“I am arriving at this result that there is no silkworm disease. There is but an exaggeration of a state of things which has always existed, and it is not difficult, in my view, to return to the former situation, even to improve on it. The evil was sought for in the worm and even in the seed; that was something, but my observations prove that it develops chiefly in the chrysalis, especially in the mature chrysalis, at the moment of the moth’s formation, on the eve of the function of reproduction. The microscope then detects its presence with certitude, even when the seed and the worm seem very healthy. The practical result is this: you have a nursery full; it has been successful or it has not; you wish to know whether to smother the cocoons or whether to keep them for reproduction. Nothing is simpler. You hasten the development of about 100 moths through an elevation of temperature, and you examine these moths through the microscope, which will tell you what to do. “The sickly character is then so easy to detect that a woman or a child can do it. If the cultivator should be a peasant, without the material conditions required for this study, he can do this: instead of throwing away the moths after they have laid their eggs, he can bottle a good many of them in brandy and send them to a testing office or to some experienced person who will determine the value of the seed for the following year.” The Japanese Government sent some cases of seed supposed to be healthy to Napoleon III, who distributed them in the silkworm growing departments. Pasteur, in the meanwhile, was stating the results he had arrived at, and they were being much criticized. In order to avoid the pébrine, which was indeed the disease caused by the corpuscles so clearly visible through the microscope, he averred that no seed should be used that came from infected moths. In order to demonstrate the infectious character of the pébrine he would give to some worms meals of leaves previously contaminated by means of a brush dipped in water containing corpuscles. The worms absorbed the food, and the disease immediately appeared and could be found in the chrysalides and moths from those worms. “I hope I am in the right road--close to the goal, perhaps, but I have not yet reached it,” wrote Pasteur to his faithful Chappuis; “and as long as the final proof is not acquired complications and errors are to be feared. Next year, the growth of the numerous eggs I have prepared will obviate my scruples, and I shall be sure of the value of the preventive means I have indicated. It is tiresome to have to wait a year before testing observations already made; but I have every hope of success.”