To L.

Pasteur 1

To L. Pasteur
Feby. 16th 1877.1 My dear Friend, Your note has reached me and I have read it with very great interest. The Report of the Referees of the Royal Society on Bastians2 paper, which I was careful to communicate to you, has already informed you as to the opinion which the Royal Society entertain of his labours. They refused to permit his paper on the Deportment of neutralised Urine to appear in their Transactions. Dr. Bastian was going out in this country like a dying ember, and to my notion this gradual extinction, which would have been certain and complete, was the most suitable end for such a man. You, however, think otherwise and my anxiety now is that no loop-hole shall be allowed him through which he can escape. I would therefore most earnestly caution you against relying too much upon the alleged fact that in acid solution germs are killed by boiling in a few minutes. There are germs of a special kind,3 and in a special condition, that will withstand the boiling temperature for a large multiple of the time that you have found sufficient to destroy them. I hope you have read the brief preliminary note presented to the Royal Society which I sent to you some time ago. I now send you the report of a lecture given at the Royal Institution from which you will learn something more of the facts to which I refer.4 At the present moment I am engaged upon Urine, which I have already sterilized - even when perfectly neutral by a temperature under that of boiling water. But there are probably germs which [will survive]. I will report the final result of my experiments on Urine to you in a few days. My only objection to your present course is that Bastian should have it recorded that he had the honour of contending with you before a commission embracing such illustrious names. I hold his work to be utterly unworthy of such consideration. I am, my dear Friend | Yours very sincerely | John Tyndall

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1. This does not appear to be Tyndalls own handwriting. 2. Dr. Henry Charlton Bastian (see biographical register). 3. Tyndall is referring to the recent discovery by Ferdinand Cohn that some spores (usually bacilli) could survive boiling and thus Pasteurization; he realized this explained why microbes could be found growing in hay-infused water even after that water was boiled. Cohns discovery thus removed a key support of spontaneous generationists such as Bastian and Flix-Archimde Pouchet (Strick, pp. 17081). 4. Possibly Dust and Disease, reprinted in the British Medical Journal 547, June 24, 1871, pp. 66162.

The Correspondence of John Tyndall

MANUSCRIPT ALTERATIONS AND COMMENTS (Points indicating where there are alterations are keyed to the letter texts by paragraph and line number; this section will appear at the end of each book.) John Tyndall to Louis Pasteur, London, 16 February 1877
4.5: the del btwn by and boiling 5.13: But there are probably germs which [2-3 words illeg]] interl btwn water and I will

BIOGRAPHICAL REGISTER AND INDEX TO CORRESPONDENTS (appearing at the end of the book; dates of letters to and from Tyndall will be listed under the correspondent in chronological order.) Bastian, Henry Charlton (18371915) Physician, professor of pathological anatomy and medicine at University College London; Darwinian and supporter of spontaneous generation. In 1868 elected an FRS for his work on nematodes; his reputation was also made by his work on neurological conditions such as aphasia. Yet historically he is best known for his support of spontaneous generation, which put him at odds with Tyndall and Louis Pasteur and other supporters of the germ theory of disease and what became known as biogenesis. Although he continued to argue for spontaneous generation he was increasingly marginalized in later years (Strick, 2000; Worboys, 2004). Pasteur, Louis. (18221895) Microbiologist, chemist, originator of the germ theory of disease, inventor of pasteurization and standardized vaccinations, hero of the Third French Republic. In the 1860s Pasteur engaged in dispute with Flix-Archimde Pouchet over the existence of spontaneous generation, with Pasteur denying that any such phenomenon existed. Complicating the dispute was the nature of microbe-carrying dust particles floating in the air; Tyndall - already known for conducting experiments with air - was an obvious choice for Pasteur to consult (Strick, 2000, pp. 17078; Brock, 2004). 16 February 1877 BIBLIOGRAPHY (appearing at the end of the book)
Brock, William H. Tyndall, John (18201893), in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2006, accessed 12 March 2010. Conant, James B. Pasteurs and Tyndalls Study of Spontaneous Generation, Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science 2, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1957), pp. 489539. Farley, John, and Gerald Geison. Science, Politics and Spontaneous Generation in Nineteenth-Century France: the Pasteur-Pouchet Debate, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 48 (1974), pp. 161198. Geison, Gerald. The Private Science of Louis Pasteur (Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 1995). Strick, James E. Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates over Spontaneous Generation (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 2000). Worboys, Michael, Bastian, (Henry) Charlton. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.

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