of goat’s milk giving Malta fever) and one of these new +commissioners was a bright young microbe hunter, Tulloch. He went on +a picnic one day to a nice part of the shore whose dark green was +dotted with scarlet flowers. It must be safe there now, they thought, +but a tsetse buzzed, and in less than a year Tulloch had drowsed into +his last cold sleep. The Commission went home.... + +Bruce--you would think he would be looking by this time for some +swivel-chair button-pressing job--packed his kit-bag and went back +to Uganda, to see what he had left out of those experiments that had +looked so sure. He had gone off half-cocked, with that Napoleonic +plan of moving a nation, but who can blame him? It had looked so +simple, and how expect even the craftiest of the cheaters of Nature +to find out, in a year, every single nook where Nature hides the +living poisons to kill the presumptuous men who cheat her! Lady +Bruce as usual went with him, and they found new epidemics of +sleeping sickness flaring up in unwonted places. It was a miserable +discouraging business. + +Bruce was a modest man, who had no foolish vanity to tell him that +his own theories were superior to brute facts. “My plan has been a +washout,” you can hear him grumbling. “Somewhere, aside from the +human being, those tsetses must get the trypanosomes--maybe it’s like +the nagana--maybe they can live in wild beasts’ blood too....” + +Now if Bruce had theories that were a little too simple he was just +the same an exceedingly crafty experimenter; if he had a foolish +faith in his experiments, he had the persistence to claw his way +out of the bogs of disappointment that his simplicity and love of +gorgeous deeds got him into. What a stubborn man he was! For, when +you think of the menagerie of birds, beasts, fishes and reptiles +Uganda is, you wonder why he didn’t pack his bags and start back for +England. But no. Once more the canoe man paddled Bruce and his lady +across to that tangled shore, and they caught flies in places where +for three years no man had been. Strange experiments they made in a +heat to embarrass a salamander--one laborious complicated record in +his notes tells of two thousand, eight hundred and seventy-six flies +(which could never have bitten a human sleeping-sickness patient) fed +on five monkeys--and two of these monkeys came down with the disease! + +“The trypanosomes must be hiding in wild animals!” Bruce cries. +So they go to the dangerous Crocodile Point, and catch wild pigs +and African gray and purple herons; they bleed sacred ibises and +glossy ones; they stab and get blood from plovers and kingfishers +and cormorants--and even crocodiles! Everywhere they look for those +deadly, hiding, thousandth-of-an-inch-long wigglers. + +They caught tsetse flies on Crocodile Point. See the fantastic +picture of them there, gravely toiling at a job fit for a hundred +searchers to take ten years at. Bruce sits with his wife on the sand +in the middle of a ring of bare-backed paddlers who squat round them. +The tsetses buzz down onto the paddlers’ backs. The fly-boys pounce +on them, hand them to Bruce, who snips off their heads, waves the +buzzing devils away from his own neck, determines the sex of each fly +caught, dissects out its intestine--and smears the blood in them on +thin glass slides.... + +Washouts, most of these experiments; but one day, in the blood +of a native cow from the Island of Kome, not hurting that cow at +all, but ready to be sucked up by the tsetse for stabbing under +the skin of the first man it meets, Bruce found the trypanosome of +sleeping sickness. He sent out word, and presently a lot of bulls +and cows were driven up the hill to Mpumu by order of Apolo Kagwa. +Bruce, himself in the thick of it, directed dusty fly-bitings of +these cattle--yes! there was no doubt the sleeping-sickness virus +could live in them. Then there were scuffles in the hot pens with +fresh-caught antelope; they were thrown, they were tied, Bruce held +dying monkeys across their flanks, and let harmless tsetses, bred in +the laboratory, feed on the monkey and then on the buck.... + +“The fly country around the Lake shore will have to be cleared of +antelope, too, as well as men--before the Kivu become harmless,” +Bruce said at last to Apolo. + +And now the sleeping death really disappeared from the shores of Lake +Victoria Nyanza. + + + VIII + +The ten thousand smaller microbe hunters who work at lesser jobs +to-day, as well as the dozen towering ones whose adventures this book +tells, all of them have to take some risk of death. But if the ten +thousand smaller microbe hunters of to-day could by some chemistry +be changed into death fighters like Bruce! There was something +diabolical in the risks he took, and something yet more devilish in +the way he could laugh--with a dry humor--and wish other microbe +hunters might have died to prove some of his own theories. But he had +a right to wish death for others---- + +“Can young tsetse flies, bred in the laboratory, inherit the +sleeping-sickness trypanosome from their mothers?” Surely there +was a chance of it (you remember that strange business of Theobald +Smith’s mother-ticks bequeathing the Texas fever microbe to their +children). But analogies are for philosophers and lawyers. “_Are_ +artificially hatched young tsetses dangerous?” asks Bruce. “No!” he +can answer. “For two members of the commission” [modestly he does not +say which two members] “allowed hundreds of tsetse flies, bred in the +laboratory, to bite them. And the result was negative.” + +But no man knew what the result would be--before he tried. And the +deaths from sleeping sickness (according to the best figures) are one +hundred out of one hundred.... + +How he enjoyed hearing of other men trying to kill themselves to +find out! His last African foray was in 1911--he stayed until 1914. +He was near sixty; his blacksmith’s strength was beginning to crack +from a nasty infection of his air-tubes got from I know not what +drenching rains or chills of high tropic nights. But a new form of +sleeping sickness--terrible stuff that killed in a few months instead +of years--had just broken out in Nyassaland and Rhodesia. There was a +great scientific quarrel on. Was the trypanosome causing this disease +some new beast just out of the womb of Nature--or was it nothing else +than Bruce’s old parasite of nagana, tired of butchering only cows, +dogs and horses, and now learning to kill men? + +Bruce went to work at it. A German in Portuguese East Africa said: +“This trypanosome is a new kind of bug!” Bruce retorted: “On the +contrary, it is nothing but the nagana germ hopping from cows to men.” + +Then this German, his name was Taute, took the blood of an animal +about to die from nagana, and shot five cubic centimeters of it--it +held millions of trypanosomes--under his own skin: to prove the +nagana parasite does not kill men. And he let scores of tsetse flies +bite him, flies whose bellies and spit-glands were crammed with the +writhing microbes--he did these things to prove his point! + +Was Bruce shocked at this? Listen to him, then: “It is a matter +for some scientific regret that these experiments were not +successful--though we can ill spare our bold and somewhat rash +colleague--for then the question would have been answered.... As it +is, these negative experiments prove nothing. It may be that only one +man in a thousand would become infected that way.” + +Merciless Bruce! Poor Taute! He tried conscientiously to kill +himself--and Bruce says it is too bad he did not die. He made the +ultimate gesture--surely the God of searchers will reward him; +then Bruce (and he is right) criticizes the worth of Taute’s lone +desperate experiment! + +Nyassaland was the last battlefield of Bruce against the sleeping +sickness, and it was his most hopeless one. For here he found that +the _Glossina morsitans_ (that is the name of the tsetse carrier of +the sickness) does not make its home only on the shores of lakes and +rivers, but buzzes and bites from one end of Nyassaland to the other; +there is no way of running away from it, no chance of moving nations +out from under it here.... Bruce stuck at it, he spent years at +measurements of the lengths of trypanosomes--monotonous enough this +work was to have driven a subway ticket chopper mad--he was trying +to find out whether the nagana and this new disease were one and the +same thing. He ended by not finding out, and he finished with this +regret: that it was _at present_ impossible to do the experiment to +clinch the matter one way or the other. + +That experiment was the injection of the nagana trypanosomes, not +into one, or a hundred--but a thousand human beings. + + + IX + +But there was grisly hope left in the old Viking. “_At present_ it +is impossible,” he said, while he believed that somewhere, somewhen, +men may be found, in the mass, who will be glad to die for truth. And +as you will see, in a story of a band of American buck-privates in +another chapter, there are beginnings of such spirit even now. But +when great armies of men so offer themselves, to fight death, just as +they now delight to fight each other, it will be because they are led +on by captains such as David Bruce. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + ROSS VS. GRASSI + + MALARIA + + + I + +The last ten years of the nineteenth century were as unfortunate for +ticks, bugs, and gnats as they were glorious for the microbe hunters. +Theobald Smith had started them off by scotching the ticks that +carried Texas fever; a little later and six thousand miles away David +Bruce, stumbling through the African bush, got onto the trail of the +tsetse fly, accused him, convicted him. How melancholy and lean have +been the years, since then, for that murderous tick whose proper +name is _Bo-ophilus bovis_, and you may be sure that since those +searchings of David Bruce, the tsetses have had to bootleg for the +blood of black natives and white hunters, and missionaries. And now +alas for mosquitoes! Malaria must be wiped from the earth. Malaria +can be destroyed! Because, by the middle of 1899, two wrangling and +not too dignified microbe hunters had proved that the mosquito--and +only one particular kind of mosquito--was the criminal in the malaria +mystery. + +Two men solved that puzzle. The one, Ronald Ross, was a not +particularly distinguished officer in the medical service of India. +The other, Battista Grassi, was a very distinguished Italian +authority on worms, white ants, and the doings of eels. You cannot +put one before the other in the order of their merit--Ross would +certainly have stopped short of solving the puzzle without Grassi. +And Grassi might (though I am not so sure of that!) have muddled for +years if the searchings of Ross had not given him hints. So there +is no doubt they helped each other, but unhappily for the Dignity +of Science, before the huzzahs of the rescued populations had died +away, Battista Grassi and Ronald Ross were in each other’s hair on +the question of who did how much. It was deplorable. To listen to +these two, you would think each would rather this noble discovery +had remained buried, than have the other get a mite of credit for +it. Indeed, the only consolation to be got from this scientific +brawl--aside from the saving of human lives--is the knowledge that +microbe hunters are men like the rest of us, and not stuffed shirts +or sacred cows, as certain historians would have us believe. They +sat there, Battista Grassi and Ronald Ross, indignant co-workers in +a glorious job, in the midst of their triumph, with figurative torn +collars and metaphorical scratched faces. Like two quarrelsome small +boys they sat there. + + + II + +For the first thirty-five years of his life Ronald Ross tried his +best not to be a microbe hunter. He was born in the foothills of +the Himalayas in India, and knowing his father (if you believe in +eugenics) you might suspect that Ronald Ross would do topsy-turvy +things with his life. Father Ross was a ferocious looking +border-fighting English general with belligerent side-whiskers, who +was fond of battles but preferred to paint landscapes. He shipped his +son Ronald Ross back to England before he was ten, and presently, +before he was twenty, Ronald was making a not too enthusiastic +pass at studying medicine, failing to pass his examinations +because he preferred composing music to the learning of Latin +words and the cultivation of the bedside manner. This was in the +eighteen-seventies, mind you, in the midst of the most spectacular +antics of Pasteur, but from the autobiography of Ronald Ross, which +is a strange mixture of cleverness and contradiction, of frank abuse +of himself and of high enthusiasm for himself, you can only conclude +that this revolution in medicine left Ronald Ross cold. + +But he was, for all that, something of a chaser of moonbeams, +because, finding that his symphonies didn’t turn out to be anything +like those of Mozart, he tried literature, in the grand manner. He +neglected to write prescriptions while he nursed his natural bent for +epic drama. But publishers didn’t care for these masterpieces, and +when Ross printed them at his own expense, the public failed to get +excited about them. Father Ross became indignant at this dabbling +and threatened to stop his allowance, so Ronald (he had spunk) got +a job as a ship’s doctor on the Anchor Line between London and New +York. On this vessel he observed the emotions and frailties of human +nature in the steerage, wrote poetry on the futility of life, and +got up his back medical work. Finally he passed the examination for +the Indian Medical Service, found the heat of India detestable, but +was glad there was little medical practice to attend to, because it +left him time to compose now totally forgotten epics and sagas and +blood-and-thunder romances. That was the beginning of the career of +Ronald Ross! + +Not that there was no chance for him to hunt microbes in India. +Microbes? The very air was thick with them. The water was a soup of +them. All around him in Madras were the stinking tanks breeding the +Asiatic cholera; he saw men die in thousands of the black plague; he +heard their teeth rattle with the ague of malaria, but he had no ears +or eyes or nose for all that--for now he forgot literature to become +a mathematician. He shut himself up inventing complicated equations. +He devised systems of the universe of a grandeur he thought equal +to Newton’s. He forgot about these to write another novel. He took +twenty-five-mile-a-day walking trips in spite of the heat and then +cursed India bitterly because it was so hot. He was ordered off to +Burma and to the Island of Moulmein, and here he did remarkable +surgical operations--“which cured most of the cases”--though he had +never presumed to be a surgeon. He tried everything but impressed +hardly anybody; years passed, and, when the Indian Medical Service +failed to recognize his various abilities, Ronald Ross cried: “Why +work?” + +He went back to England on his first furlough in 1888, and there +something happened to him, an event that is often an antidote to +cynicism and a regulator of confused multitudinous ambitions. He met, +he was smitten with, and presently he married Miss Rosa Bloxam. Back +in India--though he wrote another novel called “Child of Ocean” and +invented systems of shorthand and devised phonetic spellings for the +writing of verse and was elected secretary of the Golf Club--he began +to fumble at his proper work. In short he began to turn a microscope, +with which he was no expert, on to the blood of malarious Hindus. The +bizarre, many-formed malaria microbe had been discovered long ago in +1880 by a French army surgeon, Laveran, and Ronald Ross, who was as +original as he was energetic and never did anything the way anybody +else did it, tried to find this malaria germ by methods of his own. + +Of course, he failed again. He bribed, begged, and wheedled drops +of blood out of the fingers of hundreds of aguey East Indians. He +peered. He found nothing. “Laveran is certainly wrong! There is no +germ of malaria!” said Ronald Ross, and he wrote four papers trying +to prove that malaria was due to intestinal disturbances. That was +his start in microbe hunting! + + + III + +He went back to London in 1894, plotting to throw up medicine and +science. He was thirty-six. “Everything I had tried had failed,” he +wrote, but he consoled himself by imagining himself a sad defiant +lone wolf: “But my failure did not depress me ... it drove me aloft +to peaks of solitude.... Such a spirit was a selfish spirit but +nevertheless a high one. It desired nothing, it sought no praise ... +it had no friends, no fears, no loves, no hates.” + +But as you will see, Ronald Ross knew nothing of himself, for when he +got going at his proper work, there was never a less calm and more +desirous spirit than his. Nor a more enthusiastic one. And how he +could hate! + +When Ross returned to London he met Patrick Manson, an eminent and +mildly famous English doctor. Manson had got himself medically +notorious by discovering that mosquitoes can suck worms out of +the blood of Chinamen (he had practiced in Shanghai); Manson had +proved--this is remarkable!--that these worms can even develop in +the stomachs of mosquitoes. Manson was obsessed by mosquitoes, he +believed they were among the peculiar creatures of God, he was +convinced they were important to the destinies of man, he was +laughed at, and the medical wiseacres of Harley Street called him a +“pathological Jules Verne.” He was sneered at. And then he met Ronald +Ross--whom the world had sneered at. What a pair of men these two +were! Manson knew so little about mosquitoes that he believed they +could only suck blood once in their lives, and Ross talked vaguely +about mosquitoes and gnats not knowing that mosquitoes _were_ gnats. +And yet---- + +Manson took Ross to his office, and there he set Ross right about the +malaria microbe of Laveran that Ross did not believe in. He showed +Ronald Ross the pale malaria parasites, peppered with a blackish +pigment. Together they watched these germs, fished out of the blood +of sailors just back from the equator, turn into little squads of +spheres inside the red blood cells, then burst out the blood cells. +“That happens just when the man has his chill,” explained Manson. +Ross was amazed at the mysterious transformations and cavortings of +the malaria germs in the blood. After those spheres had galloped out +of the corpuscles, they turned suddenly into crescent shapes, then +those crescents would shoot out two, three, four, sometimes six long +whips, which lashed and curled about and made the beast look like a +microscopic octopus. + +“That, Ross, is the parasite of malaria--you never find it in people +without malaria--but the thing that bothers me is: How does it get +from one man to another?” + +Of course that didn’t really bother Patrick Manson at all. Every +cell in that man’s brain had in it a picture of a mosquito or the +memory of a mosquito or a speculation about a mosquito. He was a mild +man, not a terrific worker himself, but intensely prejudiced on this +subject of mosquitoes. And he appreciated Ronald Ross’s energy of a +dynamo, he knew Ronald Ross adored him, and he remembered Ross was +presently returning to India. So one day, as they walked along Oxford +Street, Patrick Manson took his jump: “Do you know, Ross,” he said, +“I have formed the theory that mosquitoes carry malaria...?” Ronald +Ross did not sneer or laugh. + +Then the old doctor from Shanghai poured his fantastic theory over +this young man whom he wanted to make his hands: “The mosquitoes +suck the blood of people sick with malaria ... the blood has those +crescents in it ... they get into the mosquito’s stomach and shoot +out those whips ... the whips shake themselves free and get into the +mosquito’s carcass.... The whips turn into some tough form like the +spore of an anthrax bacillus.... The mosquitoes die ... they fall +into water ... people drink a soup of dead mosquitoes....” + +This, mind you, was a story, a romance, a purely trumped-up guess +on the part of Patrick Manson. But it was a passionate guess, and +by this time you have learned, maybe, that one guess, guessed +enthusiastically enough--one guess in a billion may lead to +something in this strange game of microbe hunting. So this pair +walked down Oxford Street. And Ross? Well, he talked about gnats and +mosquitoes and did not know that mosquitoes were gnats. But Ross +listened to Manson.... Mosquitoes carry malaria? That was an ancient +superstition--but here was Doctor Manson, thinking about nothing +else. Mosquitoes carry malaria? Well, Ross’s books had not sold; his +mathematics were ignored.... But here was a chance, a gamble! If +Ronald Ross could prove mosquitoes were to blame for malaria! Why, a +third of all the people in the hospitals in India were in bed with +malaria. More than a million a year died, directly or indirectly, +because of malaria, in India alone! But if mosquitoes were really to +blame--it would be easy!--malaria could be absolutely wiped out.... +And if he, Ronald Ross, were the man to prove that! + +“It is my duty to solve the problem,” Ross said. Fictioneer that +he was, he called it: “The Great Problem.” And he threw himself at +Manson’s feet. “I am only your hands--it is your problem!” he assured +the doctor from China. + +“Before you go, you should find out something about mosquitoes,” +advised Manson, who himself didn’t know whether there were ten +different kinds of mosquitoes, or ten thousand, who thought +mosquitoes could live only three days after they had bitten. So +Ross (who didn’t know mosquitoes were gnats) looked all over London +for books about mosquitoes--and couldn’t find any. Too little of a +scholar, then, to think of looking in the library of the British +Museum, Ross was sublimely ignorant, but maybe that was best, for he +had nothing to unlearn. Never has such a green searcher started on +such a complicated quest.... + +He left his wife and children in England, and on the twenty-eighth of +March, 1895, he set sail for India, with Patrick Manson’s blessing, +and full of his advice. Manson had outlined experiments--but how did +one go about doing an experiment? But mosquitoes carry malaria! On +with the mosquito hunt! On the ship Ross pestered the passengers, +begging them to let him prick their fingers for a drop of blood.... +He looked for mosquitoes, but they were not among the discomforts +of the ship, so he dissected cockroaches--and he made an exciting +discovery of a new kind of microbe in an unfortunate flying fish that +had flopped on the deck. He was ordered to Secunderabad, a desolate +military station that sat between hot little lakes in a huge plain +dotted with horrid heaps of rocks, and here began to work with +mosquitoes. He had to take care of patients too, he was only a doctor +and the Indian Government--who can blame them?--would not for a +moment recognize Ronald Ross as an official authentic microbe hunter +or mosquito expert. He was alone. Everybody was against him from +his colonel who thought him an insane upstart to the black-skinned +boys who feared him for a dangerous nuisance (he was always wanting +to prick their fingers!). The other doctors! They did not even +believe in the malaria parasite. When they challenged him to show +them the germs in the patient’s blood, Ross went to the fray full +of confidence, dragging after him a miserable Hindu whose blood was +rotten with malaria microbes, but when the fatal test was made--curse +it!