NOTE TO READER: The following story comes from a sixth-grade reader used in public education early in there last century. The quality of material is intended to build character and impart a genuine knowledge of important issues in the minds of the students. The level of quality in education was truly superior to our modern approach in public education. I would welcome your thoughts on the subject: standrews.church@gmail.com  Thank you. Bp Jerry Ogles

 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVEASITY THE GOLDEN RULE SERIES

THE GOLDEN KEY BOOK A SCHOOL READER

BY

E. HERSHEY SNEATH, PH.D., LL.D. PROFESOR NI YALE UNIVERSITY

GEORGE HODGES, D.D., D.C.I.

DEAN OF THE EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE AND

EDWARD LAWRENCE STEVENS, PH.D., L.H.D.

Nes York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1913

All rights reserood

LOUIS PASTEUR

            One would think, to read the old stories, that the worst enemies to fight are giants; but we know now that the worst enemies are germs. They are so small that only a strong microscope can make them visible, but for that reason they are securely hidden, and a r e able to poison people without being discovered. Now, at last, they are being found out, and the doctors are fighting them. The first great attack was made in France by Louis Pasteur.

The grapes in France were sick. Some- thing seemed to be the matter with all the vineyards. Almost all the wine one year turned sour. Pasteur examined the disease: He discovered that what we call "turning sour," whether in wine or in milk, is caused by the growth of millions of microscopic germs, and this growth is hastened or hindered by certain conditions. That was the beginning of great changes in medicine. For Pasteur said, " If germs make such disturbance in milk and in wine, why not the blood that is in the veins. And so it proved. There was a plague among the French cattle, and Pasteur examined the blood of these animals, and found the germs. Then there was an increase in the number of sufferers from the bites of mad dogs, and Pasteur found that there were germs in the blood of those who were thus bitten.

            The next thing was to discover how to fight the germs. They had been discovered in their ambush, but what could be done with them? Pasteur found that germs could be cultivated, as a gardener cultivates plants. Then he found that by cultivating them in certain ways their strength could be diminished, and that if they were introduced in this weakened state into the blood, they began at once to fight the germs that were there already. Pasteur set the germs to fight the germs.

 

            The result was that a number of ancient diseases that nobody had ever understood were now opposed by an effective medicine. And this method is being applied in new directions. The germs that cause various diseases are being discovered, and the weakened germs are made to war against them. Pasteur's discoveries have probably saved more lives than the prescriptions of all the other doctors in France. But these discoveries he made by perceiving that some of the least things in life are the most important. He studied these with long patience. "Work," he said, "work always." Thus he gained his great results.