Makers of Modern Medicine

When Pasteur recovered sufficiently to resume work, it was soon clear to apprehensive friends that he had no intention of leaving his ideas to be worked out by other men. The miseries of the Franco-Prussian War deeply affected him, and could not fail to inhibit his productiveness, but after a time the unquenchable love for experimental research was once more ascendant and there began a new epoch, the epoch of great discoveries relating to the origin and cure or prevention of the infectious diseases of man and the domestic animals. As in the case of Ignatius Loyola, it seems as if the lamp of the genius shone with a larger and more luminous flame after the onset of bodily infirmity in defiance of the physical mechanism which is too often permitted to master the will.

After his illness Pasteur devoted himself even more than before to the study of the various biological problems connected with human diseases. There was one exception to this, in his series of studies on beer, undertaken shortly after the Franco-Prussian War. Pasteur was an ardent patriot, so much so, indeed, that after the war he sent back to the German government certain decorations and diplomas that had been conferred upon him. He thought that his country had been overreached by a scheming, political statesman, bent on the aggrandizement of the kingdom of Prussia. To the end of his life this feeling of hostility never entirely vanished. It was his hope, then, that by improving the character of French beer it might not only be made more wholesome in the best sense of the word, but also that the French brewing industry might be made a serious rival of its German competitors. Pasteur's discoveries are the most important for the brewing industry that have ever been made. The Germans proved, however, even more capable of taking advantage of them than his French compatriots.

After this Pasteur devoted himself without further interruption to the study of the microbic diseases of man. His greatest practical triumph was undoubtedly with regard to hydrophobia, or, as it is more properly called, rabies. The mystery of the disease was most illusive. Pasteur could not succeed in finding the germ of the disease. Even down to our own day it has not been satisfactorily demonstrated. In spite of this lack of an important element of knowledge, which might be supposed absolutely essential for the successful therapeutics of rabies from a biological standpoint, Pasteur succeeded in producing material that would protect those bitten by rabid dogs from developing the affection.

Long and bitter was the opposition to the introduction of his method of treatment. The greatest living German bacteriologist said that it was idle to provide "remedies of which we know nothing for diseases of which we know less." The reference was to the failure to find the germ of the disease and the claim, nevertheless, of having discovered a cure. Wherever the Pasteur treatment for rabies was introduced, however, the number of deaths following the bites of mad animals fell off. In Russia, where the mad wolves of the Steppes so often inflict fatal bites, the power of the new treatment was soon recognized. In Hungary its value was appreciated without delay. Then the British government, after a most careful investigation, introduced it into the Indian army. Then Austria took it up officially. At the International Medical Congress at Moscow, in 1897, Americans, who expressed doubts as to the efficiency of the Pasteur treatment for rabies, were laughed at by the medical representatives of nations who have the most opportunities for studying the disease. Shortly after the Moscow congress the German government officially announced its intention of treating all persons bitten by rabid animals by the Pasteur method. A Pasteur institute for the treatment was opened in connection with the University of Berlin. With this the last serious opposition disappeared. The Germans are now enthusiastic advocates of the value of the Pasteur treatment. The statistics of the Berlin Pasteur Institute are pointed to as demonstrating beyond doubt the possession of power to cope with one of the most fatal diseases man is liable to. Alas, that this should not have come during the master's lifetime! It would have been the happiest moment of Pasteur's life to have had his ideas triumphant in Germany. Unlike the generality of great men, however, Pasteur enjoyed the meed of almost unstinted appreciation during life.

Geniuses are often said to be neglected by their contemporaries. The expression is exemplified much less frequently in our own time than formerly. The rapid diffusion of ideas, and the consequent control and confirmation of scientific claims by many minds, enable the present generation to recognize merit before its possessor has starved. Pasteur's career was certainly an exemplification of the fact that true genius, though it may meet with opposition, will be well rewarded. The son of the poor tanner of Dole, by the mere force of his intellectual energy, lifted himself to the level of earth's great ones. His funeral obsequies were a pageant in which French officialdom felt itself honored to take part. The President of the French Republic, the members of both houses of the legislative department, the officials of the city of Paris, the members of the faculty of the university, of the French Academy, and of the various scientific societies of the French capital, gathered to honor their mighty dead. Never has it been given to anyone without family prestige or political or ecclesiastical influence to have a great world-capital and a great nation accord such glorious obsequies, while all the world extended its sympathy and added paeans of praise.

