By the death of M. Pasteur, which occurred at St.
Cloud on Saturday, France loses the man whom she thought most eminent in the scientific world. Originally a student of chemistry, M. Pasteur is credited with discoveries in the laws of fermentation which materially simplified the manu- facture of beer, with a successful defensive policy against a disease which threatened the silkworm, with the best pre- ventive of the phylloxera, with the first idea of the anti- septic treatment in surgery so successfully carried out by Sir James Lister, with a successful method of protecting cattle against anthrax, and with the only mode of curing or preventing hydrophobia to which physicians attach im- portance. His claim to the last two discoveries is strenuously denied by physicists of repute, and cannot yet be con- sidered established, while his position as the most successful apologist for vivisection makes many, ourselves included, doubt whether, even on a liberal view of his successes, the totality of his work was of benefit to humanity. There appears to be no dispute as to his virtues, or as to the courage with which he compelled a moat feeble constitution to work on, and we note with some surprise that, unlike most of the physicists of France, he was a convinced and observant Catholic. He will be hor- -.sea to-day with a public funeral, and it is said that though v°11z1dial. many disciples he has no adequate successor. the Pr,
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