--that wretched Hindu suddenly felt fit as a fiddle. His microbes +had departed from him. The doctors roared with laughter. But Ronald +Ross kept at it. + +He started out to follow Manson’s orders. He captured mosquitoes, +any kind of mosquito, he couldn’t for the life of him have told you +what kind they were. He let the pests loose under nets over beds +on which lay naked and foolishly superstitious dark-skinned people +of a caste so low that they had no proper right to have emotions. +The blood of these people was charmingly full of malaria microbes. +The mosquitoes hummed under the nets--and wouldn’t bite. Curse it! +They could not be made to bite! “They are stubborn as mules,” wrote +Ross, in agony, to Patrick Manson. But he kept at it. He cajoled the +mosquitoes. He pestered the patients. He put them in the hot sun “to +bring their flavor out.” The mosquitoes kept on humming and remained +sniffish. But, eureka! At last he hit on the idea of pouring water +over the nets, soaking the nets--also the patients, but that was +no matter--and finally the mosquitoes got to work and sucked their +fill of Hindu blood. Ronald Ross caught them then, put them gingerly +in bottles, then day after day killed them and peeped into their +stomachs to see if those malaria microbes they had sucked in with the +blood might be growing. They didn’t grow! + +He bungled. He was like any tyro searcher--only his innate hastiness +made him worse--and he was constantly making momentous discoveries +that turned out not to be discoveries at all. But his bunglings +had fire in them. To read his letters to Patrick Manson, you would +think he had made himself miraculously small and crawled under the +lens into that blood among the objects he was learning to spy upon. +And what was best, everything was a story to him, no, more than +a story, a melodrama. Manson had told him to watch those strange +whips that grew out of the crescent malaria germs and made them +look like octopuses. In vast excitement he wrote a long letter to +Manson, telling of a strange fight between a whip that had shaken +itself free, and a white blood cell--a phagocyte. He was a vivid +man, was Ronald Ross. “He [Ross called that whip “he”] kept poking +the phagocyte in the ribs (!) in different parts of his body, until +the phagocyte finally turned and ran off howling ... the fight +between the whip and the phagocyte was wonderful.... I shall write +a novel on it in the style of the ‘Three Musketeers.’” That was the +way he kept himself at it and got himself past the first ambushes +and disappointments of his ignorance and inexperience. He collected +malarious Hindus as a terrier collects rats. He loved them if they +were shot full of malaria, he detested them when they got better. He +gloried in the wretched Abdul Wahab, a dreadful case. He pounced on +Abdul and dragged him from pillar to post. He put fleas on him. He +tortured him with mosquitoes. He failed. He kept at it. He wrote to +Manson: “Please send me advice....” He missed important truths that +lay right under his nose--that yelled to be discovered. + +But he was beginning to know just exactly what a malaria parasite +looked like--he could spot its weird black grains of pigment, and +tell them apart from all of the unknown tiny blobs and bubbles and +balloons that drifted before his eyes under his lens. And the insides +of the stomachs of mosquitoes? They were becoming as familiar as the +insides of his nasty hot quarters! + +What an incredible pair of searchers they were! Away in London +Patrick Manson kept answering Ross’s tangled tortured letters, felt +his way and gathered hope from his mixed-up accounts of unimportant +experiments. “Let mosquitoes bite people sick with malaria,” wrote +Manson, “then put those mosquitoes in a bottle of water and let them +lay eggs and hatch out grubs. Then give that mosquito-water to people +to drink....” + +So Ross fed some of this malaria-mosquito soup to Lutchman, his +servant, and almost danced with excitement as the man’s temperature +went up--but it was a false alarm, it wasn’t malaria, worse luck.... +So dragged the dreary days, the months, the years, feeding people +mashed-up mosquitoes and writing to Manson: “I have a sort of +feeling it will succeed--I feel a kind of religious excitement over +it!” But it never succeeded. But he kept at it. He intrigued to get +to places where he might find more malaria; he discovered strange +new mosquitoes and from their bellies he dredged up unheard-of +parasites--that had nothing to do with malaria. He tried everything. +He was illogical. He was anti-scientific. He was like Edison combing +the world to get proper stuff out of which to make phonograph +needles. “There is only one method of solution,” he wrote, “that is, +by incessant trial and exclusion.” He wrote that, while the simple +method lay right under his hand, unfelt. + +He wrote shrieking poems called “Wraths.” He was ordered to Bangalore +to try to stop the cholera epidemic, and didn’t stop it. He became +passionate about the Indian authorities. “I wish I might rub their +noses in the filth and disease which they so impotently let fester +in Hindustan,” Ronald Ross cried. But who can blame him? It was hot +there. “I was now forty years old,” he wrote, “but, though I was well +known in India, both for my sanitary work at Bangalore and for my +researches on malaria I received no advancement at all for my pains.” + + + IV + +So passed two years, until, in June of 1897 Ronald Ross came back +to Secunderabad, to the steamy hospital of Begumpett. The monsoon +bringing its cool rain should have already broken, but it had not. A +hellish wind blew gritty clouds of dust into the laboratory of Ronald +Ross. He wanted to throw his microscope out of the window. Its one +remaining eyepiece was cracked, and its metal work was rusted with +his sweat. There was the punka, the blessed punka, but he could not +start the punka going because it blew his dead mosquitoes away, and +in the evening when the choking wind had died, the dust still hid the +sun in a dreadful haze. Ronald Ross wrote: + + What ails the solitude? + Is this the judgment day? + The sky is red as blood + The very rocks decay. + +And that relieved him and released him, just as another man might +escape by whiskey or by playing bottle-pool, and on the sixteenth of +August he decided to begin his work all over, to start, in short, +where he had begun in 1895--“only much more thoroughly this time.” +So he stripped his malaria patient--it was the famous Husein Khan. +Under the mosquito net went Husein, for Ronald Ross had found a new +kind of mosquito with which to plague this Husein Khan, and in his +unscientific classification Ross called this mosquito, simply, a +brown mosquito. (For the purposes of historical accuracy, and to be +fair to Battista Grassi, I must state that it is not clear where +these brown mosquitoes came from. In the early part of his report +Ronald Ross says he raised them from the grubs--but a moment later, +speaking of a closely related mosquito, he says: “I have failed in +finding their grubs also.”) + +It is no wonder--though lamentable for the purposes of history--that +Ronald Ross was mixed up, considering his lone-wolf work and that +hot wind and his perpetual failures! Anyway, he took those brown +mosquitoes (which may have bitten other beasts, who knows) and loosed +them out of their bottles under the net. They sucked the blood of +Husein Khan, at a few cents per suck per mosquito, and then once +more, one day after another, Ross peeped at the stomachs of those +insects. + +On the nineteenth of August he had only three of the brown beasts +left. He cut one of them up. Hopelessly he began to look at the +walls of its stomach, with its pretty, regular cells arranged like +stones in a paved road. Mechanically he peered down the tube of his +microscope, when suddenly something queer forced itself up into the +front of his attention. + +What was this? In the midst of the even pavement of the cells +of the stomach wall lay a funny circular thing, about a +twenty-five-hundredth of an inch its diameter was--here was another! +But, curse it! It was hot--he stopped looking.... + +The next day it was the same. Here, in the wall of the stomach of the +next to the last mosquito, four days after it had sucked the blood +of the unhappy malarious Husein Khan, here were those same circular +outlines--clear--much more distinct than the outlines of the cells of +the stomach, and in each one of these circles was “a cluster of small +granules, black as jet!” Here was another of those fantastic things, +and another--he counted twelve in all. He yawned. It was hot. That +black pigment looked a lot like the black pigment inside of malaria +microbes in the blood of human bodies--but it was hot. Ross yawned, +and went home for a nap. + +[Illustration: (line drawing of cells with small black granules)] + +And as he awoke--so he says in his memoirs--a thought struck him: +“Those circles in the wall of the stomach of the mosquito--those +circles with their dots of black pigment, they can’t be anything else +than the malaria parasite, growing there.... That black pigment is +just like the specks of black pigment in the microbes in the blood of +Husein Khan.... The longer I wait to kill my mosquitoes after they +have sucked his blood, the bigger those circles should grow ... if +they are alive, they _must_ grow!” + +Ross fidgeted about--and how he could fidget!--waiting for the next +day, that would be the fifth day after his little flock of mosquitoes +had fed on Husein under the net. That was the day for the cutting up +of the last mosquito of the flock. Came the twenty-first of August. +“I killed my last mosquito,” Ronald Ross wrote to Manson, “and rushed +at his stomach!” + +Yes! Here they were again, those circle cells, one ... two ... six +... twenty of them.... They were full of the same jet-black dots.... +Sure enough! They were bigger than the circles in the mosquito of the +day before.... They were really growing! They _must_ be the malaria +parasites growing! (Though there was no absolutely necessary reason +they must be.) But they must be! Those circles with their black dots +in the bellies of three measly mosquitoes now kicked Ronald Ross up +to heights of exultation. He must write verses! + + I have found thy secret deeds + Oh, million-murdering death. + + I know that this little thing + A million men will save-- + “Oh, death, where is thy sting? + Thy victory, oh, grave?” + +At least that is what Ronald Ross, in those memoirs of his, says +he wrote on the night of the day of his first little success. But +to Manson, telling the finest details about the circles with their +jet-black dots, he only said: + +“The hunt is up again. It may be a false scent, but it smells +promising.” + +And in a scientific paper, sent off to England to the _British +Medical Journal_, Ronald Ross wrote gravely like any cool searcher. +He wrote admitting he had not taken pains to study his brown +mosquitoes carefully. He admitted the jet-black dots might not be +malaria parasites at all, but only pigment coming from the blood in +the mosquito’s gullet. There certainly was need for this caution, for +he was not sure where his brown mosquitoes came from: some of them +might have sneaked in through a hole in the net--and those intruders +_might_ have bitten a bird or beast before they fed on his Hindu +patient. It was a most mixed-up business. But he could write poems +about saving the lives of a million men! + +Such a man was Ronald Ross, mad poet shaking his fist in the face +of the malignant Indian sun, celebrating uncertain discoveries with +triumphant verses, spreading nets with maybe no holes in them.... But +you must give him this: he had been lifted up. And, as you will see, +it was to the everlasting honor of Ronald Ross that he was exalted +by this seemingly so piffling experiment. He clawed his way--and +this is one of the major humors of human life!--with unskilled but +enthusiastic fingers toward the uncovering of a murderous fact and +a complicated fact. A fact you would swear it would take the sure +intelligence of some god to uncover. + +Then came one of those deplorable interludes. The High Authorities of +the Indian Medical Service failed to appreciate him. They sent him +off to active duty at doctoring, mere doctoring. Ronald Ross rained +telegrams on his Principal Medical Officer. He implored Manson way +off there in England. In vain. They packed him off up north, where +there were few mosquitoes, where the few he did catch would not +bite--it was so cold, where the natives (they were Bhils) were so +superstitious and savage they would not let him prick their fingers. +All he could do was fish trout and treat cases of itch. How he raved! + + + V + +But Patrick Manson did not fail him, and presently Ross came down +from the north, to Calcutta, to a good laboratory, to assistants, +to mosquitoes, to as many--for that city was a fine malaria +pest-hole!--Hindus with malaria crescents in their blood as any +searcher could possibly want. He advertised for helpers. An assorted +lot of dark-skinned men came, and of these he chose two. The first, +Mahomed Bux, Ronald Ross hired because he had the appearance of a +scoundrel, and (said Ross) scoundrels are much more likely to be +intelligent. The second assistant Ross chose was Purboona. All we +know of that man is that he had the booming name of Purboona, and +Purboona lost his chance to become immortal because he vamoosed after +his first pay day. + +So Ross and Mr. Mahomed Bux set to work to try to find once more the +black-dotted circles in the stomachs of mosquitoes. Mr. Mahomed Bux +sleuth-footed it about, among the sewers, the drains, the stinking +tanks of Calcutta, catching gray mosquitoes and brindled mosquitoes +and brown and green dappled-winged ones. They tried all kinds of +mosquitoes (within the limits of Ronald Ross’s feeble knowledge +of the existing kinds). And Mr. Mahomed Bux? He was a howling +success. The mosquitoes seemed to like him, they would bite Hindus +for this wizard of a Mahomed when Ross could not make them bite at +all--Mahomed whispered things to his mosquitoes.... And a rascal? +No. Mr. Mahomed Bux had just one little weakness--he faithfully got +thoroughly drunk once a week on _Ganja_. But the experiments? They +turned out as miserably as Mahomed turned out beautifully, and it +was easy for Ross to wonder whether the heat was causing him to see +things last year at Begumpett. + +Then the God of Gropers came to help Ronald Ross. Birds have malaria. +The malaria microbe of birds looks very like the malaria microbe of +men. Why not try birds? + +So Mr. Mahomed Bux went forth once more and cunningly snared live +sparrows and larks and crows. They put them in cages, on beds, with +mosquito bar over the cages, and Mahomed slept, with one eye open, on +the floor between the beds to keep away the cats. + +On St. Patrick’s day of the year 1898, Ronald Ross let loose ten +gray mosquitoes into a cage containing three larks, and the blood of +those larks teemed with the germs of malaria. The ten mosquitoes bit +those larks, and filled themselves with lark’s blood. + +Three days later Ronald Ross could shout: “The microbe of the malaria +of birds grows in the wall of the stomach of the gray mosquito--just +as the human microbe grew in the wall of the stomach of the brown +spot-winged mosquito.” + +Then he wrote to Patrick Manson. This lunatic Ross became for a +moment himself a malaria microbe! That night he wrote these strange +words to Patrick Manson: + +“I find that I exist constantly in three out of four mosquitoes fed +on bird-malaria parasites, and that I increase regularly in size from +about a seven-thousandth of an inch after about thirty hours to about +one seven-hundredth of an inch after about eighty-five hours.... I +find myself in large numbers in about one out of two mosquitoes fed +on two crows with blood parasites....” + +He thought he was himself a circle with those jet-black dots.... + +“What an ass I have been not to follow your advice before and work +with birds!” Ross wrote to Manson. Heaven knows what Ronald Ross +would have discovered without that persistent Patrick Manson. + +You would think that such a man as Ross, wild as the maddest of +hatters, topsy-turvy as the dream of a hasheesh-eater, you would +swear, I say, that he could do no accurate experiments. Wrong! For +presently he was up to his ears in an experiment Pasteur would have +been proud to do. + +Mr. Mahomed Bux brought in three sparrows, and one of these sparrows +was perfectly healthy, with no malaria microbes in its blood; the +second had a few; but the third sparrow was very sick--his blood +swarmed with the black-dotted germs. Ross took these three birds and +put each one in a separate cage, mosquito-proof. Then the artful +Mahomed took a brood of she-mosquitoes, clean, raised from the grubs, +free of all suspicion of malaria. He divided this flock up into +three little flocks, he whispered Hindustani words of encouragement +to them. Into each cage, with its sparrow, he let loose a flock of +these mosquitoes. + +Marvelous! Not a mosquito who sucked the blood of the healthy sparrow +showed those dotted circles in her stomach. The insects who had +bitten the mildly sick bird had a few. And Ronald Ross, peeping +through his lens at the stomachs of the mosquitoes who had bitten the +very sick sparrow--found their gullets fairly polka-dotted with the +jet-black pigmented circles! + +Day after day Ross killed and cut up one after another of the last +set of mosquitoes. Day after day, he watched those circles swelling, +growing--there was no doubt about it now; they began to look like +warts sticking out of the wall of the stomach. And he watched weird +things happening in those warts. Little bright-colored grains +multiplied in them, “like bullets in a bag.” Were these young malaria +microbes? Then where did they go from here? How did they get into new +healthy birds? Did they, indeed, get from mosquitoes into other birds? + +Excitedly Ronald Ross wrote to Patrick Manson: “Well, the theory +is proved, the mosquito theory is a fact.” Which of course it +wasn’t, but that was the way Ronald Ross encouraged himself. There +was another regrettable interlude, in which the unseen hand of his +incurable restless dissatisfaction took him by the throat, and +dragged him away up north to Darjeeling, to the hills that make +giant’s steps up to the white Himalayas, but of this interlude we +shall not speak, for it was lamentable, this restlessness of Ronald +Ross, with the final simple experiment fairly yelling to be done.... + +But by the beginning of June he was back at his birds in Calcutta--it +was more than 100 degrees in his laboratory--and he was asking: +“Where do the malaria microbes go from the circles that grow into +those big warts in the stomach wall of the mosquito?” + +They went, those microbes, to the spit-gland of those mosquitoes! + +Squinting through his lens at a wart on the wall of the stomach +of a she-mosquito, seven days after she had made a meal from the +blood of a malarious bird, Ronald Ross saw that wart burst open! +He saw a great regiment of weird spindle-shaped threads march out +of that wart. He watched them swarm through the whole body of that +she-mosquito. He pawed around in countless she-mosquitoes who had +fed on malarious birds. He watched other circles grow into warts, +get ripe, burst, shoot out those spindles. He pried through his +lens at the “million things that go to make up a mosquito”--he +hadn’t the faintest notion what to call most of them--until one day, +strangest of acts of malignant nature, he saw those regiments of +spindle-threads, which had teemed in the body of the mosquito, march +to her spit-gland. + +In that spit-gland, feebly, lazily moving in it, but swarming in such +myriads that they made it quiver, almost, under his lens, were those +regiments and armies of spindle-shaped threads, hopeful valiant young +microbes of malaria, ready to march up the tube to the mosquito’s +stinger.... + +“It’s by the bite mosquitoes carry malaria then,” Ross whispered--he +whispered it because that was contrary to the theory of his +scientific father, Patrick Manson. “It is all nonsense that +birds--or people either--get malaria by drinking dead mosquitoes, +or by inhaling the dust of mosquitoes....” Ronald Ross had always +been loyal to Patrick Manson. But now! Never has there been a finer +instance of wrong theories leading a microbe hunter to unsuspected +facts. But now! Ronald Ross needed no help. He was a searcher. + +“It’s by the bite!” shouted Ronald Ross, so, on the twenty-fifth day +of June in 1898, Mr. Mahomed Bux brought in three perfectly healthy +sparrows--fine sparrows with not a single microbe of malaria in +their blood. That night, and night after night after that night, +with Ronald Ross watching, Mr. Mahomed Bux let into the cage with +those healthy sparrows a flock of poisonous she-mosquitoes who had +fed on sick birds.... And Ronald Ross, fidgety as a father waiting +news of his first-born child, biting his mustache, sweating, and +sweating more yet because he used up so much of himself cursing at +his sweat--Ross watched those messengers of death bite the healthy +sparrows.... + +On the ninth of July Ross wrote to Patrick Manson: “All three birds, +perfectly healthy before, are now simply swarming with proteosoma.” +(Proteosoma are the malarial parasites of birds.) + +Now Ronald Ross did anything but live remotely on his mountain top. +He wrote this to Manson, he wired it to Manson, he wrote it to Paris +to old Alphonse Laveran, the discoverer of the malaria microbe; he +sent papers to one scientific journal and two medical journals about +it; he told everybody in Calcutta about it; he bragged about it--in +short, this Ronald Ross was like a boy who had just made his first +kite finding that the kite could really fly. He went wild--and then +(it is too bad!) he collapsed. Patrick Manson went to Edinburgh and +told the doctors of the great medical congress about the miracle +of the sojourn and the growing and the meanderings of the malaria +microbes in the bodies of gray she-mosquitoes: he described how his +protégé, Ronald Ross, alone, obscure, laughed at, but tenacious, had +tracked the germ of malaria from the blood of a bird through the +belly and body of she-mosquitoes to their dangerous position in her +stinger, ready to be shot into the next bird she bit. + +The learned doctors gaped. Then Patrick Manson read out a telegram +from Ronald Ross. It was the final proof: the bite of a malarial +mosquito had given a healthy bird malaria! The congress--this is the +custom of congresses--permitted itself a dignified furore, and passed +a resolution congratulating this unknown Major Ronald Ross on his +“Great and Epoch-Making Discovery.” The congress--it is the habit of +congresses--believed that what is true for birds goes for men too. +The congress--men in the mass are ever uncritical--thought that this +meant malaria would be wiped out from to-morrow on and forever--for +what is simpler than to