Louis Pasteur: His Life and LaboursVallery-Radot, René
Science
Louis Pasteur: His Life and Labours
Vallery-Radot, René
Pasteur, Louis, 1822-1895; Scientists -- France -- Biography
Even now the experiments are in full swing. Biting dogs and bitten
dogs fill the laboratory. Without reckoning the hundreds of mad dogs
that have died in the laboratory during the last three years, there
never occurs a case of hydrophobia in Paris of which Pasteur is not
informed. Not long ago a veterinary surgeon telegraphed to him, 'Attack
at its height in poodle-dog and bull-dog. Come.' Pasteur invited me
to accompany him, and we started, carrying six rabbits with us in a
basket. The two dogs were rabid to the last degree. The bull dog
especially, an enormous creature, howled and foamed in its cage. A
bar of iron was held out to him: he threw himself upon it, and there
was great difficulty in drawing it away from his bloody fangs. One
of the rabbits was then brought near to the cage, and its drooping
ear was allowed to pass through the bars. But, notwithstanding this
provocation, the dog flung himself down at the bottom of his cage and
refused to bite.
Two youths then threw a cord with a slip loop over the dog, as a lasso
is thrown. The animal was caught and drawn to the edge of the cage.
There they managed to get hold of him and to secure his jaws; and the
dog, suffocating with fury, his eyes bloodshot, and his body convulsed
with a violent spasm, was extended upon a table and held motionless,
while Pasteur, leaning over his foaming head, at the distance of a
finger's length, sucked up into a narrow tube some drops of the saliva.
In the basement of the veterinary surgeon's house, witnessing this
formidable _tête-à-tête_, I thought Pasteur grander than I had ever
thought him before.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter and renumbered
consecutively through the document.
Footnotes 7 and 8 are [enclosed in brackets] in the original, and this
has been preserved.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Punctuation has been standardized.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except as noted below.
Changes have been made as follows:
Ecole changed to École in several places (École Normale)
Page ix: ETUDIES changed to STUDIES (STUDIES ON WINE)
Page 48: buding changed to budding (multiplication by budding,)
Page 166: nett changed to net (villa a net profit)
Page 219: pebrine changed to pébrine (pébrine and flacherie, also)
Page 258 earth worms changed to earth-worms (by the earth-worms.)
Page 260: resistent changed to resistant (more resistant to the)
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Louis Pasteur, by René Vallery-Radot
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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