s
eaten the poisoned food.

*****

Pasteur describes in detail his method of securing healthy eggs. It
is nothing less than a mode of restoring to France her ancient silk
husbandry. The justification of his work is to be found in the
reports which reached him of the application and the unparalleled
success of his method, while editing his researches for final
publication. In both France and Italy his method has been pursued
with the most surprising results. But it was an up-hill fight which
led to this triumph.

'Ever,' he says, 'since the commencement of these researches, I have
been exposed to the most obstinate and unjust contradictions; but I
have made it a duty to leave no trace of these conflicts in this
book.' And in reference to parasitic diseases, generally, he uses the
following weighty words: 'Il est au pouvoir de l'homme de faire
disparaitre de la surface du globe les maladies parasitaires, si,
comme c'est ma conviction, la doctrine des generations spontanees est
une chimere.'

Pasteur dwells upon the ease with which an island like Corsica might
be absolutely isolated from the silkworm epidemic. And with regard to
other epidemics, Mr. Simon describes an extraordinary case of insular
exemption, for the ten years extending from 1851 to 1860. Of the 627
registration districts of England, one only had an entire escape from
diseases which, in whole or in part, were prevalent in all the others:
'In all the ten years it had not a single death by measles, nor a
single death by small-pox, nor a single death by scarlet-fever. And
why? Not because of its general sanitary merits, for it had an
average amounts of other evidence of unhealthiness. Doubtless, the
reason of its escape was that it was insular. It was the district of
the Scilly Isles; to which it was most improbable that any febrile
contagion should come from without. And its escape is an
approximative proof that, at least for those ten years, no _contagium_
of measles, nor any _contagium_ of scarlet-fever, nor any _contagium_ of
smallpox had arisen spontaneously within its limits.' It may be added
that there were only seven districts in England in which no death from
diphtheria occurred, and that, of those seven districts, the district
of the Scilly Isles was one.

A second parasitic disease of silkworms, called in France _la
Flacherie_, co-existent with _pebrine_, but quite distinct from it, has
also been investigated by Pasteur. Enough,