kill mosquitoes? So that congress permitted +itself a furore. + +But Patrick Manson was not so sure: “One can object that the facts +determined for birds do not hold, necessarily, for men.” He was +right. There was the rub. This was what Ronald Ross seemed to +forget: that nature is everlastingly full of surprises and annoying +exceptions, and if there are laws and rules for the movements of the +planets, there may be absolutely no apparent rime and less reason for +the meanderings of the microbes of malaria.... Searchers, the best of +them, still do no more than scratch the surface of the most amazing +mysteries, all they can do (yet!) to find truth about microbes is to +hunt, hunt endlessly.... There are no laws! + +So Patrick Manson was stern with Ronald Ross. This nervous man, +feeling he could stand this cursed India not one moment longer, +must stand it months longer, years longer! He had made a brilliant +beginning, but only a beginning. He must keep on, if not for science, +or for himself, then for England! For England! And in October Manson +wrote him: “I hear Koch has failed with the mosquito in Italy, so you +have time to grab the discovery for England.” + +But Ronald Ross--alas--could not grab that discovery of _human_ +malaria, not for science, nor humanity, nor for England--nor (what +was worst) for himself. He had come to the end of his rope. And among +all microbe hunters, there is for me no more tortured man than this +same Ronald Ross. There have been searchers who have failed--they +have kept on hunting with the naturalness of ducks swimming; +there have been searchers who have succeeded gloriously--but +they were hunters born, and they kept on hunting in spite of the +seductions of glory. But Ross! Here was a man who could only do +patient experiments--with a tragic impatience, in agony, against +the clamoring of his instincts that yelled against the priceless +loneliness that is the one condition for all true searching. He had +visions of himself at the head of important committees, and you +can _feel_ his dreams of medals and banquets and the hosannahs of +multitudes.... + +He must grab the discovery for England. He tried gray mosquitoes +and green and brown and dappled-winged mosquitoes on Hindus rotten +with malaria--but it was no go! He became sleepless and lost eleven +pounds. He forgot things. He could not repeat even those first crude +experiments at Secunderababad. + +And yet--all honor to Ronald Ross. He did marvelous things in spite +of himself. It was his travail that helped the learned, the expert, +the indignant Battista Grassi to do those clean superb experiments +that must end in wiping malaria from the earth. + + + VI + +You might know Giovanni Battista Grassi would be the man to do what +Ronald Ross had not quite succeeded in bringing off. He had been +educated for a doctor, at Pavia where that glittering Spallanzani +had held forth amid applause a hundred years before. Grassi had been +educated for a doctor (Heaven knows why) because he had no sooner +got his license than he set himself up in business as a searcher in +zoölogy. With a certain amount of sniffishness he always insisted: +“I am a zoologo--not a medico!” Deliberate as a glacier, precise as +a ship’s chronometer, he started finding answers to the puzzles of +nature. Correct answers! His works were pronounced classics right +after he published them--but it was his habit not to publish them for +years after he started to do them. He made known the secret comings +and goings of the Society of the White Ants--not only this, but he +discovered microbes that plagued and preyed upon these white ants. He +knew more than any man in the world about eels--and you may believe +it took a searcher with the insight of a Spallanzani to trace out +the weird and romantic changes that eels undergo to fulfill their +destiny as eels. Grassi was not strong. He had abominable eyesight. +He was full of an argumentative petulance. He was a contradictory +combination of a man too modest to want his picture in the papers +but bawling at the same time for the last jot and tittle of credit +for everything that he did. And he did everything. Already, when he +was only twenty-nine, before Ross had dreamt of becoming a searcher, +Battista Grassi was a professor, and had published his famous +monograph upon the Chaetognatha (I do not know what they are!). + +Before Ronald Ross knew that anybody had ever thought of mosquitoes +carrying malaria, Grassi had had the idea, had taken a whirl at +experiments on it, but had used the wrong mosquito, and failed. But +that failure started ideas stewing in his head while he worked at +other things--and how he worked! Grassi detested people who didn’t +work. “Mankind,” he said, “is composed of those who work, those who +pretend to work, and those who do neither.” He was ready to admit +that he belonged in the first class, and it is entirely certain that +he did belong there. + +In 1898, the year of the triumph of Ronald Ross, Grassi, knowing +nothing of Ross, never having heard of Ross, went back at malaria +again. “Malaria is the worst problem Italy has to face! It desolates +our richest farms! It attacks millions in our lush lowlands! Why +don’t you solve that problem?” So the politicians, to Battista +Grassi. Then too, the air was full of whispers of the possibility +that I don’t know how many different diseases might be carried from +man to man by insects. There was that famous work of Theobald Smith, +and Grassi had an immense respect for Theobald Smith. But what +probably finally set Grassi working at malaria--you must remember he +was a very patriotic and jealous man--was the arrival of Robert Koch. +Dean of the microbe hunters of the world, Tsar of Science (his crown +was only a little battered) Koch had come to Italy to prove that +mosquitoes carry malaria from man to man. + +Koch was an extremely grumpy, quiet, and restless man now; sad +because of the affair of his consumption cure (which had killed a +considerable number of people); restless after the scandal of his +divorce from Emmy Fraatz. So Koch went from one end of the world to +the other, offering to conquer plagues but not quite succeeding, +trying to find happiness and not quite reaching it. His touch +faltered a little.... And now Koch met Battista Grassi, and Grassi +said to Robert Koch: + +“There are places in Italy where mosquitoes are absolutely +pestiferous--but there is no malaria at all in those places!” + +“Well--what of it?” + +“Right off, that would make you think mosquitoes had nothing to do +with malaria,” said Battista Grassi. + +“So?”... Koch was enough to throw cold water on any logic! + +“Yes--but here is the point,” persisted Grassi, “I have not found a +single place where there is malaria--where there aren’t mosquitoes +too!” + +“What of that?” + +“This of that!” shouted Battista Grassi. “Either malaria is carried +by one special particular blood-sucking mosquito, out of the twenty +or forty kinds of mosquitoes in Italy--or it isn’t carried by +mosquitoes at all!” + +“Hrrrm-p,” said Koch. + +So Grassi made no hit with Robert Koch, and so Koch and Grassi went +their two ways, Grassi muttering to himself: “Mosquitoes--without +malaria ... but never malaria--without mosquitoes! That means one +special kind of mosquito! I must discover the suspect....” + +That was the homely reasoning of Battista Grassi. He compared himself +to a village policeman trying to discover the criminal in a village +murder. “You wouldn’t examine the whole population of a thousand +people one by one!” muttered Grassi. “You would try to locate the +suspicious rogues first....” + +His lectures for the year 1898 at the University of Rome over, he +was a conscientious man who always gave more lectures than the law +demanded, he needed a rest, and on the 15th of July he took it. +Armed with sundry fat test-tubes and a notebook, he sallied out from +Rome to those low hot places and marshy desolations where no man +but an idiot would go for a vacation. Unlike Ross, this Grassi was +a mosquito expert besides everything else that he was. His eyes--so +red-rimmed and weak--were exceedingly sharp at spotting every +difference between the thirty-odd different kinds of mosquitoes that +he met. He went around with the fat test-tube in his hand, his ear +cocked for buzzes. The buzz dies away as the mosquito lights. She has +lit in an impossible place. Or she has lit in a disgusting place. No +matter, Battista Grassi is up behind her, pounces on her, claps his +fat test-tube over her, puts a grubby thumb over the mouth of the +test-tube, paws over his prize and pulls her apart, scrawls little +cramped pothooks in his notebook. That was Battista Grassi, up and +down and around the nastiest places in Italy all that summer. + +So it was he cleared a dozen or twenty different mosquitoes of the +suspicion of the crime of malaria--he was always finding these +beasts in places where there was no malaria. He ruled out two dozen +different kinds of gray mosquitoes and brindled mosquitoes, that +he found anywhere--in saloons and bedrooms and the sacristies of +cathedrals, biting babies and nuns and drunkards. “You are innocent!” +shouted Battista Grassi at these mosquitoes. “For where you are none +of these nuns or babies or drunkards suffers from malaria!” + +You will grant this was a most outlandish microbe hunting of +Grassi’s. He went around making a nuisance of himself. He insinuated +himself into the already sufficiently annoyed families of those hot +malarious towns. He snooped annoyingly into the affairs of these +annoyed families: “Is there malaria in your house?... Has there ever +been malaria in your house?... How many have never had malaria in +your house ... how many mosquito bites did your sick baby have last +week?... What kind of mosquitoes bit him?” He was utterly without a +sense of humor. And he was annoying. + +“No,” the indignant head of the house might tell him, “we suffer +from malaria--but we are not bothered by mosquitoes!” Battista Grassi +would never take his word for that. He snouted into pails and old +crocks in the back yards. He peered beneath tables and behind sacred +images and under beds. He even discovered mosquitoes hiding in shoes +under those beds.... + +So it was--it is most fantastical--that Battista Grassi went more +than two-thirds of the way to solving this puzzle of how malaria +gets from sick men to healthy ones before he had ever made a single +experiment in his laboratory! For, everywhere where there was +malaria, there _were_ mosquitoes. And _such_ mosquitoes! They were +certainly a very special definite sort of blood-sucking mosquito +Grassi found. + +“Zan-za-ro-ne, we call that kind of mosquito,” the householders told +him. + +Always, where the “zan-za-ro-ne” buzzed, there Grassi found deep +flushed faces on rumpled beds, or faces with chattering teeth going +towards those beds. Always where that special and definite mosquito +sang at twilight, Grassi found fields waiting for some one to till +them, and from the houses of the little villages that sat in these +fields, he saw processions emerging, and long black boxes.... + +There was no mistaking this mosquito, zanzarone, once you had spotted +her; she was a frivolous gnat that flew up from the marshes towards +the lights of the towns; she was an elegant mosquito proud of four +dark spots on her light brown wings; she was not a too dignified +insect who sat in an odd way with the tail-end of her body sticking +up in the air [that was one way he could spot her, for the Culex +mosquitoes drooped their tails]; she was a brave blood-sucker who +thought: “The bigger they are the more blood I get out of them!” +So zanzarone preferred horses to men and men to rabbits. That was +zanzarone, and the naturalists had given her the name _Anopheles +claviger_ many years before. _Anopheles claviger!_ This became +the slogan of Battista Grassi. You can see him, shuffling along +behind lovers in the dusk, making fists of his fingers to keep +himself from pouncing on the zanzarone who made meals off their +regardless necks.... You can see this Grassi, sitting in a stagecoach +with no springs, oblivious to bumps, deaf to the chatter of his +fellow-passengers, with absent eyes counting the _Anopheles claviger_ +he had discovered--with delight--riding on the ceiling of the wagon +in which he journeyed from one utterly terrible little malarious +village to another still more cursed. + +[Illustration: (line drawing of zanzarone and Culex mosquitoes)] + +“I’ll try them on myself!” Grassi cried. He went up north to his home +in Rovellasca. He taught boys how to spot the anopheles mosquito. +The boys brought boxes full of these she-zanzarone from towns where +malaria rages. Grassi took these boxes to his bedroom, put on his +night shirt, opened the boxes, crawled into bed--but curse it! not +one of the zanzarone bit him. Instead they flew out of his room and +bit Grassi’s mother, “fortunately without ill effect!” + +Then Grassi went back to Rome to his lectures, and on September 28th +of 1898, before ever he had done a single serious experiment, he read +his paper before the famous and ancient Academy of the Lincei: “It is +the anopheles mosquito that carries malaria if any mosquito carries +malaria....” And he told them he was suspicious of two other brands +of mosquitoes--but that was absolutely all, out of the thirty or +forty different tribes that infected the low places of Italy. + +Then came an exciting autumn for Battista Grassi and an entertaining +autumn for the wits of Rome, and a most important autumn for mankind. +Besides all that it was a most itchy autumn for Mr. Sola, who for six +years had been a patient of Dr. Bastianelli in the Hospital of the +Holy Spirit, high up on the top floor of this hospital that sat on a +high hill of Rome. Here zanzarone never came. Here nobody ever got +malaria. Here was the place for experiments. And here was Mr. Sola, +who had never had malaria, every twist and turn of whose health Dr. +Bastianelli knew, who told Battista Grassi that he would not mind +being shut up with three different brands of hungry she-mosquitoes +every night for a month. + +Grassi and Bignami and Bastianelli started off, strangely enough, +with those two minor mosquito suspects--those two culexes that Grassi +had discovered always hanging around malarious places along with the +zanzarone.... They tortured Mr. Sola each night with hundreds of +these mosquitoes. They shut poor Mr. Sola up in that room with those +devils and turned off the light.... + +Nothing happened. Sola was a tough man. Sola showed not a sign of +malaria. + +(It is not clear why Grassi did not start off by loosing his +zanzarone at this Mr. Sola.) + +Maybe it was because Robert Koch had laughed publicly at this idea of +the zanzarone--Grassi does admit that discouraged him. + +But, one fine morning, Grassi hurried out of Rome to Moletta and came +back with a couple of little bottles in which buzzed ten fine female +anopheles mosquitoes. That night Mr. Sola had a particularly itchy +time of it. Ten days later this stoical old gentleman shook horribly +with a chill, his body temperature shot up into a high fever--and his +blood swarmed with the microbes of malaria. + +“The rest of the history of Sola’s case has no interest for us,” +wrote Grassi, “but it is now certain that mosquitoes can carry +malaria, to a place where there are no mosquitoes in nature, to a +place where no case of malaria has ever occurred, to a man who has +never had malaria--Mr. Sola!” + +Over the country went Grassi once more, chasing zanzarone, hoarding +zanzarone: in his laboratory he tenderly raised zanzarone on +winter-melons and sugar-water; and in the top of the hospital of +the Holy Spirit, in those high mosquito-proof rooms, Grassi and +Bastianelli (to say nothing of another assistant, Bignami) loosed +zanzarone into the bedrooms of people who had never had malaria--and +so gave them malaria. + +It was an itchy autumn and an exciting one. The newspapers became +sarcastic and hinted that the blood of these poor human experimental +animals would be on the heads of these three conspirators. But Grassi +said: to the devil with the newspapers, he cheered when his human +animals got sick, he gave them doses of quinine as soon as he was +sure his zanzarone had given them malaria, and then “their histories +had no further interest for him.” + +By now Grassi had read of those experiments of Ronald Ross with +birds. “Pretty crude stuff!” thought this expert Grassi, but when +he came to look for those strange doings of the circles and warts +and spindle-shaped threads in the stomachs and saliva-glands of his +she-anopheles, he found that Ronald Ross was exactly right! The +microbe of human malaria in the body of his zanzarone did exactly the +same things the microbe of bird malaria had done in the bodies of +those mosquitoes Ronald Ross hadn’t known the names of. Grassi didn’t +waste too much time praising Ronald Ross, who, Heaven knows, deserved +praise, needed praise, and above all _wanted_ praise. Not Grassi! + +“By following my own way I have discovered that a special mosquito +carried human malaria!” he cried, and then he set out--“It is with +great regret I do this,” he explained--to demolish Robert Koch. Koch +had been fumbling and muddling. Koch thought malaria went from man to +man just as Texas fever traveled from cow to cow. Koch believed baby +mosquitoes inherited malaria from their mothers, bit people, and so +infected them. And Koch had sniffed at the zanzarone. + +So Grassi raised baby zanzarone. He let them hatch out in a room, +and every evening in this room, for four months, sat this Battista +Grassi with six or seven of his friends. What friends he must have +had! For every evening they sat there in the dusk, barelegged with +their trousers rolled up to their knees, bare-armed with their shirt +sleeves rolled up to their elbows. Some of these friends, whom the +anopheles relished particularly, were stabbed every night fifty or +sixty times! So Grassi demolished Robert Koch, and so he proved his +point, because, though the baby anopheles were children of mother +mosquitoes who came from the most pestiferous malaria holes in Italy, +not one of Grassi’s friends had a sign of malaria! + +“It is not the mosquito’s children, but only the mosquito who herself +bites a malaria sufferer--it is only that mosquito who can give +malaria to healthy people!” cried Grassi. + +Grassi was as persistent as Ronald Ross had been erratic. He plugged +up every little hole in his theory that anopheles is the one special +and particular mosquito to bring malaria to men. By a hundred +air-tight experiments he proved the malaria of birds could not be +carried by the mosquitoes who brought it to men and that the malaria +of men could never be strewn abroad by the mosquitoes who brought it +to birds. Nothing was too much trouble for this Battista Grassi! He +knew as much about the habits and customs and traditions of those +zanzarone as if he himself were a mosquito and the king and ruler of +mosquitoes.... + + + VII + +What is more, Battista Grassi was a practical man, and as I have +said, an excessively patriotic man. He wanted to see his discovery +do well by Italy, for he loved his Italy faithfully and violently. +His experiments were no sooner finished, the last good strong +nail was no sooner driven into the house of his case against the +anopheles, than he began telling people, and writing in newspapers, +and preaching--you might almost say he went about, bellowing till he +bored everybody: + +“Keep away the zanzarone and in a few years Italy will be free from +malaria!” + +He became a fanatic on the best ways to kill anopheles: he was +indignant (that man had no sense of humor!) because townspeople +insisted on strolling through their streets in the dusk. “How can you +be so foolish as to walk in the twilight?” Grassi asked them. “That +is the very time when the malaria mosquito is waiting for you.” + +He was the very type of the silly sanitarian. “Don’t go out in the +warm evenings,” he told every one, “unless you wear heavy cotton +gloves and veils!” (Imagine young Italians making love in heavy +cotton gloves and veils.) So there was a good deal of sniggering +at this professor who had become a violent missionary against the +zanzarone. + +But Battista Grassi was a practical man! “One family, staying free +from the tortures of malaria--that would be worth ten years of +preaching--I’ll have to _show_ them!” he muttered. So, in 1900, after +his grinding experiments of 1898 and ’99, this tough man set out to +“show them.” He went down into the worst malaria region of Italy, +along the railroad line that ran through the plain of Capaccio. It +was high summer. It was deadly summer there, and every summer the +poor wretches of railroad workers, miserable farmers whose blood was +gutted by the malaria poison, would leave that plain, at the cost +of their jobs, at the cost of food, at the risk of starvation--to +the hills to flee the malaria. And every summer from the swamps at +twilight swarmed the malignant hosts of female zanzarone; at each hot +dusk they made their meals and did their murders, and in the night, +bellies full of blood, they sang back to their marshes, to marry and +lay eggs and hatch out thousands more of their kind. + +In the summer of 1900 Battista Grassi went to the plain of Capaccio. +The hot days were just beginning, the anopheles were on the march. In +the windows and on the doors of ten little houses of station-masters +and employees of the railroad Grassi put up wire screens, so +fine-meshed and so perfect that the slickest and the slightest of +the zanzarone could not slip through them. Then Grassi, armed with +authority from the officials of the railroad, supplied with money +by the Queen of Italy, became a task-master, a Pharaoh with lashes. +One hundred and twelve souls--railroad men and their families--became +the experimental animals of Battista Grassi and had to be careful to +do as he told them. They had to stay indoors in the beautiful but +dangerous twilight. Careless of death--especially unseen death--as +all healthy human beings are careless, these one hundred and twelve +Italians had to take precautions, to avoid the stabs of mosquitoes. +Grassi had the devil of a time with them. Grassi scolded them. Grassi +kept them inside those screens by giving them prizes of money. Grassi +set them an indignant example by coming down to Albanella, most +deadly place of all, and sleeping two nights a week behind those +screens. + +All around those screen-protected station houses the zanzarone +swarmed in humming thousands--it was a frightful year for mosquitoes. +Into the _un-screened_ neighboring station houses (there were four +hundred and fifteen wretches living in those houses), the zanzarone +swooped and sought their prey. Almost to a man, woman, and child, +those four hundred and fifteen men, women and children fell sick with +the malaria. + +And of those one hundred and twelve prisoners behind the screens at +night? They were rained on during the day, they breathed that air +that for a thousand years the wisest men were sure was the cause of +malaria, they fell asleep at twilight, they did all of the things +the most eminent physicians had always said it was dangerous to do, +but in the dangerous evenings they stayed behind screens--and only +five of them got the malaria during all that summer. Mild cases these +were, too, maybe only relapses from the year before, said Grassi. + +“In the so-much-feared station of Albanella, from which for years so +many coffins had been carried, one could live as healthily as in the +healthiest spot in Italy!” cried Grassi. + + + VIII + +Such was the fight of Ronald Ross and Battista Grassi against the +assassins of the red blood corpuscles, the sappers of vigorous +life, the destroyer of men, the chief scourge of the lands of the +South--the microbe of malaria. There were aftermaths of this fight, +some of them too long to tell, and some too painful. There were good +aftermaths and bad ones. There are fertile fields now, and healthy +babies, in Italy and Africa and India and America, where once the hum +of the anopheles brought thin blood and chattering teeth, brought +desolate land and death. + +There is the Panama Canal.... + +Then there is Sir Ronald Ross, who was--as once he hoped and +dreamed--given enthusiastic banquets. + +There is Ronald Ross who got the Nobel Prize of seven thousand eight +hundred and eighty pounds sterling for his discovery of how the gray +mosquito carries malaria to birds.... + +There is Battista Grassi who didn’t get the Nobel Prize, and is now +unknown, except in Italy, where they huzzahed for him and made him a +Senator (he never missed a meeting of that Senate to within a year of +his death). + +All these are, for the most part, good, even if some of them are +slightly ironical aftermaths. + +Then there is Ronald Ross, who had learned the hard game of searching +while he made his discovery about the gray mosquito--you would say +his best years of work were just beginning--there is Ronald Ross, +insinuating Grassi was a thief, hinting that Grassi was a charlatan, +saying Grassi had added almost nothing to the proof that mosquitoes +carry malaria to men! + +There was Grassi--justifiably purple with indignation, writing +violent papers in reply.... You cannot blame him! But why will such +searchers scuffle, when there are so many things left to find? You +would think--of course it would be so in a novel--that they could +have ignored each other, or could have said: “The facts of science +are greater than the little men who find those facts!”