Page 30 - Fall2020

Did Pasteur boiling the bacteria in chicken broth, others tissue—possibly mixed with poisons such as

cheat? After in urine. One of Pasteur’s colleagues tried to carbolic acid or potassium bichromate—into an-
“enfeeble” anthrax cultures by exposing them other animal; this process was repeated through
all, the stakes to gasoline vapors. Pasteur attempted to destroy several guinea pigs. In this way he came up with
were high. the virulence of the anthrax bacillus by subject- what he called “virulent anthrax.”
Pasteur’s ing it to “atmospheric oxygen,” science-speak For rabies, Pasteur was able to produce
for air—all of these theories pursued with John the symptoms of disease by injecting “cerebral
notebooks Cleese-like gravitas. matter. . . extracted from a rabid dog under
indicate that Unfortunately for these would-be heroes, sterile [that is, poisoned] conditions and then
he was none of the ideas worked very well. For example, inoculated directly onto the surface of the brain
when Pasteur’s rival, a veterinarian named Tous-
of a healthy dog through a hole drilled into its
sometimes saint, focused on heated blood, which he initially skull.” This treatment did sometimes make dogs
dishonest, claimed could serve as an effective vaccine, he foam at the mouth and die. 2
even later found that the results were inconsistent, In the midst of his frustrating anthrax ex-
even killing experimental animals. He began periments, Pasteur was enticed by the Academy
unsavory. to add carbolic acid, which of Medicine into making the
did not meet with expectations celebrated demonstration at
either. Pouilly-le-Fort. With his rival
In his notebooks, Pasteur Toussaint (a mere vet, not even
expressed frustration that his a true scientist!) breathing
own experiments with rabbits, down his neck, his enemies
guinea pigs, monkeys and dogs made him sign the protocol
gave such inconclusive results. of an experiment they judged
The magic vaccine was elu- impossible of success. Pasteur,
sive, and according to Geison, to the dismay of his co-work-
Pasteur had “exceptionally ers, “impulsively” accepted
little experimental basis for the Pouilly-le-Fort challenge
announcing the ‘discovery’ of and signed the detailed and
an anthrax vaccine in January Black skin lesion ascribed demanding protocol of experi-
to anthrax infection.
1880.” Pasteur made a similar ments on April 28, 1881.
2
announcement in February 1881, and in March
he reported successful results in preliminary A DECEPTIVE EXPERIMENT?
tests on sheep. As Geison recounts, “the boldly Geison makes much of the fact that Pas-
confident tone of Pasteur’s public reports exag- teur deliberately deceived the public about the
gerated the actual results to date of his experi- nature of the vaccine he used at Pouilly-le-Fort,
ments with the new vaccine. In fact, the results although there was no particular reason for do-
of his tests remained ‘decidedly inconclusive.’” ing so. The protocols did not specify the kind
2
Another problem that Pasteur encountered of vaccine that Pasteur would inoculate into the
was that try as he might, he was unable to make animals. Pasteur was equally cagey earlier in
animals sick by injecting them with the microbe his career about the details of how he made his
he associated with the disease he was studying, vaccine for chicken cholera.
such as anthrax or rabies. In the case of anthrax, The key point: unlike all his early experi-
to make healthy animals sicken and die, he had ments, the trials at Pouilly-le-Fort worked per-
to inject them with “virulent anthrax.” Pasteur fectly! All the vaccinated sheep lived, and all
made “pathogenic” microbes more virulent by the unvaccinated sheep died. A triumph!
what he called “serial passage” of the organism However one has the right to ask: did Pas-
through other animals. In the case of anthrax, teur cheat? After all, the stakes were high—his
he used guinea pigs, injecting them with the whole career and the future of the germ theory
microorganism he associated with anthrax, then were at stake. Pasteur’s notebooks indicate that
sacrificing the animal and injecting its blood or he was sometimes dishonest, even unsavory. He
28 Wise Traditions FALL 2020