Nor was it only at the moment of death that the expression of sincere respect and merited honor was paid. When there was question of erecting a Pasteur institute, in which the master's great work could be carried on more effectually, contributions poured in from every part of France and from all over the civilized world. Two of the world's greatest hereditary rulers made it a point to visit the humble laboratory of the great scientist whenever they came to Paris. Alexander II, the Czar of the Russians, was the intimate friend of the tanner's son, who became the world's benefactor. Dom Pedro II, the late Emperor of Brazil was another royal visitor to Pasteur. In the library of the Institut Pasteur at Paris, the busts of these two and of two other great friends of his, scarcely less in worldly importance and greater in their beneficence, keep watch above the ashes of the dead scientist. They are Baroness Hirsch, the world benefactress, and Baron Albert Rothschild, the head of the French branch of the great banking family.

All united in honoring the marvellous genius whose work has proved of such practical utility for mankind, and whose discoveries are as yet only beginning their career of pregnant suggestiveness to scientific men. His genius has brought the great ones of earth to his level or raised him to theirs. His own thought on the equality of man is a confession of the faith that was in him. It was expressed in his discourse of reception into the French Academy in the midst of the panegyric on Littré, from which we quoted at the beginning of this sketch: "Where are the true sources of human dignity, of liberty and of modern democracy, if not in the infinite, before which all men are equal? The notion of the infinite finds everywhere its inevitable expression. By it the supernatural is at the bottom of every heart."

Pasteur, the man, is, however, if possible, even more interesting than Pasteur, the greatest of living scientists. In the midst of all his work and his wonderful success, amid the plaudits of the world, Pasteur remained one of the simplest of men and the kindest of friends to those who knew him. Dr. Roux's expression is well known: "The work of Pasteur is admirable; it shows his genius; but one must have lived on terms of intimacy with him in order to know all the goodness of his heart." He was kindness personified, and those who think of him as a cruel vivisector and encourager of experiments upon animals that cause suffering, belie him and his humanity very much. He would never permit animals to be used in experiments without an anesthetic, and even then only when he deemed that use absolutely necessary for the furtherance of projects that promised great benefit to humanity. Nothing was harder for him to do than to walk the hospitals and see human suffering when he was studying the causes of disease in human beings. Even the slight pain inflicted during the injections for hydrophobia was a source of great discomfort to him, and his anxiety with regard to these patients was one of the main causes of the breakdown in health that shortened his life.

One of the most beautiful things about Pasteur's personal life is the relation to his family, and especially to his children, and their union in religious simplicity. On the occasion of the death of his father, whom Pasteur loved very deeply and for whom he had instilled the deepest affection into the hearts of his children, he wrote to his daughter, whose first communion was to occur on that day. His letter is that of a man deeply affectionate, sincerely religious, and eminently trustful of the future that faith alone points out. His letter runs:

"He died, my dear Cecelia, the day of your first communion. Those are two memories which will, I hope, never leave your heart, my dear child. I had a presentiment of his death when I asked you to pray particularly on that morning for your grandfather at Arbois. Your prayers will surely be very agreeable to God at such a time, and who knows if grandpa himself did not know of them and did not rejoice with our little Jeanne [a daughter who had died the year before] over the pious sentiments of Cecelia?"

It is not surprising, then, to find many other expressions of Pasteur's extreme interest in spiritual things, though they might have been little expected from a man so deeply immersed in scientific investigations as he was. After all, it must not be forgotten that his discoveries, by solving the mystery that surrounds the origin of disease, cleared some of the ways of Providence of that inscrutable character which is supposed in shallow minds to constitute the greatest part of their impressiveness. With epidemics explained, not as dispensations of Divine Providence, but as representing the sanction of nature for the violation of natural laws, one of the reasons for which mankind worshipped the Deity seemed to be gone. The man who had done most to make clear these mysterious processes of nature was, however, himself far from thinking that materialism offers any adequate explanation of the mysteries of life, or of the relations of man to man, and of man to his Creator. Impatient at the pretensions of such pseudoscientists, Pasteur once said: "Posterity will one day laugh at the sublime foolishness of the modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory."