--and then have +gone on searching, and saving. + +For the fight has only just begun. The day I finish this tale, it is +twenty-five years after the perfect experiment of Grassi, comes this +news item from Tokio--it is stuck away down in a corner of an inside +page of a newspaper: + +“The population of the Ryukyu Islands, which lie between Japan and +Formosa, is rapidly dying off.... Malaria is blamed principally. In +eight villages of the Yaeyama group ... not a single baby has been +born for the last thirty years. In Nozoko village ... one sick old +woman was the only inhabitant....” + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + WALTER REED + + IN THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE--AND FOR HUMANITY! + + + I + +With yellow fever it was different--there were no brawls about it. + +Everybody is agreed that Walter Reed--head of the Yellow Fever +Commission--was a courteous man and a blameless one, that he was a +mild man and a logical: there is not one particle of doubt he had to +risk human lives; animals simply will not catch yellow fever! + +Then it is certain that the ex-lumberjack, James Carroll, was +perfectly ready to let go his own life to prove Reed’s point, and he +was not too sentimental about the lives of others when _he_ needed +to prove a point--which might and might not be what you would call a +major point. + +All Cubans (who were on the spot and ought to know) are agreed that +those American soldiers who volunteered for the fate of guinea-pigs +were brave beyond imagining. All Americans who were then in Cuba are +sure that those Spanish immigrants who volunteered for the fate of +guinea-pigs were not brave, but money-loving--for didn’t each one of +them get two hundred dollars? + +Of course you might protest that fate hit Jesse Lazear a hard +knock--but it was his own fault: why didn’t he brush that mosquito +off the back of his hand instead of letting her drink her fill? Then, +too, fate has been kind to his memory; the United States Government +named a Battery in Baltimore Harbor in his honor! And that same +government has been more than kind to his wife: the widow Lazear +gets a pension of fifteen hundred dollars a year! You see, there are +no arguments--and that makes it fun to tell this story of yellow +fever. And aside from the pleasure, it has to be told: this history +is absolutely necessary to the book of Microbe Hunters. It vindicates +Pasteur! At last Pasteur, from his handsome tomb in that basement in +Paris, can tell the world: “I told you so!” Because, in 1926, there +is hardly enough of the poison of yellow fever left in the world to +put on the points of six pins; in a few years there may not be a +single speck of that virus left on earth--it will be as completely +extinct as the dinosaurs--unless there is a catch in the fine +gruesome experiments of Reed and his Spanish immigrants and American +soldiers.... + +It was a grand coöperative fight, that scotching of the yellow jack. +It was fought by a strange crew, and the fight was begun by a curious +old man, with enviable mutton chop whiskers--his name was Doctor +Carlos Finlay--who made an amazingly right guess, who was a terrible +muddler at experiments, who was considered by all good Cubans and +wise doctors to be a Theorizing Old Fool. What a crazy crank is +Finlay, said everybody. + +For everybody knew just how to fight that most panic-striking plague, +yellow fever; everybody had a different idea of just how to combat +it. You should fumigate silks and satins and possessions of folks +before they _left_ yellow fever towns--no! that is not enough: you +should burn them. You should bury, burn, and utterly destroy these +silks and satins and possessions before they _come into_ yellow fever +towns. It was wise not to shake hands with friends whose families +were dying of yellow fever; it was perfectly safe to shake hands +with them. It was best to burn down houses where yellow fever had +lurked--no! it was enough to smoke them out with sulphur. But there +was one thing nearly everybody in North, Central, and South America +had been agreed upon for nearly two hundred years, and that was +this: when folks of a town began to turn yellow and hiccup and vomit +black, by scores, by hundreds, every day--the only thing to do was +to get up and get out of that town. Because the yellow murderer had +a way of crawling through walls and slithering along the ground and +popping around corners--it could even pass through fires!--it could +die and rise from the dead, that yellow murderer; and after everybody +(including the very best physicians) had fought it by doing as many +contrary things as they could think of as frantically as they could +do them--the yellow jack kept on killing, until suddenly it got fed +up with killing. In North America that always came with the frosts in +the fall.... + +This was the state of scientific knowledge about yellow fever up +to the year 1900. But from between his mutton chop whiskers Carlos +Finlay of Habana howled in a scornful wilderness: “You are all +wrong--yellow fever is caused by a mosquito!” + + + II + +There was a bad state of affairs in San Cristobal de Habana in Cuba +in 1900. The yellow jack had killed thousands more American soldiers +than the bullets of the Spaniards had killed. And it wasn’t like most +diseases, which considerately pounce upon poor dirty people--it had +killed more than one-third of the officers of General Leonard Wood’s +staff, and staff officers--as all soldiers know--are the cleanest +of all officers and the best protected. General Wood had thundered +orders; Habana had been scrubbed; happy dirty Cubans had been made +into unhappy clean Cubans--“No stone had been left unturned”--in +vain! There was more yellow fever in Habana than there had been in +twenty years! + +Cablegrams from Habana to Washington and on June 25th of 1900 Major +Walter Reed came to Quemados in Cuba with orders to “give special +attention to questions relating to the cause and prevention of yellow +fever.” It was a big order. Considering who the man Walter Reed was, +it was altogether too big an order. Pasteur had tried it! Of course, +in certain ways--though you would say they had nothing to do with +hunting microbes--Walter Reed had qualifications. He was the best of +soldiers; fourteen years and more he had served on the western plains +and mountains; he had been a brave angel flying through blizzards to +the bedsides of sick settlers--he had shunned the dangers of beer +and bottle-pool in the officers’ mess and resisted the seductions +of alcoholic nights at draw poker. He had a strong moral nature. +He was gentle. But it will take a genius to dig out this microbe +of the yellow jack, you say--and are geniuses gentle? Just the +same, you will see that this job needed particularly a strong moral +nature, and then, besides, since 1891 Walter Reed _had_ been doing +a bit of microbe hunting. He had done some odd jobs of searching at +the very best medical school under the most eminent professor of +microbe hunting in America--and that professor had known Robert Koch, +intimately. + +So Walter Reed came to Quemados, and as he went into the yellow fever +hospital there, more than enough young American soldiers passed +him, going out, on their backs, feet first.... There were going to +be plenty of cases to work on all right--fatal cases! Dr. James +Carroll was with Walter Reed, and he was not what you would call +gentle, but you will see in a moment what a soldier-searcher James +Carroll was. And Reed found Jesse Lazear waiting for him--Lazear was +a European-trained microbe hunter, aged thirty-four, with a wife and +two babies in the States, and with doom in his eyes. Finally there +was Aristides Agramonte (who was a Cuban)--it was to be his job to +cut up the dead bodies, and very well he did that job, though he +never became famous because he had had yellow fever already and so +ran no risks. These four were the Yellow Fever Commission. + +The first thing the Commission did was to fail to find any microbe +whatever in the first eighteen cases of yellow fever that they probed +into. There were many severe cases in those eighteen; there were +four of those eighteen cases who died; there was not one of those +eighteen cases that they didn’t claw through from stem to gudgeon, +so to speak, drawing blood, making cultures, cutting up the dead +ones, making endless careful cultures--and not one bacillus did they +find. All the time--it was July and the very worst time for yellow +fever--the soldiers were coming out of the hospital of Las Animas +feet first. The Commission failed absolutely to find any cause, but +that failure put them on the right track. That is one of the humors +of microbe hunting--the way men make their finds! Theobald Smith +found out about those ticks because he had faith in certain farmers; +Ronald Ross found out the doings of those gray mosquitoes because +Patrick Manson told him to; Grassi discovered the zanzarone carrying +malaria because he was patriotic. And now Walter Reed had failed in +the very first part--and anybody would say it was the most important +part--of his work. What to do? There was nothing to do. And so Reed +had time to hear the voice of that Theorizing Old Fool, Dr. Carlos +Finlay, of Habana, shouting: “Yellow fever is caused by _a mosquito_!” + +The Commission went to call on Dr. Finlay, and that old +gentleman--everybody had laughed at him, nobody had listened to +him--was very glad to explain his fool theory to the Commission. +He told them the ingenious but vague reasons why he thought it was +mosquitoes carried yellow fever; he showed them records of those +awful experiments, which would convince nobody; he gave them some +little black eggs shaped like cigars and said: “Those are the eggs +of the criminal!” And Walter Reed took those eggs, and gave them +to Lazear, who had been in Italy and knew a thing or two about +mosquitoes, and Lazear put the eggs into a warm place to hatch into +wigglers, which presently wiggled themselves into extremely pretty +mosquitoes, with silver markings on their backs--markings that looked +like a lyre. Now Walter Reed had failed, but you have to give him +credit for being a sharp-eyed man with plenty of common sense--and +then too, as you will see, he was extraordinarily lucky. While he was +failing to find bacilli, even in the dreadful cases, with bloodshot +eyes and chests yellow as gold, with hiccoughs and with those +prophetic retchings--while he was failing, Walter Reed noticed that +the nurses who handled those cases, were soiled by those cases, never +got yellow fever! They were non-immunes too, those nurses, but they +didn’t get yellow fever. + +“If this disease were caused by bacillus, like cholera, or plague, +some of those nurses certainly should get it,” argued Walter Reed to +his Commission. + +Then all kinds of strange tricks of yellow fever struck Walter Reed. +He watched cases of the disease pop up most weirdly in Quemados. A +man in a house in 102 Real Street came down with it; then it jumped +around the corner to 20 General Lee Street, and from there it hopped +across the road--and not one of these families had anything to do +with each other, hadn’t seen each other, even! + +“That smells like something carrying the disease through the air +to those houses,” said Reed. There were various other exceedingly +strange things about yellow fever--they had been discovered by an +American, Carter. A man came down with yellow fever in a house. For +two or three weeks nothing more happened--the man might die, he might +have got better and gone away, but at the end of that two weeks, +bang! a bunch of other cases broke out in that house. “That two +weeks makes it look as if the virus were taking time to grow in some +insect,” said Reed, to his Commission who thought it was silly, but +they were soldiers. + +“So we will try Finlay’s notion about mosquitoes,” said Walter Reed, +for all of the just mentioned reasons, but particularly because there +was nothing else for the Commission to do. + +That was easy to say, but how to go on with it? Everybody knew +perfectly well that you cannot give yellow fever to any animal--not +even to a monkey or an ape. To make any kind of experiment to prove +mosquitoes carry yellow fever you _must_ have experimental animals, +and that meant nothing more nor less than human animals. But give +human beings yellow fever! In some epidemics--there were records of +them!--eighty-five men out of a hundred died of it, in some fifty +out of every hundred--almost never less than twenty out of every +hundred. It would be murder! But that is where the strong moral +nature of Walter Reed came to help him. Here was a blameless man, a +Christian man, and a man--though he was mild--who was mad to help his +fellow men. And if you could _prove_ that yellow fever was _only_ +carried by mosquitoes.... + +So, on one hot night after a day among dying men at Pinar del Rio, he +faced his Commission: “If the members of the Commission take the risk +first--if they let themselves be bitten by mosquitoes that have fed +on yellow fever cases, that will set an example to American soldiers, +and then--” Reed looked at Lazear, and then at James Carroll. + +“I am ready to take a bite,” said Jesse Lazear, who had a wife and +two small children. + +“You can count on me, sir,” said James Carroll, whose total +assets were his searcher’s brain, and his miserable pay as an +assistant-surgeon in the army. (His liabilities were a wife and five +children.) + + + III + +Then Walter Reed (he had been called home to Washington to make a +report on work done in the Spanish War) gave elaborate instructions +to Carroll and Lazear and Agramonte. They were secret instructions, +and savage instructions, when you consider the mild man he was. +It was an immoral business--it was a breach of discipline in its +way, for Walter Reed then had no permission from the high military +authorities to start it. So Reed left for Washington, and Lazear and +Carroll set off on the wildest, most daring journey any two microbe +hunters had ever taken. Lazear? You could not see the doom in his +eyes--the gleam of the searcher outshone it. Carroll? That was a +soldier who cared no damn for death or courts-martial--Carroll was a +microbe hunter of the great line.... + +Lazear went down between the rows of beds on which lay men, doomed +men with faces yellow as the leaves of autumn, delirious men +with bloodshot eyes. He bit those men with his silver-striped +she-mosquitoes; carefully he carried these blood-filled beasts back +to their glass homes, in which were little saucers of water and +little lumps of sugar. Here the she-mosquitoes digested their meal of +yellow fever blood, and buzzed a little, and waited for the test. + +“We should remember malaria,” Reed had told Lazear and Carroll. “In +that disease it takes two or three weeks for the mosquito to become +dangerous--maybe it’s the same here.” + +But look at the bold face of Jesse Lazear, and tell me if that was a +patient man! Not he. Somehow he collected seven volunteers, who so +far as I can find have remained nameless, since the test was done +in dark secrecy. To these seven men--whom for all I know he may +have shanghaied--but first of all to himself, Lazear applied those +mosquitoes who a few days before had fed on men who now were dead.... + +But alas, they all stayed fit as fiddles, and that discouraged Lazear. + +But there was James Carroll. For years he had been the right-hand man +of Walter Reed. He had come into the army as a buck private and had +been a corporal and a sergeant for years--obeying orders was burned +into his very bones--and Major Reed had said: “Try mosquitoes!” What +is more, what Major Reed thought was right, James Carroll thought +was right, too, and Major Reed thought there was something in the +notion of that Old Theorizing Fool. But in the army, thoughts are +secondary--Major Reed had left them saying: “Try mosquitoes!” + +So James Carroll reminded the discouraged Lazear: “I am ready!” +He told Lazear to bring out the most dangerous mosquito in his +collection--not one that had bitten only a single case, but he +must use a mosquito that had bitten many cases--and they must be +bad cases--of yellow fever. That mosquito must be as dangerous as +possible! On the twenty-seventh of August, Jesse Lazear picked out +what he thought to be his champion mosquito, and this creature, which +had fed on four cases of yellow fever, two of them severe ones, +settled down on the arm of James Carroll. + +That soldier watched her while she felt around with her stinger.... +What did he think as he watched her swell into a bright balloon with +his blood? Nobody knows. But he could think, what everybody knows: “I +am forty-six years old, and in yellow fever the older the fewer--get +better.” He was forty-six years old. He had a wife and five children, +but that evening James Carroll wrote to Walter Reed: + +“If there is anything in the mosquito theory, I should get a good +dose of yellow fever!” He did. + +Two days later he felt tired and didn’t want to visit patients in +the yellow fever ward. Two days after that he was really sick: “I +must have malaria!” he cried, and went to the laboratory under his +own power, to squint at his own blood under the microscope. But no +malaria. That night his eyes were bloodshot, his face a dusky red. +The next morning Lazear packed Carroll off to the yellow fever wards, +and there he lay, near to death for days and days.... There was one +minute when he thought his heart had stopped ... and that, as you +will see, was a bad minute for Assistant-Surgeon Carroll. + +He always said those were the proudest days of his life. “I was the +first case to come down with yellow fever after the experimental bite +of a mosquito!” said Carroll. + +Then there was that American private soldier they called +“X.Y.”--these outlaw searchers called him “X.Y.,” though he was +really William Dean, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. While James Carroll +was having his first headaches, they bit this X.Y. with four +mosquitoes--the one that nearly killed Carroll, and then three other +silver-striped beauties besides, who had fed on six men that were +fairly sick, and four men that were very sick with yellow fever and +two men that died. + +Now everything was fine with the experiments of Quemados. Eight men +had been bitten, it is true, and were fit as fiddles--but the last +two, James Carroll and X.Y., they were real experimental guinea-pigs, +those two, they had both got yellow fever--and James Carroll’s +heart had nearly stopped, but now they were both getting better, and +Carroll was on the heights, writing to Walter Reed, waiting proudly +for his chief to come back--to show him the records. Only Jesse +Lazear was a little cynical about these two cases, because Lazear +was a fine experimenter, a tight one, a man who had to have every +condition just so, like a real searcher--and, thought Lazear, “It +is too bad seeing the nerve of Carroll and X.Y.--but both of them +exposed themselves in dangerous zones once or twice, before they came +down. It wasn’t an absolutely perfect experiment--it isn’t sure that +_my_ mosquitoes gave them yellow fever!” So Lazear was skeptical, +but orders were orders, and every afternoon he went to those rows +of beds at Las Animas, in the room with the faint strange smell, +and here he turned his test-tubes upside-down on the arms of boys +with bloodshot eyes, and let his she-mosquitoes suck their fill. But +September 13th was a bad day, it was an unlucky day for Jesse Lazear, +for while he was at this silly job of feeding his mosquitoes, a stray +mosquito settled down on the back of his hand. “Oh! that’s nothing!” +he thought. “That wouldn’t be the right kind of mosquito anyway!” he +muttered, and he let the mosquito drink her fill--though, mind you, +she was a stray beast that lived in this ward where men were dying! + +That was September 13th. + +“On the evening of September 18th ... Dr. Lazear complained of +feeling out of sorts, and had a chill at 8 P.M.,” says a hospital +record of Las Animas.... + +“September 19: Twelve o’clock noon,” goes on that laconic record, +“temperature 102.4 degrees, pulse 112. Eyes injected, face suffused. +[That means bloodshot and red] ... 6 P.M. temperature 103.8 degrees, +pulse, 106. Jaundice appeared on the third day. The subsequent +history of this case was one of progressive and fatal yellow fever” +[and the record softens a little], “the death of our lamented +colleague having occurred on the evening of September 25, 1900.” + + + IV + +Then Reed came back to Cuba, and Carroll met him with enthusiasm, +and Walter Reed was sad for Lazear, but very happy about those two +successful cases of Carroll and X.Y.