question of seeking the relation which existed between the time of the corpuscular feeding and the development of the disease with or without corpuscles. For Gernez, who believed Pasteur converted to the idea of the cor- puscle as cause, the question was simpler: the only question was to know whether the inoculated worms would have corpuscles, and the healthy worms would not have them. From this point of view, his experiment was particularly convincing. Of four lots of 40 worms each: The first, fed with ordinary leaves, gave 27 healthy cocoons; The second, fed with leaves moistened with ordinary water, gave 19 cocoons of which not one was corpuscular; The third, fed after the third molting with leaves moistened with water containing the débris of corpuscu- lar moths, gave only four cocoons which were very corpuscular. The fourth lot, in which the feeding of corpuscular leaves had commenced only after the fourth molt, gave 22 cocoons, all or almost all corpuscular. Here we behold a spectacle rare in the life of Pasteur: an experiment the full and complete meaning of which he does not immediately comprehend. This experiment was highly pertinent. It realized as in a synthesis the principal aspects of the disease. The third lot was an example of those silkworm cultures which, after having begun well, perish by the way and do not reach the cocoon stage. The fourth lot was an example of those cultures which succeed well but are incapable of furnishing good eggs. The first and the second lot bore witness to the worth, when it is not infected, of a "graine" resulting from egg-selection under the microscope, made upon a diseased culture. All that spoke at the same time in favor of Pasteur's method and of the corpuscle as a cause, but Gernez, who believed his master converted -167- |