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371 made to disappear from the face of the earth"; and as a fine example of the way in which mind kindles mind, we will cite the way in which Pasteur's study of pébrine in silkworms, and his formulation of the germ theory of disease, put into Lister's hand the true key to the havoc of bacteria in wounds, and enabled him to lay the foundation of modern antiseptic surgery which annually saves its thousands from death.

He noted that when a man broke a rib he had no "surgical fever," but made a safe and rapid recovery, unless the bone had penetrated the lung, when he died of pneumonia; but that other surgical wounds behaved very differently—that some exterior substance got into them; and Pasteur's studies taught him what was the element of mischief, so that we are justified in drawing out a certified pedigree as follows:

It was Lady Mary's observation of the difference in its consequences whether that which she called "matter," but which we now know to be the infinitesimal seeds of microscopical plants, came into the human system unconsciously through the lungs and stomach, or whether it was deliberately inserted artificially, of course making its way through the lymph-channels, that led Jenner to ask himself whether the seeds of the disease as modified by passing through the tissues of the cow might not also be inserted artificially. Fifty years after his death Pasteur, inaugurated the science of "microscopical botany," and had convinced himself that all the contagious diseases are the result of parasitic growths, and in his original papers, read before the French Academy, says he was put upon thinking whether the Jennerian application of a modified, "attenuated," less virulent virus could not be made in other diseases by the success in vaccination, and like a true knight of science he did not rest till he had produced and used such a remedy, saving millions of animals annually from the ravages of anthrax and thousands of men from hydrophobia. Continental flocks and herds are now as regularly "inoculated" as our children are vaccinated, but the greatest result of all is Lister's establishment of what is known as antiseptic surgery. In the thousand laboratories where splendid work for humanity is to-day progressing a picture of the Lady Mary, as inspiring genius, ought to be hung up; and it certainly is pleasant to the wide-awake women of the last decade of this nineteenth century to find, as we follow the unbroken chain backward, its first link in the delicate hand of an intelligent and courageous woman who dared to confer a priceless benefit, at the risk of obloquy, in the first quarter of the last.