--and then, and then (brushing +aside tears for Lazear) even in that there was the Hand of God, there +was something for Science: “As Dr. Lazear was bitten by a mosquito +while present in the wards of a yellow fever hospital,” wrote Walter +Reed, “one must, at least, admit the possibility of this insect’s +contamination by a previous bite of a yellow fever patient. This case +of accidental infection therefore _cannot fail to be of interest_....” + +“Now it is my turn to take the bite!” said Walter Reed, but he was +fifty years old, and they persuaded him not to. “But we _must_ prove +it!” he insisted, so gently, that, hearing his musical voice and +looking at his chin that did not stick out like the chin of a he-man, +you might think Walter Reed was wavering (after all, here was one man +dead out of three). + +“But we must prove it,” said that soft voice, and Reed went to +General Leonard Wood, and told him the exciting events that had +happened. Who could be less of a mollycoddle than this Wood? And he +gave Walter Reed permission to go as far as he liked. He gave him +money to build a camp of seven tents and two little houses--to say +nothing of a flagpole--but what was best of all Wood gave him money +to buy men, who would get handsomely paid for taking a sure one +chance out of five of never having a chance to spend that money! So +Walter Reed said: “Thank you, General,” and one mile from Quemados +they pitched seven tents and raised a flagpole, and flew an American +flag and called that place Camp Lazear (three cheers for Lazear!), +and you will see what glorious things occurred there. + +Now, nothing is more sure than this: that every man of the great line +of microbe hunters is different from every other man of them, but +every man Jack of them has one thing in common: they are original. +They were all original, excepting Walter Reed--whom you cannot say +would be shot for his originality, seeing that this business of +mosquitoes and various bugs and ticks carrying diseases was very much +in the air in those last ten years of the nineteenth century. It was +natural for a man to think of that! But he was by all odds the most +moral of the great line of microbe hunters--aside from being a very +thorough clean-cut experimenter--and now that Walter Reed’s moral +nature told him: “You must kill men to save them!” he set out to plan +a series of air-tight tests--never was there a good man who thought +of more hellish and dastardly tests! + +And he was exact. Every man about to be bit by a mosquito must +stay locked up for days and days and weeks, in that sunbaked Camp +Lazear--to keep him away from all danger of accidental contact with +yellow fever. There would be no catch in these experiments! And then +Walter Reed let it be known, to the American soldiers in Cuba, that +there was another war on, a war for the saving of men--were there +men who would volunteer? Before the ink was dry on the announcements +Private Kissenger of Ohio stepped into his office, and with him came +John J. Moran, who wasn’t even a soldier--he was a civilian clerk in +the office of General Fitzhugh Lee. “You can try it on us, sir!” they +told him. + +Walter Reed was a thoroughly conscientious man. “But, men, do you +realize the danger?” And he told them of the headaches and the +hiccups and the black vomit--and he told them of fearful epidemics in +which not a man had lived to carry news or tell the horrors.... + +“We know,” said Private Kissenger and John J. Moran of Ohio, “we +volunteer solely for the cause of humanity and in the interest of +science.” + +Then Walter Reed told them of the generosity of General Wood. A +handsome sum of money they would get--two hundred, maybe three +hundred dollars, if the silver-striped she-mosquitoes did things to +them that would give them one chance out of five not to spend that +money. + +“The one condition on which we volunteer, sir,” said Private +Kissenger and civilian clerk John J. Moran of Ohio, “is that we get +no compensation for it.” + +To the tip of his cap went the hand of Walter Reed (who was a +major): “Gentlemen, I salute you!” And that day Kissenger and John +J. Moran went into the preparatory quarantine, that would make them +first-class, unquestionable guinea-pigs, above suspicion and beyond +reproach. On the 5th of December Kissenger furnished nice full meals +for five mosquitoes--two of them had bitten fatal cases fifteen days +and nineteen days before. Presto! Five days later he had the devil of +a backache, two days more and he was turning yellow--it was a perfect +case, and in his quarters Walter Reed thanked God, for Kissenger got +better! Then great days came to Reed and Carroll and Agramonte--for, +if they weren’t exactly overrun with young Americans who were ready +to throw away their lives in the interest of science--and for +humanity--still there were ignorant people, just come to Cuba from +Spain, who could very well use two hundred dollars. There were five +of these mercenary fellows--whom I shall simply have to call “Spanish +immigrants,” or I could call them Man 1, 2, 3, and 4--just as microbe +hunters often mark animals: “Rabbit 1, 2, 3, and 4--” anyway they +were bitten, carefully, by mosquitoes who, when you take averages, +were much more dangerous than machine gun bullets. They earned their +two hundred dollars--for four out of five of them had nice typical +(doctors would look scientific and call them beautiful) cases of +yellow fever! It was a triumph! It was sure! Not one of these men +had been anywhere near yellow fever--like so many mice they had +been kept in their screened tents at Quemados. If they hadn’t been +ignorant immigrants--hardly more intelligent than animals, you might +say--they might have been bored, because nothing had happened to them +excepting--the stabs of silver-striped she-mosquitoes.... + +“Rejoice with me, sweetheart,” Walter Reed wrote to his wife, “as, +aside from the antitoxin of diphtheria and Koch’s discovery of the +tubercle bacillus, it will be regarded as the most important piece of +work, scientifically, during the nineteenth century....” + +Walter Reed was so thorough that you can call him original, as +original as any of the microbe hunters of the great line--for he was +certainly original in his thoroughness. He might have called it a +day--you would swear he was tempted to call it a day: eight men had +got yellow fever from mosquito bites, and only one--what amazing +luck!--had died. + +“But can yellow fever be carried in any other way?” asked Reed. + +Everybody believed that clothing and bedding and possessions of +yellow fever victims were deadly--millions of dollars worth of +clothing and bedding had been destroyed; the Surgeon-General believed +it; every eminent physician in America, North, South and Central +(excepting that old fool Finlay) believed it. “But can it?” asked +Reed, and while he was being so joyfully successful with Kissenger +and Spaniards 1, 2, 3, and 4, carpenters came, and built two ugly +little houses in Camp Lazear. House No. 1 was the nastier of these +two little houses. It was fourteen feet by twenty, it had two doors +cleverly arranged one back of the other so no mosquitoes could get +into it, it had two windows looking south--they were on the same side +as the door, so no draft could blow through that little house. Then +it was furnished with a nice stove, to keep the temperature well +above ninety, and there were tubs of water in the house--to keep the +air as chokey as the hold of a ship in the tropics. So you see it +was an uninhabitable little house--under the best of conditions--but +now, on the thirtieth of November in 1900, sweating soldiers carried +several tightly nailed suspicious-looking boxes, that came from the +yellow fever wards of Las Animas--to make this house altogether +cursed.... + +That night, of the thirtieth of November, Walter Reed and James +Carroll were the witnesses of a miracle of bravery, for into this +House No. 1 walked a young American doctor named Cooke, and two +American soldiers, whose names--where are their monuments?--were Folk +and Jernegan. + +Those three men opened the tightly nailed, suspicious-looking boxes. +They opened those boxes inside that house, in air already too sticky +for proper breathing. + +Phew! There were cursings, there were holdings of noses. + +But they went on opening those boxes, and out of them Cooke and Folk +and Jernegan took pillows, soiled with the black vomit of men dead of +yellow fever; out of them they took sheets and blankets, dirty with +the discharges of dying men past helping themselves. They beat those +pillows and shook those sheets and blankets--“you must see the yellow +fever poison is well spread around that room!” Walter Reed had told +them. Then Cooke and Folk and Jernegan made up their little army cots +with those pillows and blankets and sheets. They undressed. They lay +down on those filthy beds. They tried to sleep--in that room fouler +than the dankest of medieval dungeons.... And Walter Reed and James +Carroll guarded that little house, so tenderly, to see no mosquito +got into it, and Folk and Cooke and Jernegan had the very best of +food, you may be sure.... + +Night after night those three lay in that house, wondering perhaps +about the welfare of the souls of their predecessors in those sheets +and blankets. They lay there, wondering whether anything else besides +mosquitoes (though mosquitoes hadn’t even been proved to carry it +then!) carried yellow fever.... Then Walter Reed, who was a moral man +and a thorough man, and James Carroll, who was a grim man, came to +make their test a little more thorough. More boxes came to them from +Las Animas--and when Cooke and Jernegan and Folk unpacked them, they +had to rush out of their little house, it was so dreadful. + +But they went back in, and they went to sleep.... + +For twenty nights--where are their monuments?--these three men stayed +there, and then they were quarantined in a nice airy tent, to wait +for their attack of yellow fever. But they gained weight. They +felt fit as fiddles. They made vast jokes about their dirty house +and their perilous sheets and blankets. They were happy as so many +schoolboys when they heard Kissenger and those Spaniards (1, 2, 3, +and 4) had really got the yellow jack after the mosquito bites. What +a marvelous proof, you will say, but what a dastardly experiment--but +for the insanely scientific Walter Reed that most dastardly +experiment was not marvelous enough! Three more American boys went +in there, and for twenty nights slept in new unspeakable sheets and +blankets--with this little refinement of the experiment: they slept +in the very pajamas in which yellow fever victims had died. And then +for twenty more nights three other American lads went into House No. +1, and slept that way--with this additional little refinement of the +experiment: they slept on pillows covered with towels soaked with the +blood of men whom the yellow jack had killed. + +But they all stayed fit as fiddles! Not a soul of these nine men +had so much as a touch of yellow fever! How wonderful is science, +thought Walter Reed. “So,” he wrote, “the bubble of the belief that +clothing can transmit yellow fever was pricked by the first touch of +human experimentation.” Walter Reed was right. It is true, science is +wonderful. But science is cruel, microbe hunting can be heartless, +and that relentless devil that was the experimenter in Walter Reed +kept asking: “But is your experiment really sound?” None of those +men who slept in House No. 1 got yellow fever, that is true--but +how do you know they were _susceptible_ to yellow fever? Maybe they +were naturally immune! Then Reed and Carroll, who had already asked +as much of Folk and Jernegan as any captain has ever asked of any +soldier--so it was that Reed and Carroll now shot virulent yellow +fever blood under the skin of Jernegan, so it was they bit Folk with +mosquitoes who had fed on fatal cases of yellow fever. They both came +down with wracking pains and flushed faces and bloodshot eyes. They +both came through their Valley of the Shadow. “Thank God,” murmured +Reed--but especially Walter Reed thanked God he had proved those two +boys were not immune during those twenty hot stinking nights in House +No. 1. + +For these deeds Warren Gladsden Jernegan and Levi E. Folk were +generously rewarded with a purse of three hundred dollars--which in +those days was a lot of money. + + + V + +While these tests were going on John J. Moran, that civilian clerk +from Ohio, whom Walter Reed had paid the honor of a salute, was a +very disappointed man. He had absolutely refused to be paid; he +had volunteered in “the interest of science and for the cause of +humanity,” he had been bitten by those silver-striped Stegomyia +mosquitoes (the bug experts just then thought this was the proper +name for that mosquito)--he had been stabbed several times by several +choice poisonous ones, but he hadn’t come down with yellow fever, +alas, he stayed fit as a fiddle. What to do with John J. Moran? + +“I have it!” said Walter Reed. “This to do with John J. Moran!” + +So there was built, close by that detestable little House No. 1, +another little house, called House No. 2. That was a comfortable +house! It had windows on the side opposite to its door, so that +a fine trade wind played through it. It was cool. It had a nice +clean cot in it, with steam-disinfected bedding. It would have +been an excellent house for a consumptive to get better in. It was +a thoroughly sanitary little house. Half way across the inside of +it was a screen, from top to bottom, a fine-meshed screen that the +tiniest mosquito found it impossible to fly through. At 12 o’clock +noon on the twenty-first of December in 1900, this John J. Moran (who +was a hog for these tests) “clad only in a nightshirt and fresh from +a bath” walked into this healthy little house. Five minutes before +Reed and Carroll had opened a glass jar in that room, and out of that +jar flew fifteen she-mosquitoes, thirsty for blood, whining for a +meal of blood, and each and every one of those fifteen mosquitoes, +had fed, on various days before--on the blood of yellow-faced boys in +the hospital of Las Animas. + +Clad only in a nightshirt and fresh from a bath, Moran--who knows of +him now?--walked into the healthy little room and lay down on his +clean cot. In a minute that damned buzzing started round his head, in +two minutes he was bitten, in the thirty minutes he lay there he was +stabbed seven times--without even the satisfaction of smashing those +mosquitoes. You remember Mr. Sola, whom Grassi tortured--he probably +had his worried moments--but all Mr. Sola had to look forward to was +a little attack of malaria and a good dose of curative quinine to get +him out of it. But Moran? But John J. Moran was a hog for such tests! +He was back there at four-thirty the same afternoon, to be bitten +again, and once more the next day--to satisfy the rest of the hungry +she-mosquitoes who hadn’t found him the first day. In the other +room of this house, with only a fine-meshed but perfect wire screen +between them and Moran--and the mosquitoes--lay two other boys, and +those two boys slept in that house safely for eighteen nights. + +But Moran? + +On Christmas morning of 1900, there was a fine present waiting for +him--in his head, how that thumped--in his eyes, how red they were +and how the light hurt them--in his bones, how tired they were! A +nasty knock those mosquitoes had hit him and he came within a hair of +dying but (thank God! murmured Walter Reed) he was saved, this Moran, +to live the rest of his life in an obscurity he didn’t deserve. So +Moran had his wish--in the interest of science, and for humanity! +So he, with Folk and Jernegan and Cooke and all those others proved +that the dirty pest-hole of a house (with no mosquitoes) was safe; +and that the clean house (but with mosquitoes) was dangerous, so +dangerous! So at last Walter Reed had every answer to his diabolical +questions, and he wrote, in that old-fashioned prose of his: “The +essential factor in the infection of a building with yellow fever is +the presence therein of mosquitoes that have bitten cases of yellow +fever.” + +It was so simple. It was true. That was all. That was that. And +Walter Reed wrote to his wife: + +“The prayer that has been mine for twenty years, that I might be +permitted in some way or at some time to do something to alleviate +human suffering has been granted! A thousand Happy New Years.... +Hark, there go the twenty-four buglers in concert, all sounding taps +for the old year!” + +They were sounding taps, were those buglers, for the searcher that +was Jesse Lazear, and for the scourge of yellow fever that could +now be wiped from the earth. They were blowing their bugles, those +musicians, to celebrate--as you will see--the fate that waited for +that little commission after a too short hour of triumph.... + + + VI + +Then the world came to Habana, and there was acclaim for Walter Reed, +and the customary solemn discussions and doubts and arguments of +the learned men who came. William Crawford Gorgas (who was another +blameless man!) grooming himself for the immortality of Panama, went +into the gutters and cesspools and cisterns of Habana, making horrid +war on the Stegomyia mosquitoes, and in ninety days, Habana had not +a single case of yellow jack--she was free for the first time in two +hundred years. It was magical! But still there came learned doctors, +and solemn bearded physicians, from Europe and America, asking this, +questioning that--and one morning fifteen of these skeptics were in +the mosquito room of the laboratory--oh! they were from Missouri! +“These are remarkable experiments, but the results should be weighed +and considered with reserve ... et cetera!” Then the gauze lid came +off a jar of she-mosquitoes (of course it was by accident) and into +the room, with wicked lustful eyes on those learned scientists the +Stegomyia buzzed. Alas for skepticism! Away went all doubts! From +the room rushed the eminent servants of knowledge! Down went the +screen door with a crash--such was the vehemence of their conviction +that Walter Reed was right. (Though it happened that this particular +jar of mosquitoes was not contaminated.) + +Then William Crawford Gorgas and John Guitéras--he was a great +Cuban authority on yellow jack--they were convinced too by those +experiments at Camp Lazear, and they were full of excellent plans +to put those experiments in practice--fine plans, but rash plans, +alas. “It is remarkable,” said Gorgas and Guitéras, “that these +experimental cases at Camp Lazear didn’t die--they had typical yellow +fever, but they got better, maybe because Reed put them to bed so +quickly.” Then they proceeded to play with fire. “We will give newly +arrived non-immune immigrants yellow fever--a smart attack of it, but +a _safe_ attack of it.” They planned this, when it really was so easy +to wipe out yellow fever simply by warring on the Stegomyia, which +does not breed in secret places, which is a very domestic mosquito! +“And at the same time we can confirm Reed’s results,” thought Gorgas +and Guitéras. + +The immigrants (of course they were very ignorant people) came; the +immigrants listened and were told it was safe; seven immigrants and a +bold young American nurse were bitten by the poisoned Stegomyia. And +of these eight, two immigrants and the bold young American nurse went +out from the hospital, safe from another attack of yellow fever, safe +from all the worries of the world.... They went out, feet first--to +slow music. What a fine searcher was Walter Reed--but what amazing +luck he had, in those experiments at Camp Lazear.... + +There was panic in Habana, and mutterings of the mob--and who +can blame that mob, for human life is sacred. But there was +Assistant-Surgeon James Carroll, unsentimental as an embalmer and +before all else a soldier,--he had just then come back to Habana to +settle certain little academic questions. “We can wipe out yellow +fever now, we have proved just how it gets from man to man--_but +what is it causes yellow fever_?” This is what Reed and Carroll asked +each other, and everybody must admit that it was a purely academic +question, and I ask you: was it worth a human life (even of a Spanish +immigrant) to find the answer? Myself I cannot answer yes or no. +But Reed and Carroll answered yes! Starting out as soldiers obeying +orders, as humanitarians risking their hides to save the lives of +men, they had been bitten by the virus of the search for truth, +cold truth--they were enchanted with the glory that comes from the +discovery of unknown things.... + +They were sure there was no visible bacillus, nor any kind of microbe +that could be seen through the strongest microscope to cause it--they +had looked in the livers of men and the lights of mosquitoes for +such a germ, in vain. But there were other possibilities--magical +possibilities, of a new kind of germ that might be the cause of +yellow fever, an ultra-microbe, too immensely small for the strongest +lens to uncover, revealing its existence only by the murdering of +men with its unseen mysterious poison. That might be the nature +of the germ of yellow fever. Old Friedrich Loeffler--he of the +mustaches--had found such little life making calves sick with +foot-and-mouth disease. And now if Reed and Carroll could show the +microbe of yellow fever belonged to this sub-microscopic world too! + +Walter Reed was busy, so he sent James Carroll to Habana to see, +and here you find James Carroll, intensely annoyed because those +experimental cases of Guitéras had died. Guitéras--do you blame +him?--was in a funk. No, Carroll mightn’t draw blood from yellow +fever patients. Indeed not, Carroll mightn’t even bite them with +mosquitoes. What was most silly, Dr. Guitéras would rather not have +Dr. Carroll make post-mortems on the dead cases--it might enrage the +population of Habana. “You can imagine my disappointment!” wrote +Carroll to Walter Reed, with indignant remarks about the frivolous +fears of ignorant populations. But did those deaths stop him? Not +Carroll! + +By some unexplained sorceries he got hold of some good poisonous +yellow fever blood, and filtered it through a porcelain filter that +was so fine no visible microbe could get through it. The stuff +that came through that filter Carroll shot under the skin of three +non-immunes (history doesn’t tell how he induced them to stand for +it)--and presto! two of them got yellow fever. Hurrah! Yellow fever +was like foot-and-mouth disease then. Its cause was a germ maybe +too little to see, a microbe that could sneak through fine-grained +porcelain.