A fourth experiment remained to be tried on a fourth hen, but the Academy of Medicine did not care to hold an all-night sitting. Time lacking, it was only done later, in the laboratory. Could a hen, inoculated of charbon and placed in a bath, recover and be cured merely by being taken out of its bath? A hen was taken, inoculated and held down a prisoner in a bath, its feet fastened to the bottom of the tub, until it was obvious that the disease was in full progress. The hen was then taken out of the water, dried, and wrapped up in cotton wool and placed in a temperature of 35° C. The bacteridia were reabsorbed by the blood, and the hen recovered completely. This was, indeed, a most suggestive experiment, proving that the mere fall of temperature from 42° C. (the temperature of hens) to 38° C. was sufficient to cause a receptive condition; the hen, brought down by immersion to the temperature of rabbits or guinea-pigs, became a victim like them. Between Sédillot’s enthusiasm and Colin’s perpetual contradiction, many attentive surgeons and physicians were taking a middle course, watching for Pasteur’s results and ultimately accepting them with admiration. Such was the state of mind of M. Lereboullet, an editor of the _Weekly Gazette of Medicine and Surgery_, who wrote in an account of the Académie de Médecine meeting that “those facts throw a new light on the theory of the genesis and development of the bacillus anthracis. They will be ascertained and verified by other experimentalists, and it seems very probable that M. Pasteur, who never brings any premature or conjectural assertion to the academic tribune, will deduce from them conclusions of the greatest interest concerning the etiology of virulent diseases.” But even to those who admired Pasteur as much as did M. Lereboullet, it did not seem that such an important part should immediately be attributed to microbes. Towards the end of his report (dated March 22, 1878) he reminded his readers that a discussion was open at the Académie de Médecine, and that the surgeon, Léon Le Fort, did not admit the germ theory in its entirety. M. Le Fort recognized “all the services rendered to surgery by laboratory studies, chiefly by calling attention to certain accidents of wounds and sores, and by provoking new researches with a view to improving methods of dressing and bandaging.” “Like all his colleagues at the Academy, and like our eminent master, M. Sédillot,” added M. Lereboullet, “M. Le Fort renders homage to the work of M. Pasteur; but he remains within his rights as a practitioner and reserves his opinion as to its general application to surgery.”