[1] + +Reed wrote to stop him: those deaths were too much--but Carroll +simply _must_ get some contaminated mosquitoes, and by some bold +devilry he did get them, and heigho for this final most horrible +experiment! + +“In my own case,” said Carroll, “produced by the bite of a single +mosquito, a fatal result was looked for during several days. I became +so firmly convinced that the severity of the attack depended upon the +susceptibility of an individual rather than on the number of bites he +had got, that on October 9, 1901, at Habana, _I purposely applied to +a non-immune eight mosquitoes (all I had) that had been contaminated +eighteen days before. The attack that followed was a mild one_,” +ended Carroll, triumphantly. But what if that patient had died--as +God knows he might have? + +Such was the strangest of that strange crew, and looking back +on this his boldness, in despite of his fanatic prying into +dangerous mysteries, my hat is off to this bald-headed bespectacled +ex-lumberjack searcher. He himself was the first to be hit, it was +Carroll gave the example to those American soldiers, to that civilian +clerk, and to those Spanish immigrants--1, 2, 3, and 4--and to all +the rest of the unknown numbers of them. And do you remember, in the +middle of his attack of yellow fever, that moment when his heart +seemed to stop? In 1907, six years after, Carroll’s heart stopped for +good.... + + + VII + +And in 1902, five years before that, Walter Reed, in the prime of +his life, but tired, so tired, died--just as the applause of nations +grew thunderous--of appendicitis. “I am leaving my wife and daughter +so little....” said Walter Reed to his friend Kean, just before the +ether cone went down over his face. “So little....” he mumbled as +the ether let him down into his last dreams. But let us be proud of +our nation, and proud of our Congress--for they voted Mrs. Emilie +Laurence Reed, wife of the man who has saved the world no one knows +what millions of dollars--let us say nothing of lives--they voted +her a handsome pension, of fifteen hundred dollars a year! And the +same for the widow of Lazear, and the same for the widow of James +Carroll--and surely that was handsome for them, because, as one +committee of senators quaintly said: “They can still help themselves.” + +But what of Private Kissenger, of Ohio, who stood that test, in the +interest of science--and for humanity? He didn’t die from yellow +fever. And they prevailed upon him, at last, to accept one hundred +and fifteen dollars and a gold watch, which was presented to him in +the presence of the officers and men of Columbia barracks. He didn’t +die--but what was worse, as the yellow fever germs went out of him, +a paralysis crept into him--now he sits, counting the hours on his +gold watch. But what luck! At the last account he had a good wife to +support him by taking in washing. + +And what of the others? Time is too short to deal with those +others--and besides I do not know what has become of them. So it is +that this strange crew has made rendezvous, each one with his special +and particular fate--this strange crew who put the capstone on that +most marvelous ten years of the microbe hunters, that crew who worked +together so that now, in 1926, there is hardly enough of the poison +of yellow fever left in the world to put on the points of six pins.... + +So it is that the good death fighter, David Bruce, should eat his +words: “It is impossible, at present, to experiment with human +beings.” + +FOOTNOTE: + +1 A spiral-shaped microbe has recently been brought forward as the +cause of yellow fever, but this discovery has not yet been confirmed. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + PAUL EHRLICH + + THE MAGIC BULLET + + + I + +Two hundred and fifty years ago, Antony Leeuwenhoek, who was a +matter-of-fact man, looked through a magic eye, saw microbes, and so +began this history. He would certainly have snorted a contemptuous +Dutch sort of snort at anybody who called his microscope a magic eye. + +Now Paul Ehrlich--who brings this history to the happy end necessary +to all serious histories--was a gay man. He smoked twenty-five cigars +a day; he was fond of drinking a seidel of beer (publicly) with his +old laboratory servant and many seidels of beer with German, English +and American colleagues; a modern man, there was still something +medieval about him for he said: “We must learn to shoot microbes with +magic bullets.” He was laughed at for saying that, and his enemies +cartooned him under the name “Doktor Phantasus.” + +But he did make a magic bullet! Alchemist that he was, he did +something more outlandish than that, for he changed a drug that is +the favorite poison of murderers into a saver of the lives of men. +Out of arsenic he concocted a deliverer from the scourge of that pale +corkscrew microbe whose attack is the reward of sin, whose bite is +the cause of syphilis, the ill of the loathsome name. Paul Ehrlich +had a most weird and wrong-headed and unscientific imagination: that +helped him to make microbe hunters turn another corner, though alas, +there have been few of them who have known what to do when they got +around that corner, which is why this history has to stop with Paul +Ehrlich. + +Of course, it is sure as the sun following the dawn of to-morrow, +that the high deeds of the microbe hunters have not come to an end; +there will be others to fashion magic bullets. And they will be +waggish men and original, like Paul Ehrlich, for it is not from a +mere combination of incessant work and magnificent laboratories that +such marvelous cures are to be got.... To-day? Well, to-day there are +no microbe hunters who look you solemnly in the eye and tell you that +two plus two makes five. Paul Ehrlich was that kind of a man. Born +in March of 1854 in Silesia in Germany, he went to the gymnasium at +Breslau, and his teacher of literature ordered him to write an essay, +subject: “Life is a Dream.” + +“Life rests on normal oxidations,” wrote that bright young Jew, +Paul Ehrlich. “Dreams are an activity of the brain and the +activities of the brain are only oxidations ... dreams are a sort of +phosphorescence of the brain!” + +He got a bad mark for such smartness, but then he was always getting +bad marks. Out of the gymnasium, he went to a medical school, or +rather, to three or four medical schools--Ehrlich was that kind of +a medical student. It was the opinion of the distinguished medical +faculties of Breslau and Strasbourg and Freiburg and Leipsic that +he was no ordinary student. It was also their opinion he was an +abominably bad student, which meant that Paul Ehrlich refused to +memorize the ten thousand and fifty long words supposed to be needed +for the cure of sick patients. He was a revolutionist, he was part +of the revolt led by that chemist, Louis Pasteur, and the country +doctor, Robert Koch. His professors told Paul Ehrlich to cut up dead +bodies and learn the parts of dead bodies; instead he cut up one +part of a dead body into very thin slices and set to work to paint +these slices with an amazing variety of pretty-colored aniline dyes, +bought, borrowed, stolen from under his demonstrator’s nose. + +He hadn’t a notion of why he liked to do that--though there is no +doubt that to the end of his days this man’s chief joy (aside from +wild scientific discussions over the beer tables) was in looking at +brilliant colors, and making them. + +“Ho, Paul Ehrlich--what are you doing there?” asked one of his +professors, Waldeyer. + +“Ja, Herr Professor, I am _trying_ with different dyes!” + +He hated classical training, he called himself a modern, but he had +a fine knowledge of Latin, and with this Latin he used to coin his +battle cries. For he worked by means of battle cries and slogans +rather than logic. “_Corpora non agunt nisi fixata!_” he would shout, +pounding the table till the dishes danced--“Bodies do not act unless +fixed!” That phrase heartened him through thirty years of failure. +“You see! You understand! You know!” he would say, waving his +horn-rimmed spectacles in your face, and if you took him seriously +you might think that Latin rigmarole (and not his searcher’s brain) +carried him to his final triumph. And in a way there is no doubt it +did! + +Paul Ehrlich was ten years younger than Robert Koch; he was in +Cohnheim’s laboratory on that day of Koch’s first demonstration of +the anthrax microbe; he was atheistical, so he needed some human +god and that god was Robert Koch. Painting a sick liver Ehrlich had +seen the tubercle germ before ever Koch laid eyes on it. Ignorant, +lacking Koch’s clear intelligence, he supposed those little colored +rods were crystals. But when he sat that evening in the room in +Berlin in March, 1882, and listened to Koch’s proof of the discovery +of the cause of consumption, he saw the light: “It was the most +gripping experience of my scientific life,” said Paul Ehrlich, long +afterwards. So he went to Koch. He must hunt microbes too! He showed +Robert Koch an ingenious way to stain that tubercle microbe--that +trick is used, hardly changed, to this day. He would hunt microbes! +And in the enthusiastic way he had he proceeded to get consumption +germs all over himself: so he caught consumption and had to go to +Egypt. + + + II + +Ehrlich was thirty-four years old then, and if he had died in Egypt, +he would certainly have been forgotten, or been spoken of as a +color-loving, gay, visionary failure. He had the energy of a dynamo; +he had believed you could treat sick people and hunt microbes at the +same time; he had been head physician in a famous clinic in Berlin, +but he was a very raw-nerved man and was fidgety under the cries +of sufferers past helping and the deaths of patients who could not +be cured. To cure them! Not by guess or by the bedside manner or +by the laying on of hands or by waiting for Nature to do it--but +how to _cure_ them! These thoughts made him a bad doctor, because +doctors should be sympathetic but not desperate about ills over which +they are powerless. Then, too, Paul Ehrlich was a disgusting doctor +because his brain was in the grip of dreams: he looked at the bodies +of his patients: he seemed to see through their skins: his eyes +became super-microscopes that saw the quivering stuff of the cells of +these bodies as nothing more than complicated chemical formulas. Why +of course! Living human stuff was only a business of benzene rings +and side-chains, just like his dyes! So Paul Ehrlich (caring nothing +for the latest physiological theories) invented a weird old-fashioned +life-chemistry of his own; so Paul Ehrlich was anything but a Great +Healer; so he would have been a failure----But he didn’t die! + +“I will stain live animals!” he cried. “The chemistry of animals is +like the chemistry of my dyes--staining them while they are still +alive--that will tell me all about them!” So he took his favorite +dye, which was methylene blue, and shot a little of it into the +ear-vein of a rabbit. He watched the color flow through the blood +and body of the beast and mysteriously pick out and paint the living +endings of its nerves blue--but no other part of it! How strange! +He forgot all about his fundamental science for a moment. “Maybe +methylene blue will kill pain then,” he muttered, and he straightway +injected this blue stuff into groaning patients, and maybe they +were eased a little, but there were difficulties, of a more or less +entertaining nature, which maybe frightened the patients--who can +blame them? + +He failed to invent a good pain-killer, but from this strange +business of methylene blue pouncing on just one tissue out of all the +hundred different kinds of stuff that living things are made of, Paul +Ehrlich invented a fantastic idea which led him at last to his magic +bullet. + +“Here is a dye,” he dreamed, “to stain only one tissue out of all the +tissues of an animal’s body--there must be one to hit _no_ tissue of +men, but to stain and kill the microbes that attack men.” For fifteen +years and more he dreamed that, before ever he had a chance to try +it.... + +In 1890 Ehrlich came back from Egypt; he had not died from +tuberculosis; Robert Koch shot his terrible cure for consumption into +him, still he did not die from tuberculosis--and presently he went to +work in the Institute of Robert Koch in Berlin, in those momentous +days when Behring was massacring guinea-pigs to save babies from +diphtheria and the Japanese Kitasato was doing miraculous things to +mice with lockjaw. Ehrlich was the life of that grave place! Koch +would come into his pupil’s crammed and topsy-turvy laboratory, that +gleamed and shimmered with rows of bottles of dyes Ehrlich had no +time to use--for you may be sure Koch was Tsar in that house and +thought Ehrlich’s dreams of magic bullets were nonsense. Robert Koch +would come in and say: + +“Ja, my dear Ehrlich, what do your experiments tell us to-day?” + +Then would come a geyser of excited explanations from Paul Ehrlich, +who was prying then into the way mice may become immune to those +poisons of the beans called the castor and the jequirity: + +“You see, I can measure exactly--it is always the same!--the amount +of poison to kill in forty-eight hours a mouse weighing ten grams.... +You know, I can now plot a curve of the way the immunity of my +mice increases--it is as exact as experiments in the science of +physics.... You understand, I have found how it is this poison kills +my mice; it clots his blood corpuscles inside his arteries! That is +the whole explanation of it ...” and Paul Ehrlich waved test-tubes +filled with brick-red clotted clumps of mouse blood at his famous +chief, proving to him that the amount of poison to clot that blood +was just the amount that would kill the mouse that the blood came +from. Torrents of figures and experiment Paul Ehrlich poured over +Robert Koch---- + +“But wait a moment, my dear Ehrlich! I can’t follow you--please +explain more clearly!” + +“Certainly, Herr Doktor! That I can do right off!” Never for a moment +does Ehrlich stop talking, but grabs a piece of chalk, gets down on +his knees, and scrawls huge diagrams of his ideas over the laboratory +floor--“Now, do you see, is that clear?” + +There was no dignity about Paul Ehrlich! Neither about his attitudes, +for he would draw pictures of his theories anywhere, with no more +sense of propriety than an annoying little boy, on his cuffs and the +bottoms of shoes, on his own shirt front to the distress of his wife, +and on the shirt fronts of his colleagues if they did not dodge fast +enough. Nor could you properly say Paul Ehrlich was dignified about +his thoughts, because, twenty-four hours a day he was having the most +outrageous thoughts of why we are immune or how to measure immunity +or how a dye could be turned into a magic bullet. He left a trail of +fantastic pictures of those thoughts behind him everywhere! + +Just the same he was the most exact of men in his experiments. He was +the first to cry out against the messy ways of microbe hunters, who +searched for truth by pouring a little of this into some of that, and +in that laboratory of Robert Koch he murdered fifty white mice where +one was killed before, trying to dig up simple laws, to be expressed +in numbers, that he felt lay beneath the enigmas of immunity and life +and death. And that exactness, though it did nothing to answer those +riddles, helped him at last to make the magic bullet. + + + III + +Such was the gayety of Paul Ehrlich, and such his modesty--for he was +always making straight-faced jokes at his own ridiculousness--that +he easily won friends, and he was a crafty man too and saw to it +that certain of these friends were men in high places. Presently, +in 1896, he was director of a laboratory of his own; it was called +the Royal Prussian Institute for Serum Testing. It was at Steglitz, +near Berlin, and it had one little room that had been a bakery and +another little room that had been a stable. “It is because we are not +exact that we fail!” cried Ehrlich, remembering the bubble of the +vaccines of Pasteur which had burst, and the balloon of the serums +of Behring which had been pricked. “There must be mathematical laws +to govern the doings of these poisons and vaccines and antitoxins!” +he insisted, so this man with the erratic imagination walked up and +down in those two dark rooms, smoking, explaining, expostulating, and +measuring as accurately as God would let him with drops of poison +broth and calibrated tubes of healing serum. + +But laws? He would make an experiment. It would turn out beautifully. +“You see! here is the reason of it!” he would say, and draw a queer +picture of what a toxin must look like and what the chemistry of a +body cell must look like, but as he went on working, as regiments of +guinea-pigs marched to their doom, Paul Ehrlich found more exceptions +to his simple theories than agreements with them. That didn’t bother +him, for, such was his imagination, that he invented new little +supporting laws to take care of the exceptions, he drew stranger and +stranger pictures, until his famous “Side-Chain” theory of immunity +became a crazy puzzle, which could explain hardly anything, which +could predict nothing at all. To his dying day Paul Ehrlich believed +in his silly side-chain theory of immunity; from all parts of the +world critics knocked that theory to smithereens--but he never gave +it up; when he couldn’t find experiments to destroy his critics he +argued at them with enormous hair-splittings like Duns Scotus and +St. Thomas Aquinas. When he was beaten in these arguments at medical +congresses it was his custom to curse--gayly--at his antagonist all +the way home. “You see, my dear colleague!” he would cry, “that man +is a SHAMELESS BADGER!” Every few minutes, at the top of his voice he +yelled this, defying the indignant conductor to put him off the train. + +So, in 1899, when he was forty-five, if he had died then, Ehrlich +would certainly still have been called a failure. His efforts to find +laws for serums had resulted in a collection of fantastic pictures +that nobody took very seriously, they certainly had done nothing to +turn feebly curative serums into powerful ones--what to do? First, +this to do, thought Ehrlich, and he pulled his wires and cajoled his +influential friends, and presently the indispensable and estimable +Mr. Kadereit, his chief cook and bottle-washer, was dismounting that +laboratory at Steglitz--they were moving to Frankfort-on-the-Main, +away from the vast medical schools and scientific buzzings of +Berlin. What to do? Well, Frankfort was near those factories where +the master-chemists turned out their endless bouquets of pretty +colors--what could be more important for Paul Ehrlich? Then there +were rich Jews in Frankfort, and these rich Jews were famous for +their public spirit, and money--_Geld_, that was one of his four +big “G’s,” along with _Geduld_--patience, _Geshick_--cleverness and +_Glück_--luck, which Ehrlich always said were needed to find the +magic bullet. So Paul Ehrlich came to Frankfort-on-the-Main, or +rather, “WE came to Frankfort-on-the-Main,” said the valuable Mr. +Kadereit, who had the very devil of a time moving all of those dyes +and that litter of be-penciled and dog-eared chemical journals. + +Reading this history, you might think there was only one good kind of +microbe hunter: the kind of searcher who stood on his own absolutely, +who paid little attention to the work of other microbe hunters, who +read nature and not books. But Paul Ehrlich was not that kind of man! +He rarely observed nature, unless it was the pet toad in his garden, +whose activities helped Ehrlich to prophesy the weather--it was Mr. +Kadereit’s first duty to bring plenty of flies to that toad.... No, +Paul Ehrlich got his ideas out of books. + +He lived among scientific books and subscribed to every chemical +journal in every language he could read, and in several he couldn’t +read. Books littered his laboratory so that when visitors came and +Ehrlich said: “I beg you, be seated!” there was no place for them to +sit at all. Journals stuck out of the pockets of his overcoat--when +he remembered to wear one--and the maid, bringing his coffee in the +morning, fell over ever-growing mountains of books in his bedroom. +Books, with the help of those expensive cigars, kept Paul Ehrlich +poor. Mice built nests in the vast piles of books on the old sofa +in his office. When he wasn’t painting the insides of his animals +and the outside of himself with his dyes, he was peering in these +books. And what was important inside of those books, was in the brain +of Paul Ehrlich, ripening, changing itself into those outlandish +ideas of his, waiting to be used. That was where Paul Ehrlich got +his ideas--you would never accuse him of stealing the ideas of +others!--and queer things happened to those ideas of others when they +stewed in Ehrlich’s brain. + +So now, in 1901, at the beginning of his eight-year search for the +magic bullet he read of the researches of Alphonse Laveran. Laveran +was the man, you remember, who discovered the malaria microbe, and +very lately Laveran had taken to fussing with trypanosomes. He had +shot those finned devils, which do evil things to the hind-quarters +of horses and give them a disease called the mal de Caderas, into +mice. Laveran had watched those trypanosomes kill those mice, one +hundred times out of one hundred. Then Laveran had injected arsenic +under the skins of some of those suffering mice. That had helped them +a little, and killed many of the trypanosomes that gnawed at them, +but not one of these mice ever got really better; one hundred out of +one hundred died and that was as far as Alphonse Laveran ever got. + +But reading this was enough to get Ehrlich started. “Ho! here is +an excellent microbe to work with! It is large and easy to see. +It is easy to grow in mice. It kills them with the most beautiful +regularity! It _always_ kills mice! What could be a better microbe +than this trypanosome to use to try to find a magic bullet to cure? +Because, if I could find a dye that would save, completely save, just +one mouse!” + + + IV + +So Paul Ehrlich, in 1902, set out on his hunt. He got out his entire +array of gleaming and glittering and shimmering dyes. “Splen-did!” he +cried as he squatted before cupboards holding an astounding mosaic +of sloppy bottles. He provided himself with plenty of the healthiest +mice. He got himself a most earnest and diligent Japanese doctor, +Shiga, to do the patient job of watching those mice, of snipping a +bit off the ends of their tails to get a drop of blood to look for +the trypanosomes, of snipping another bit off the ends of the same +tails to get a drop of blood to inject into the next mouse--to do the +job, in short, that it takes the industry and patience of a Japanese +to do. The evil trypanosomes of the mal de Caderas came in a doomed +guinea-pig from the Pasteur Institute in Paris; into the first mouse +they went, and the hunt was on. + +They tried nearly five hundred dyes! What a completely unscientific +hunter Paul Ehrlich was! It was like the first boatman hunting for +the right kind of wood from which to make stout oars; it was like +primitive blacksmiths clawing among metals for the best stuff from +which to forge swords. It was, in short, the oldest of all the ways +of man to get knowledge. It was the method of Trial and Sweating! +Ehrlich tried; Shiga sweat. Their mice turned blue from this dye and +yellow from that one, but the beastly finned trypanosomes of the mal +de Caderas swarmed gayly in their veins, and killed those mice, one +hundred out of every hundred! + +That man Ehrlich smoked more of his imported cigars, even at night +in bed he would awake to smoke them; he drank more mineral water; +he read in more books, and he threw books at the head of poor +Kadereit--who heaven knows could not be blamed for not knowing what +dye would kill trypanosomes. He said Latin phrases; he propounded +amazing theories of what these dyes ought to do. Never had any +searcher coined so many utterly wrong theories. But then, in 1903, +came a day when one of these wrong explanations came to help him. + +Ehrlich was testing the pretty-colored but complicated benzopurpurin +dyes on dying mice, but the mice were dying, with sickening +regularity, from the mal de Caderas. Paul Ehrlich wrinkled his +forehead--already it was like a corrugated iron roof from the +perplexities and failures of twenty years--and he told Shiga: + +“These dyes do not spread enough through the mouse’s body! Maybe, my +dear Shiga, if we change it a little--maybe, let us say, if we added +sulfo-groups to this dye, it would dissolve better in the blood of +the mouse!” Paul Ehrlich wrinkled his brow. + +Now, while Paul Ehrlich’s head was an encyclopedia of chemical +knowledge, his hands were not the hands of an expert chemist. He +hated complicated apparatus as much as he loved complicated theories. +He didn’t know how to manage apparatus. He was only a chemical +dabbler making endless fussy little starts with test-tubes, dumping +in first this and then that to change the color of a dye, rushing out +of his room to show the first person he met the result, waving the +test-tube at him, shouting: “You understand? This is splen-did!” But +as for delicate syntheses, those subtle buildings-up and changings +of dyes, that was work for the master chemists. “But we must change +this dye a little--then it will work!” he cried. Now Paul Ehrlich was +a gay man and a most charming one, and presently back from the dye +factory near by came that benzopurpurin color, with the sulfo-groups +properly stuck onto it, “changed a little.” + +Under the skin of two white mice Shiga shot the evil trypanosomes of +the mal de Caderas. A day passes. Two days go by. The eyes of those +mice begin to stick shut with the mucilage of doom, their hair stands +up straight with their dread of destruction--one day more and it will +be all over with both of those mice.... But wait! Under the skin of +one of those two mice Shiga sends a shot of that red dye--changed a +little. Ehrlich watches, paces, mutters, gesticulates, shoots his +cuffs. In a few minutes the ears of that mouse turn red, the whites +of his nearly shut eyes turn pinker than the pink of his albino +pupils. That day is a day of fate for Paul Ehrlich, it is the day the +god of chance is good, for, like snows before the sun of April, so +those fell trypanosomes melt out of the blood of that mouse! + +Away they go, shot down by the magic bullet, till the last one has +perished. And the mouse? His eyes open. He snouts in the shavings in +the bottom of his cage and sniffs at the pitiful little body of his +dead companion, the untreated one. + +He is the first one of all mice to fail to die from the attack of the +trypanosome. + +Paul Ehrlich, by the grace of persistence, chance, God, and a dye +called “Trypan Red” (its real chemical name would stretch across this +page!) has saved him! How that encouraged this already too courageous +man! “I have a dye to cure a mouse--I shall find one to save a +million men,” so dreamed that confident German Jew. + +But not at once, alas and alas. With gruesome diligence Shiga shot +in that trypan red, and some mice got better but others got worse. +One, seeming to be cured, would frisk about its cage, and then, after +sixty days (!) would turn up seedy in the morning. Snip! went an end +off its tail, and the skillful Shiga would call Paul Ehrlich to see +its blood matted with a writhing swarm of the fell trypanosomes of +the mal de Caderas. Terrible beasts are trypanosomes, sly, tough, as +all despicable microbes are tough. And among the tough lot of them +there are super-hardy ones. These beasts, when a Jew and a Japanese +come along to have at them with a bright-colored dye, lap up that +dye. They like it! Or they retreat discreetly to some out-of-the-way +place in a mouse’s carcass. There they wait their time to multiply in +swarms.... + +So, for his first little success, Paul Ehrlich paid with a thousand +disappointments. The trypanosome of David Bruce’s nagana and the +deadly trypanosome of human sleeping sickness laughed at that trypan +red! They absolutely refused to be touched by it! Then, what worked +so beautifully with mice, failed completely when they came to try it +on white rats and guinea-pigs and dogs. It was a grinding work, to be +tackled only by such an impatient persistent man as Ehrlich, for had +he not saved one mouse?--What waste! He used thousands of animals! I +used to think, in the arrogance of my faith in science: “What waste!” +But no. Or call it waste if you like, remembering that nature gets +her most sublime results--so often--by being lavishly wasteful. And +then remember that Paul Ehrlich had learned one lesson: change an +apparently useless dye, a little, and it turns from a merely pretty +color into _something_ of a cure. That was enough to drive forward +this too confident man. + +All the time the laboratory was growing. To the good people of +Frankfort Paul Ehrlich was a savant who understood all mysteries, who +probed all the riddles of nature, who forgot everything. And how the +people of Frankfort loved him for being so forgetful! It was said +that this Herr Professor Doktor Ehrlich had to write himself postal +cards several days ahead to remind himself of festive events in his +family. “What a human being!” they said. “What a deep thinker!” said +the cabbies who drove him every morning to his Institute. “That must +be a genius!” said the grind-organ musicians whom he tipped heavily +once a week to play dance music in the garden by the laboratory. “My +best ideas come when I hear gay music like that,” said Paul Ehrlich, +who detested all highbrow music and literature and art. “What a +democratic man, seeing how great he is!” said the good people of +Frankfort, and they named a street after him. Before he was old he +was legendary! + +Then the rich people worshiped him. A great stroke of luck came in +1906. Mrs. Franziska Speyer, the widow of the rich banker, Georg +Speyer, gave him a great sum of money to build the Georg Speyer +House, to buy glassware and mice and expert chemists, who could put +together the most complicated of his darling dyes with a twist of +the wrist, who could make even the crazy drugs that Ehrlich invented +on paper. Without this Mrs. Franziska Speyer, Paul Ehrlich might +very well never have molded those magic bullets, for that was a +job--you can watch what a job!--for a _factory_ full of searchers. +Here in this new Speyer House Ehrlich lorded it over chemists and +microbe hunters like the president of a company that turned out a +thousand automobiles a day. But he was really old-fashioned, and +never pressed buttons. He was always popping into one or another of +the laboratories every conceivable time of the day, scolding his +slaves, patting them on the back, telling them of howling blunders he +himself had made, laughing when he was told that his own assistants +said he was crazy. He was everywhere! But there was always one way +of tracking him down, for ever and again his voice could be heard, +bawling down the corridors: + +“Ka-de-reit!... Ci-gars!” or “Ka-de-reit!... Min-er-al wa-ter!” + + + V + +The dyes were a great disappointment. The chemists muttered he was +an idiot. But then, you must remember Paul Ehrlich read books. One +day, sitting in the one chair in his office that wasn’t piled high +with them, peering through chemical journals like some Rosicrucian in +search of the formula for the philosopher’s stone, he came across a +wicked drug. It was called “Atoxyl” which means: “Not poisonous.” Not +poisonous? Atoxyl had _almost_ cured mice with sleeping sickness. +Atoxyl had killed mice without sleeping sickness. Atoxyl had been +tried on those poor darkies down in Africa. It had not cured them, +but an altogether embarrassing number of those darkies had gone +blind, stone blind, from Atoxyl before they had had time to die from +sleeping sickness. So, you see, this Atoxyl was a sinister medicine +that its inventors--had they been living--should have been ashamed +of. It was made of a benzene ring, which is nothing more than six +atoms of carbon chasing themselves round in a circle like a dog +running round biting the end of his tail, and four atoms of hydrogen, +and some ammonia and the oxide of arsenic--which everybody knows is +poisonous. + +“We will change it a little,” said Paul Ehrlich, though he knew +the chemists who had invented Atoxyl had said it was so built that +it couldn’t be changed without spoiling it. But every afternoon +Ehrlich fussed around alone in his chemical laboratory, which was +like no other chemical laboratory in the world. It had no retorts, +no beakers, no flasks nor thermometers nor ovens--no, not even a +balance! It was crude as the prescription counter of the country +druggist (who also runs the postoffice) excepting that in its middle +stood a huge table, with ranks and ranks of bottles--bottles with +labels and bottles without, bottles with scrawled unreadable labels +and bottles whose purple contents had slopped all over the labels. +But that man’s memory remembered what was in every one of those +bottles! From the middle of this jungle of bottles a single Bunsen +burner reared its head and spouted a blue flame. What chemist would +not laugh at this laboratory? + +Here Paul Ehrlich dabbled with Atoxyl, shouting: “Splendid!”, +growling: “Un-be-liev-a-ble!”, dictating to the long-suffering +Miss Marquardt, bawling for the indispensable Kadereit. In that +laboratory, with a chemical cunning the gods sometimes bestow on +searchers who could never be chemists, Paul Ehrlich found _that you +can change Atoxyl_, not a little but a lot, that it can be built into +heaven knows how many entirely unheard-of compounds of arsenic, +without spoiling the combination of benzene and arsenic at all! + +“I can change Atoxyl!” Without his hat or coat Ehrlich hurried out of +this dingy room to the marvelous workshop of Bertheim, chief of his +chemist slaves. “Atoxyl can be changed--maybe we can change it into a +hundred, a thousand new compounds of arsenic!” he exclaimed.... “Now, +my dear Bertheim,” and he poured out a thousand fantastic schemes. +Bertheim? He could not resist that “Now my dear Bertheim!” + +For the next two years the whole staff, Japs and Germans, not to +mention some Jews, men and white rats and white mice, not to mention +Miss Marquardt and Miss Leupold--and don’t forget Kadereit!--toiled +together in that laboratory which was like a subterranean forge of +imps and gnomes. They tried this, they did that, with six hundred +and six--that is their exact number--different compounds of arsenic. +Such was the power of the chief imp over them, that this staff never +stopped to think of the absurdity and the impossibility of their job, +which was this: to turn arsenic from a pet weapon of murderers into a +cure which no one was sure could exist for a disease Ehrlich hadn’t +even dreamed might be cured. These slaves worked as only men can work +when they are inspired by a wrinkle-browed fanatic with kind gray +eyes. + +They changed Atoxyl! They developed marvelous compounds of arsenic +which--hurrah!--would really cure mice. “We have it!” the staff +would be ready to shout, but then, worse luck, when the fell +trypanosomes of the mal de Caderas had gone, those marvelous cures +turned the blood of the cured mice to water, or killed them with a +fatal jaundice.... And--who would believe it?--some of those arsenic +remedies made mice dance, not for a minute but for the rest of their +lives round and round they whirled, up and down they jumped. Satan +himself could not have schemed a worse torture for creatures just +saved from death. It seemed ridiculous, hopeless, to try to find a +perfect cure. But Paul Ehrlich? He wrote: + +“It is very interesting that the only damage to the mice is that they +become dancing mice. Those who visit my laboratory must be impressed +by the great number of dancing mice it entertains....” He was a +sanguine man! + +They invented countless compounds, and it was a business for despair. +There was that strange affair of the arsenic fastness. When Ehrlich +found that one big dose of a compound was too dangerous for his +beasts, he tried to cure them by giving them a lot of little doses. +But, curse it! The trypanosomes became _immune_ to the arsenic, and +refused to be killed off at all, and the mice died in droves.... + +Such was the grim procession through the first five hundred and +ninety-one compounds of arsenic. Paul Ehrlich kept cheering himself +by telling himself fairy stories of marvelous new cures, stories +that God and all nature could prove were lies. He drew absurd +diagrams for Bertheim and the staff, pictures of imaginary arsenical +remedies that they in their expert wisdom knew it was impossible +to make. Everywhere he made pictures for his boys--who knew more +than he did--on innumerable reams of paper, on the menu cards of +restaurants and on picture post cards in beer halls. His men were +aghast at his neglect of the impossible; they were encouraged by +his indomitable mulishness. They said: “He is so enthusiastic!” and +became enthusiastic with him. So, burning his candle at both ends, +Paul Ehrlich came, in 1909, to his day of days. + + + VI + +Burning his candle at both ends, for he was past fifty and his +time was short, Paul Ehrlich stumbled onto the famous preparation +606--though you understand he could never have found it without the +aid of that expert, Bertheim. Product of the most subtle chemical +synthesis was this 606, dangerous to make because of the peril of +explosions and fire from those constantly present ether vapors, and +so hard to keep--the least trace of air changed it from a mild stuff +to a terrible poison. + +That was the celebrated preparation 606, and it rejoiced in the name: +“Dioxy-diamino-arsenobenzol-dihydro-chloride.” Its deadly effect +on trypanosomes was as great as its name was long. At a swoop one +shot of it cleaned those fell trypanosomes of the mal de Caderas out +of the blood of a mouse--a wee bit of it cleaned them out without +leaving a single one to carry news or tell the story. And it was +safe! So safe--though it was heavily charged with arsenic, that pet +poison of murderers. It never made mice blind, it never turned their +blood to water, they never danced--it was safe! + +“Those were the days!” muttered old Kadereit, long after. Already in +those days he was growing stiff, but how he stumped about taking care +of the “Father.” “_Those_ were the days, when we discovered the 606!” +And they were the days--for what more hectic days (always excepting +the days of Pasteur) in the whole history of microbe hunting? 606 +was safe, 606 would cure the mal de Caderas, which was nice for mice +and the hindquarters of horses, but what next? Next was that Paul +Ehrlich made a lucky stab, that came from reading a theory with no +truth in it. First Paul Ehrlich read--it had happened in 1906--of +the discovery by the German zoölogist, Schaudinn, of a thin pale +spiral-shaped microbe that looked like a corkscrew without a handle. +(It was a fine discovery and Fritz Schaudinn was a fantastic fellow, +who drank and saw weird visions. I wish I could tell you more of +him.) Schaudinn spied out this pale microbe looking like a corkscrew +without a handle. He named it the _Spirocheta pallida_. He proved +that this was the cause of the disease of the loathsome name. + +Of course Paul Ehrlich (who knew everything) read about that, but +it particularly stuck in Ehrlich’s memory that Schaudinn had said: +“This pale spirochete belongs to the animal kingdom, it is not like +the bacteria. Indeed, it is closely related to the trypanosomes.... +Spirochetes may sometimes turn into trypanosomes....” + +Now, it was hardly more than a guess of that romantic Schaudinn that +spirochetes had anything to do with trypanosomes, but it set Paul +Ehrlich aflame. + +“If the pale spirochete is a cousin of the trypanosome of the mal +de Caderas--then 606 ought to hit that spirochete.... What kills +trypanosomes should kill their cousins!” Paul Ehrlich was not +bothered by the fact that there was no proof these two microbes were +cousins.... Not he. So he marched towards his day of days. + +He gave vast orders. He smoked more strong cigars each day. Presently +regiments of fine male rabbits trooped into the Georg Speyer House +in Frankfort-on-the-Main, and with these creatures came a small and +most diligent Japanese microbe hunter, S. Hata. This S. Hata was +accurate. He was capable. He could stand the strain of doing the same +experiment a dozen times over and he could, so nimble was this S. +Hata, do a dozen experiments at the same time. So he suited the uses +of Ehrlich, who was a thorough man, do not forget it! + +Hata started out by doing long tests with 606 on spirochetes not so +pale or so dangerous. There was that spirochete fatal to chickens.... +The results? “Un-heard ... of! In-cred-i-ble!” shouted Paul Ehrlich. +Chickens and roosters whose blood swarmed with that microbe received +their shot of 606. Next day the chickens were clucking and roosters +strutting--it was superb. But that disease of the loathsome name? + +On the 31st of August, 1909, Paul Ehrlich and Hata stood before a +cage in which sat an excellent buck rabbit. Flourishing in every +way was this rabbit, excepting for the tender skin of his scrotum, +which was disfigured with two terrible ulcers, each bigger than a +twenty-five-cent piece. These sores were caused by the gnawing of the +pale spirochete of the disease that is the reward of sin. They had +been put under the skin of that rabbit by S. Hata a month before. +Under the microscope--it was a special one built for spying just +such a thin rogue as that pale microbe--under this lens Hata put a +wee drop of the fluid from these ugly sores. Against the blackness +of the dark field of this special microscope, gleaming in a powerful +beam of light that hit them sidewise, shooting backwards and forwards +like ten thousand silver drills and augers, played myriads of these +pale spirochetes. It was a pretty picture, to hold you there for +hours, but it was sinister--for what living things can bring worse +plague and sorrow to men? + +Hata leaned aside. Paul Ehrlich looked down the shiny tube. Then he +looked at Hata, and then at the rabbit. + +“Make the injection,” said Paul Ehrlich. And into the ear-vein of +that rabbit went the clear yellow fluid of the solution of 606, for +the first time to do battle with the disease of the loathsome name. + +Next day there was not one of those spiral devils to be found in +the scrotum of that rabbit. His ulcers? They were drying already! +Good clean scabs were forming on them. In less than a month there +was nothing to be seen but tiny scabs--it was like a cure of Bible +times--no less! And a little while after that Paul Ehrlich could +write: + +“It is evident from these experiments that, if a large enough dose is +given, the spirochetes can be destroyed _absolutely and immediately +with a single injection_!” + +This was Paul Ehrlich’s day of days. This was the magic bullet! And +what a safe bullet! Of course there was no danger in it--look at all +these cured rabbits! They had never turned a hair when Hata shot +into their ear-veins doses of 606 three times as big as the amount +that surely and promptly cured them. It was more marvelous than his +dreams, which all searchers in Germany had smiled at. Now _he_ would +laugh! “It is safe!” shouted Paul Ehrlich, and you can guess what +visions floated into that too confident man’s imagination. “It is +safe--perfectly safe!” he assured every one. But at night, sitting in +the almost unbreathable fog of cigar smoke in his study, alone, among +those piles of books and journals that heaped up fantastic shadows +round him, sitting there before the pads of blue and green and yellow +and orange note paper on which every night he scrawled hieroglyphic +directions for the next day’s work of his scientific slaves, Paul +Ehrlich, noted as a man of action, whispered: + +“Is it safe?” + +Arsenic is the favorite poison of murderers.... “But how wonderfully +we have changed it!” Paul Ehrlich protested. + +What saves mice and rabbits might murder men.... “The step from +the laboratory to the bedside is dangerous--but it must be taken!” +answered Paul Ehrlich. You remember his gray eyes, that were so kind. + +But, heigho! Here was the next morning, the brave light of the bright +morning. Here was the laboratory with its cured rabbits, here was +that wizard, Bertheim--how he had twisted that arsenic through all +these six hundred and six compounds. That man could not go wrong. So +many of them had been dangerous that this six hundred and sixth one +_must_ be safe.... Bravo! Here was the mixed good smell of a hundred +experimental animals and a thousand chemicals. Here were all these +men and women, how they believed in him! So, let’s go! Let us try it! + +At bottom Paul Ehrlich was a gambler, as who of the great line of the +microbe hunters has not been? + +And before that sore on the scrotum of the first rabbit had shed its +last scab, Paul Ehrlich had written to his friend, Dr. Konrad Alt: +“Will you be so good as to try this new preparation, 606, on human +beings with syphilis?” + +Of course Alt wrote back: “Certainly!” which any German doctor--for +they are right hardy fellows--would have replied. + +[Illustration: LAST PORTRAIT OF EHRLICH] + +Came 1910, and that was Paul Ehrlich’s year. One day, that year, he +walked into the scientific congress at Koenigsberg, and there was +applause. It was frantic, it was long, you would think they were +never going to let Paul Ehrlich say his say. He told of how the magic +bullet had been found at last. He told of the terror of the disease +of the loathsome name, of those sad cases that went to horrible +disfiguring death, or to what was worse--the idiot asylums. They +went there in spite of mercury--mercury fed them and rubbed into +them and shot into them until their teeth were like to drop out of +their gums. He told of such cases given up to die. One shot of the +compound six hundred and six, and they were up, they were on their +feet. They gained thirty pounds. They were clean once more--their +friends would associate with them again.... Paul Ehrlich told, that +day, of healings that could only be called Biblical! Of a wretch, so +dreadfully had the pale spirochetes gnawed at his throat that he had +had to be fed liquid food through a tube for months. One shot of the +606, at two in the afternoon, and at supper time that man had eaten +a sausage sandwich! There were poor women, innocent sufferers from +the sins of their men--there was one woman with pains in her bones, +such pains she had been given morphine every night for years, to give +her a little sleep. One shot of compound six hundred and six. She had +gone to sleep, quiet and deep, with no morphine, that very night. It +was Biblical, no less. It was miraculous--no drug nor herb of the +old women and priests and medicine men of the ages had ever done +tricks like that. No serum nor vaccine of the modern microbe hunters +could come near to the beneficent slaughterings of the magic bullet, +compound six hundred and six. + +Never was there such applause. + +Never has it been better earned, for that day Paul Ehrlich--forget +for a moment the false hopes raised and the troubles that +followed--that day Paul Ehrlich had led searchers around a corner. + +But, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What +is true in the realm of lifeless things is true in the lives of such +men as Paul Ehrlich. The whole world bawled for salvarsan. That was +what Ehrlich--we must forgive him his grandiloquence--called compound +six hundred and six. Then, in the laboratory of the Georg Speyer +House, Bertheim and ten assistants--worn these fellows were before +they started it--turned out hundreds of thousands of doses of this +marvelous stuff. They did the job of a chemical factory in their +small laboratory, in the dangerous fumes of ether, in the fear that +one little slip might rob a hundred men and women of life, for it +was two-edged stuff, that salvarsan. And Ehrlich? Now he was only a +shell of a man, with diabetes--and why did he keep on smoking more +cigars?--now Ehrlich burned the candle in the middle. + +He was everywhere in the Georg Speyer House. He directed the making +of compounds that would be still more wonderful--so he hoped. He +chased around so that even Kadereit couldn’t keep track of him. +He dictated hundreds of enthusiastic letters to Martha Marquardt, +he read thousands of letters from every corner of the world, he +kept records, careful records they were too, of every one of the +sixty-five thousand doses of salvarsan injected in the year 1910. +He kept them--this was like that strangely systematic man!--on a +big sheet of paper tacked to the inside of the cupboard door of his +office, from the top to the bottom of that door in tiny scrawls, so +that he had constantly to squat on his heels or stretch up on tiptoe +and strain his eyes to read them. + +As the list grew, there were records of most extraordinary cures, but +there were reports it was not pleasant to read, too, records that +told of hiccups and vomitings and stiffenings of legs and convulsions +and death--every now and then a death in people who had no business +dying, coming right after injections of the salvarsan. + +How he worked to explain them! How he wore himself to a shred to +avoid them, for Paul Ehrlich was not a hard-boiled man. He made +experiments; he conducted immense correspondences in which he +asked minute questions of just how the injections had been made. +He devised explanations, on the margins of the playing cards he +used for his games of solitaire each evening, on the backs of those +blood-and-thunder murder mysteries that were the one thing he +read--so he imagined--to rest. But he never rested! Those disasters +pursued him and marred his triumph.... + +The wrinkles deepened to ditches on his forehead. The circles +darkened under those gray eyes that still, but not so often, danced +with that owlish humor. + +So this compound six hundred and six, saving its thousands from +death, from insanity, from the ostracism worse than death that came +to those sufferers whose bodies the pale spirochete gnawed until +they were things for loathing, this 606 began killing its tens. Paul +Ehrlich wore his too feeble body to a shadow, trying to explain a +mystery too deep for explanation. There is no light on that mystery +now, ten years after Ehrlich smoked the last of his black cigars. So +it was that this triumph of Paul Ehrlich was at the same time the +last disproof of his theories, which were so often wrong. “Compound +six hundred and six unites chemically with the spirochetes and kills +them--it does not unite chemically with the human body and so can do +no damage!” That had been his theory.... + +But alas! What is the chemistry of what this subtle 606 does to the +still more subtle--and unknown--machine that is the human body? +Nothing is known about it even now. Paul Ehrlich paid the penalty +for his fault--which may be forgiven him seeing the blessings he has +brought to men--his fault of not foreseeing that once in every so +many thousands of bodies a magic bullet may shoot two ways. But then, +the microbe hunters of the great line have always been gamblers: +let us think of the good brave adventurer Paul Ehrlich was and the +thousands he has saved. + +Let us remember him, trail-breaker who turned a corner for microbe +hunters and started them looking for magic bullets. Already (though +it is too soon to tell the whole story) certain obscure searchers, +some of them old slaves of Paul Ehrlich, sweating in the great dye +factories of Elberfeld, have hit upon a most fantastical drug. Its +chemistry is kept a secret. It is called “Bayer 205.” It is a mild +mysterious powder that cures the hitherto always fatal sleeping +sickness of Rhodesia and Nyassaland. That was the ill, you remember, +that the hard man, David Bruce, fought his last fight, in vain, to +prevent. It does outlandish things to the cells and fluids of the +human body--you would say they were fibs and fairy tales if you heard +the queer things that drug can do! But what is best, it slaughters +microbes! It kills them beautifully, precisely, with a completeness +that must make Paul Ehrlich wriggle in his grave--and when it doesn’t +kill microbes it _tames_ them. + +It is as sure as the sun following the dawn of to-morrow that there +will be other microbe hunters to mold other magic bullets, surer, +safer, bullets to wipe out for always the most malignant microbes of +which this history has told. Let us remember Paul Ehrlich, who broke +this trail.... + +This plain history would not be complete if I were not to make a +confession, and that is this: that I love these microbe hunters, +from old Antony Leeuwenhoek to Paul Ehrlich. Not especially for +the discoveries they have made nor for the boons they have brought +mankind. No. I love them for the men they are. I say they _are_, for +in my memory every man jack of them lives and will survive until this +brain must stop remembering. + +So I love Paul Ehrlich--he was a gay man who carried his medals about +with him all mixed up in a box never knowing which ones to wear on +what night. He was an impulsive man who has, on occasion, run out of +his bedroom in his shirt tail to greet a fellow microbe hunter who +came to call him out for an evening of wassail. + +And he was an owlish man! “You say a great work of the mind, a +wonderful scientific achievement?” he repeated after a worshiper who +told him that was what the discovery of 606 was. + +“My dear colleague,” said Paul Ehrlich, “for seven years of +misfortune I had one moment of good luck!” + + + END OF + MICROBE HUNTERS + + + + + INDEX + + + Académie Française, 168 + + Academy of Medicine, 146, 147, 155, 157 + + Academy of Sciences, French, 25, 37, 67, 69, 73, 86, 149, 156, 157 + + Agramonte, A., 314 + + Alexander, servant of Th. Smith, 237, 239, 244 + + Alexander, the Great, 10 + + Alt, K., 354 + + Anthrax, 108-122; + Koch proves microbe cause of, 115 + + Antitoxin, diphtheria, 198-206; + first produced in America by Park, 201; + first tried on child, 201; + Roux announces cure by, 204, 205 + + Aquinas, St. Thomas, 341 + + Aristotle, 7, 27 + + Arrhenius, Svante, 56 + + Arsenic, changed by Ehrlich into magic bullet, 349-355 + + Atoxyl, Ehrlich’s experiments with, 347-349 + + + Balard, Prof., 80, 81, 82, 83, 101 + + Baptist, John the, 91 + + Bassi, Laura, 28 + + Bastianelli, Dr., 304-305 + + Baumgarten, J., 220 + + Bayer, 205; + new magic bullet, 357, 358 + + Beer, diseases of, 97, 98 + + Beethoven, 55, 175, 222, 236, 250 + + Behring E., 184-206; + attempts chemical cure of diphtheria, 195; + discovers diphtheria antitoxin, 198-200; + other references, 220, 234, 338, 340 + + Bernard, Claude, 73, 101 + + Bertheim, A., 349, 354, 355 + + Bignami, 304-305 + + Bigo, M., 64, 69 + + Biot, the horse doctor, conversion of, by Pasteur, 163 + + Bloxam, Rosa, 281 + + Bonnet, Charles, 33, 47, 51 + + Bordet, J., 226-227 + + Bourrel, the horse doctor, 170 + + Boyle, Robert, 8, 19 + + Bruce, David, 252-277; + discovers microbe Malta fever, 254; + discovers trypanosome of nagana, 257; + discovers trypanosome of sleeping sickness, 264-266; + other references to, 235, 278, 346, 357; + proof tsetse fly carries nagana, 259-262; + proves tsetse fly carries sleeping sickness, 267-270; + surgeon at siege of Ladysmith, 262 + + Bruce, Lady, 252-277 + + Buffon, Count, 36, 42 + + Bux, Mahomed, 292, 293 + + + Carroll, J., 311-333; + bitten by yellow fever mosquito, 318; + death of, 332 + + Carter, H. R., 316 + + Castellani, A., 264, 265 + + Chaillou, M., 203 + + Chamberland, M., work with Pasteur on anthrax and rabies, + 147-182, 221 + + Chappuis, Charles, 60 + + Charles II, of England, 8 + + Child-bed Fever, Pasteur discovers cause of, 146 + + Cholera, Asiatic, 140-143; + Metchnikoff feeds microbes of, to self and assistants, 225 + + Cholera, of chickens, vaccine discovered for, 152-156 + + Claus, Prof., coins term “phagocyte” for Metchnikoff, 214 + + Cohn, F., 120, 122, 123 + + Cohnheim, J., 121, 122, 123, 128, 129 + + Cooke, Dr., 325, 328 + + Cromwell, 7 + + + Darwin, 209, 233 + + Davaine, Dr. C., 109 + + Dean, Wm., bitten by yellow fever mosquito, 319 + + De Blowitz, 160, 162, 164 + + De Graaf, Regnier, 8 + + De la Rochette, Baron, 158 + + De la Tour, Cagniard, experiments on alcoholic fermentation, 60, + 61, 65 + + De Saussure, 51, 54 + + Diphtheria, 184-206; + antitoxin discovered by Behring, 198-206; + microbe of, discovered, 185-187; + new method of prevention, 206; + toxin discovered by Roux, 189-193 + + Dostoevski, F., 207 + + Duclaux, E., 88, 89, 90, 94 + + Dumas, A., 87 + + Dumas, J. B., 60, 69, 73, 91, 92, 96, 156 + + Duns Scotus, 341 + + + Edison, T. A., 287 + + Ehrenberg, 59 + + Ehrlich, Paul, 334-358; + announces cure human syphilis by salvarsan, 355; + attempts to find law of immunity, 339; + changes arsenic into magic bullet, 349-355; + cures syphilis of rabbits, 353; + discovers chemical cure for mal de caderas, 343-345; + discovers salvarsan (606), 350-356; + experiments with atoxyl, 347-349; + invents stain for tubercle microbe, 336; + other references to, 121, 194; + side-chain theory of immunity, 340; + worries over deaths from salvarsan, 356-357 + + Ellis, 52, 53, 54 + + Evolution, theory of organic, 78; + championed by Metchnikoff, 209 + + + Faraday, Michael, 56, 64 + + Fehleisen, F., discovers microbe of erysipelas, 139 + + Fermentation, 60; + alcoholic, 60, 61, 71, 72, 73, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103; + lactic, 64, 65, 66, 67 + + Finlay, Carlos, 312, 313, 315, 316, 324 + + Fischer, Emil, 56 + + Flaubert, E., 228 + + Folk, L., 325, 327, 328 + + Force, vegetative, 37 _et seq._ + + Fraatz, Emmy, 105 + + Frederick, the Great, 45 + + Frémy, M., 99, 100, 101 + + + Gaffky, G., 129, 131, 132, 138, 141 + + Galileo, 4, 26, 27, 63, 163 + + Gamaléia, Dr., 217, 219, 224 + + Garrè, Dr., injects self with dangerous microbes, 139 + + Germ theory, battle of, 124 + + Gernez, M., 94, 95 + + Gibbons, Staff-Sergeant, 264 + + Goethe, W., 198, 222 + + Gorgas, W. C., 329, 330 + + Grancher, Dr., 179 + + Grassi, B., 298-310; + other references to, 235, 278, 279, 288, 315, 328; + practical demonstration malaria prevention, 307; + proves anopheles mosquito carries human malaria, 301-306 + + Grew, Nehemiah, 16 + + Guérin, J., 155, 156, 157 + + Guitéras, J., death of yellow fever patients in experiments, 330, + 331 + + + Hanging-drop, invention of, 113, 114 + + Harvey, William, 19 + + Hata, S., 352, 353 + + Hely-Hutchinson, Sir W., 255, 259, 262 + + Homer, 28, 55 + + Hoogvliet, 24 + + Hooke, Robert, 16 + + + Immunity, 207-229; + due to phagocytes, 212-229; + Ehrlich attempts find law of, 339; + side-chain theory of, 340 + + Inquisition, Grand, 27 + + Institut Pasteur, 181, 187, 217, 218, 222 + + Invisible College, The, 7, 27 + + + Jenner, E., 155 + + Jernegan, W., 325, 327, 328 + + Joly, M., 85, 86 + + Joseph II, of Austria, 49 + + Joubert, Prof., 147 + + + Kadereit, 342, 344, 347, 348, 349, 356 + + Kagwa, Apolo, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272 + + Khan, Husein, as experimental animal for Ross, 288, 289 + + Kilborne, F. L., 237-251 + + Kissenger, Private, 322, 324, 326; + paralysis of, from yellow fever experiment, 333; + volunteers for mosquito bite, 323 + + Kitasato, S., 194, 338 + + Koch, Mrs., 106, 107, 110, 111, 300 + + Koch, Robert, 105-144; + dangerous experiments with tuberculosis, 136; + discovers microbe of cholera, 140-143; + experiments with anthrax, 108-128; + failure to cure tuberculosis with vaccine, 193, 194, 299; + first photographs microbes, 123; + invention of hanging-drop, 113, 114; + other references to, 24, 104, 145, 146, 147, 148, 166, 167, 168, + 184, 185, 193, 194, 198, 200, 209, 211, 219, 234, 236, 237, + 238, 250, 297, 299, 300, 304, 305, 314, 323, 335, 336, 338, + 339; proves microbe + cause of anthrax, 115; pure culture microbes discovered, 125, 126; + works on cause of tuberculosis, 128-138 + + + Laveran, A., discovers malaria parasite, 281; + microbe of, demonstrated by Manson to Ross, 282; + other references to, 296, 342, 343 + + Lavoisier, A., 77 + + Lazear, J., 311-333; + bitten by yellow fever mosquito, 318; + died of yellow fever, 320 + + Lazear, Mrs. J., 312 + + Leeuwenhoek, Antony, 3-24; + an admirer of God, 12; + discovers human sperm, 19; + discovers microbes, 10, 11, 12; + discovers microbes in mouth, 17, 18; + experiments on origin of microbes, 13; + failure to find disease microbes, 22; + letters to Leibniz, 23; + letters to Royal Society, 9; + microbes in pepper water, 14; + other references to, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 44, 51, 61, 76, 77, + 106, 108, 109, 111, 114, 128, 137, 138, 209, 228, 250, 334, + 358 + + Leibniz, Gottfried W., 23 + + Leucart, R., 209 + + Leupold, 349 + + Le Verrier, 83 + + Liebig, J., 70, 73 + + Linnæus, 59 + + Lister, J., 100, 106, 182 + + Loeffler, F., discovers diphtheria microbe, 185-187; + foretells diphtheria toxin, 187; + other references to, 129, 131, 132, 138, 188, 189, 193, 331 + + Louvrier, the horse doctor, 149-150 + + Lutchman, 287 + + + Maillot, M., 94 + + Maisonneuve, Dr., 231 + + Malaria, 278-310; + human, Grassi proves carried by anopheles mosquito, 301-306; + Manson’s theory mosquito carries, 283; + of birds carried by gray mosquito, 292-298; + prevention of practical demonstration of, by Grassi, 307 + + Mal de Caderas, 342-350; + Ehrlich cures by chemical, 343-345 + + Malta Fever, Bruce discovers microbe of, 254 ff. + + Manson, Patrick, 282-298, 315; + announces Ross’s success at Edinburgh, 296, 297; + other references to, 235; + theory mosquitoes carry malaria, 283 + + Maria Theresa, 45 + + Marquardt, M., 348, 349, 356 + + Martin, M., 203 + + Meister, Joseph, vaccination of, for rabies, 179 + + Metchnikoff, E., 207-233; + acquires drug habit, 210; + assistants of, Blagovestchensky, Gheorgiewski, Hugenschmidt, + Saltykoff, Sawtchenko, Wagner, 222, 223; + attempts suicide, 210; + attempts to prolong life, 228-233; + champions theory of evolution, 209; + comedy of Bulgarian bacilli, 232-233; + feeds cholera to self and assistants, 225; + founds phagocyte theory, 214-229; + nicknamed “God-is-not,” 207; + nicknamed “Mamma Metchnikoff,” 222; + nicknamed “Grandpa Christmas,” 228; + other references to, 187, 234; + starts circus at Pasteur Institute, 219-220; + syphilis, prevented by, 229-232 + + Metchnikoff, Ludmilla, 210, 211 + + Metchnikoff, Olga, 211, 212, 213, 214, 219, 220, 228, 233 + + Microbes, origin of, 13, 31; + Bruce discovers Malta fever, 254; + of diphtheria discovered by Loeffler, 185-187; + of Texas fever discovered by Th. Smith, 244; + of the air, 83, 84, 85, 86; + of tuberculosis discovered by Koch, 128-138; + pure culture discovered, 125, 126; + spontaneous generation of, 31, 32, 33, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, + 78, 79, 86, 97 + + Molyneux, 16 + + Moran, John, 322, 327, 328; + volunteers for mosquito bite, 322, 323 + + Mosquito, gray carries bird malaria, 292-298; + anopheles carries human malaria, 301-306; + stegomyia carries yellow fever, 317-329 + + Mozart, W., 222, 280 + + Musset, M., 85, 86 + + + Nabarro, 264 + + Nagana, 255-262; + trypanosome of, discovered by Bruce, 257; + tsetse fly carries, 259-262 + + Napoleon I, 55, 58 + + Napoleon III, 86 + + Needham, John T., experiments on spontaneous generation of + microbes, 31 _et seq._ + + Newton, Isaac, 8, 19, 27, 36, 63, 64, 250, 280 + + Nocard, M., 177 + + + Pasteur, Louis, 57-104, 145-183; + alcoholic fermentation by yeast, 71, 72, 73, 99, 100, 101, 102, + 103; + as a chemist, 61; + a violent patriot, 97; + boyhood experience with mad wolf, 57, 170; + death of, 181, 182; + disasters with anthrax vaccine, 165, 166; + discovers anthrax vaccine, 157-164; + discovers vaccine for chicken cholera, 152-156; + diseases of wines, 88, 89, 90; + experiments on spontaneous generation, 78, 79; + experiments with lactic fermentation, 64, 65, 66, 67; + experiments with microbes of the air, 83, 84, 85, 86; + inspirational letters to sisters, 59, 60; + last speech of, 182, 183; + other references to, 23, 24, 56, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 116, + 121, 122, 123, 128, 132, 138, 139, 140, 141, 184, 187, 188, + 193, 203, 211, 216, 218, 221, 228, 230, 234, 238, 250, 279, + 312, 335, 340; + press agent for microbes, 63, 73, 77, 87, 90; + quarrel with Bernard, 101, 102, 103; + quarrels with Koch, 167, 168; + rabies vaccine discovered by, 169-181; + religious philosophy of, 79; + saves Russian peasants from rabies, 180, 181; + work on diseases of beer, 97; + work on diseases of silkworms, 91-97 + + Pasteurization, 90 + + Pasteur, Madame, 62, 63, 66, 68, 69, 72, 103, 151, 177, 182 + + Park, W. H., 201, 206 + + Peronçito, Dr., 152 + + Peter, the Great, 19 + + Pettenkofer, Max, swallows Koch’s cholera culture, 133, 134 + + Phagocytes, discovered by Metchnikoff, 214-229; + immunity due to, 212-229 + + Pidoux, Dr., theory of consumption, 108 + + Pompadour, Madame de, 27 + + Pouchet, M., 85, 86 + + Pouilly-le-Fort, famous experiment of, 159-164 + + Prolongation of life, attempted by Metchnikoff, 228-233 + + Prometheus, 163 + + Purboona, 292 + + Putrefaction, caused by microbes, 61 + + + Rabelais, 166 + + Rabies, 169-181 + + Rayer, M., 109 + + Réaumur, René, 25 + + Redi, Francesco, 30, 35 + + Reed, W., 311-333; + death of, 333; + disproves infected clothing theory, 324, 325, 326; + fails to find microbe of yellow fever, 314, 315; + other references to, 235; + proves stegomyia mosquito carries yellow fever, 317-329 + + Renan, E., praises and admonishes Pasteur, 168, 169 + + Ross, Ronald, 278-298; + attempts proof Manson’s mosquito theory, 285-291, 297, 298; + discovers gray mosquito carries bird malaria, 292-298; + discovers malaria pigment in mosquito stomach, 289; + meets Patrick Manson, 282; + other references to, 309, 315 + + Rossignol, Dr., 158 + + Roux, E., 184-206; + announces cures by antitoxin at Buda-Pesth, 204, 205; + discovers diphtheria toxin, 189-193; + other references to, 69, 147-182, 217, 221, 229, 230, 231, 234; + syphilis prevented by, 229-232 + + Royal Society, 8, 25, 31, 32, 37; + as audience for Leeuwenhoek, 9, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24; + confirm Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of microbes, 16; + elect Leeuwenhoek Fellow, 16 + + Russian peasants, saved by Pasteur, 180-181 + + Ruth, Babe, 237 + + Rutherford, Ernest, 56 + + + Salmon, D. E., 237, 238, 242 + + Salvarsan (606), discovered by Ehrlich, 350-356; + deaths from, 356-357; + Ehrlich cures human syphilis with, 355; + Ehrlich cures syphilis of rabbits with, 353 + + Sand, George, 87 + + Schaudinn, F., discovers _Spirocheta pallida_, 351 + + Schwann, Th., experiments on putrefaction by microbes, 61, 76 + + Semmelweis, I., 145 + + Servetus, 4, 27 + + Shiga, I., 343, 344, 345 + + Silkworms, diseases of, 91-97 + + Sleeping sickness, 263-277; + Bruce proves tsetse fly carries, 267-270; + trypanosome of, discovered, 264-266 + + Smiles, Dr., 96 + + Smith, Th., 236-251; + discovers microbe of Texas fever, 244; + first experiments with Texas fever, 240; + other references to, 252, 255, 259, 270, 278, 299, 315; + proves ticks carry Texas fever, 246 + + Socrates, 166 + + Sola, Mr., experimental animal for Grassi, 303, 304, 328 + + Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 25-56; + accused of theft from museum, 49, 50, 51; + bladder of, preserved, 55; + experiments cruelly on self, 41; + experiments on multiplication of microbes, 53, 54; + experiments on spontaneous generation of microbes, 32, 33, 38, + 39, 40, 42, 43, 44; + other references to, 24, 57, 61, 76, 77, 78, 79, 123, 128, 298; + proves microbes may live without air, 47; + studies on sex, 41 + + Spanish immigrants, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 323, 324, 326, 332 + + Speyer, F., 347 + + Speyer, G., 347 + + _Spirocheta pallida_, discovered by Schaudinn, 351 + + Spontaneous generation, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, + 44, 78, 79, 86, 97 + + Syphilis, 229-232; + human, cure of, by salvarsan, 355; + of rabbits cured by Ehrlich’s salvarsan, 353; + prevention of, by Roux and Metchnikoff, 229-232 + + + Taute, injects self with nagana, 276 + + Texas fever, 238-251; + Th. Smith discovers microbe of, 244 + + Thuillier, L., killed in experiments with cholera, 141; + other references to, 161, 164, 165, 173 + + Tick, of Texas fever, 239-251; + Smith proves carries Texas fever, 246 + + Toxin, of diphtheria, 187-206; + discovered by Roux, 189-193; + foretold by Loeffler, 187 + + Trécul, M., 99 + + Trypan red, discovered by Ehrlich, 345; + fails to cure nagana and sleeping sickness, 346 + + Trypanosome, of nagana, 257-262; + of mal de caderas, 342-352; + of sleeping sickness discovered by Bruce, 264-266 + + Tsetse fly, carries nagana, 259-262; + Bruce proves, carries sleeping sickness, 267-270 + + Tuberculosis, 128-138; + Koch’s dangerous experiments with, 136; + Koch discovers microbe of, 128-138; + Koch’s failure to cure with vaccine, 193, 194, 299 + + Tulloch, killed by sleeping sickness, 272 + + Tyndall, John, disproof of spontaneous generation of microbes, 86 + + + Vaccines, anthrax, 157-164; + chicken cholera, 152-156; + famous Pouilly-le-Fort experiment with, 159-164; + Koch’s failure with tuberculosis vaccine, 193, 194, 299; + rabies, 169-181; + smallpox, 155 + + Vallisnieri, 26 + + Vercel, J., 179 + + Villemin, J. A., 128 + + Virchow, R., 127, 137, 214 + + Volta, Canon, 49, 50, 51 + + Voltaire, 27, 41, 50 + + Vulpian, Dr., 179 + + + Wahab, Abdul, 286 + + Waldeyer, W., 336 + + Wassermann, Reaction, principle discovered by Bordet, 226 + + Wines, diseases of, 88, 89, 90 + + Wood, Gen. Leonard, 313, 321 + + + Yellow fever, 311-333; + disproof of infected clothing theory, 324-326; + failure of Reed to find microbe of, 314, 315; + Reed proves stegomyia mosquito carries, 317-329 + + Yersin, A., 188-192 + + + Zanzarone, popular name for anopheles, 302-308 + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + +Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been +silently corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences +within the text and consultation of external sources. Some hyphens +in words have been silently removed and some silently added when +a predominant preference was found in the original book. Except +for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text and +inconsistent or archaic usage have been retained. + + Page 81: replaced “Chinaman’s cues” with “Chinaman’s queues”. + + Page 163: replaced “anonymous genuises” with “anonymous geniuses”. + + Page 179: replaced “Jules Verçel” with “Jules Vercel”. + + Page 256: replaced “glades of glass” with “glades of grass”. + + Page 361: replaced “letters to Liebniz” with “letters to Leibniz”. + +Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the +public domain. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77842 *** |