For Pasteur, death had no mysteries. He had written to his father, once, on the death of his little daughter Jeanne: "I can only think at this moment of my poor little one so good, so full of life, so happy in living, and whom this fatal year, now drawing to a close, has snatched from us. After a very short time she would have been for her mother and for me, for all of us, a friend, a companion, a helpmate. But I ask your pardon, dear father, for recalling to you such sad memories. She is happy. Let us think of those who remain, and let us try to prevent for them, as far as lies in our power, the bitternesses of life." So, when it came to the hour of his own death, Pasteur faced it with the simple confidence of a sincere Christian, and the undoubting faith of a lifelong son of the Church. For many hours he remained motionless, one of his hands resting in that of Madame Pasteur, while the other held a crucifix. His last conscious glance was for his lifelong companion, his last conscious act a pressure of the image of his Redeemer. Thus, surrounded by his family and disciples in a room of almost monastic simplicity, on Saturday, September 28, 1895, about five in the afternoon, passed peacefully away the greatest of the nineteenth century scientists.

Almost needless to say, the life of a man like Pasteur contains the most wonderful lessons for the young scientists of the twentieth century. Few men have lived their lives so unselfishly, and with so much preoccupation for the good that they might accomplish, as he did. To have remained in the midst of it all simple, earnest and faithful to duty, without self-seeking, is a triumph worthy of recording, and makes a career well deserving of emulation. When Pasteur made his discoveries with regard to fermentation the Empress of the French asked to be shown just what his investigations had demonstrated. Pasteur went to Court for the purpose, and after the Emperor and Empress had been shown the ferment cells, and expressed their interest, Eugenie said: "Now, you will develop this discovery industrially, will you not?" Pasteur replied. "Ah, no, that will be left for others. It does not seem to me that it would be worthy of a French scientist to allow himself to be diverted to the industrial applications of his discoveries, even though it might prove eminently lucrative for him." As a matter of fact, had Pasteur allowed himself to be allured into the foundation of an immense manufactory constructed and directed on the great principles which he had discovered, there seems no doubt that this would have been a wonderful money-making scheme. Certain it is that the capital for such an adventure would have been readily available. Had Pasteur yielded to the solicitations made him he might have died worth many millions, instead of the very modest competency which came to him in the ordinary course of his scientific labors. The money might have seemed a temptation for the sake of his children, but the world would have lost all the great discoveries with regard to human diseases. It is not unlikely that these would have been made even without Pasteur, There is no doubt, however, that their discovery would have been very much delayed and that as a consequence almost untold human suffering that has been prevented would have occurred. It must never be forgotten that such men as Lister and Koch derived their most fertile suggestions from the discoveries made by Pasteur.

Pasteur's life may very well be held up, then, as a model to the present and future generations of what the highest ideals of a scientific career can be. Dr. Christian Herter, in the discourse already quoted from, has stated this so well and at the same time has joined with it so felicitously a quotation from Pasteur's advice to young men, that we can find no better way in which to close this consideration of Pasteur's career than by quoting him once more:

"To have fought the long battle of life with unwavering constancy to the loftiest ideals of conduct, toiling incessantly without a thought of selfish gain; to have remained unspoiled by success and unembittered by opposition and adversity; to have won from nature some of her most precious and covert secrets, turning them to use for the mitigation of human suffering;–these are proofs of rare qualities of heart and mind. Such full success in life did Louis Pasteur attain, and from the consciousness of good achieved his noble nature found full reward for all his labors.

"Of the children whom nature has endowed with splendid gifts there are few whose lives have affected so profoundly and so beneficently the fate of their fellows, few who have earned in equal degree the gratitude and reverence of all civilized men. Although not many can hope to enrich science with new principles, all of us may gain from Pasteur's life the inspiration to cultivate the best that is in us. Let us keep living in our memories the inspiring words which the master spoke on the seventieth anniversary of his birthday:

"'Young men, young men, devote yourselves to those sure and powerful methods, of which we as yet know only the first secrets. And I say to all of you, whatever may be your career, never permit yourselves to be overcome by degrading and unfruitful skepticism. Neither permit the hours of sadness which come upon a nation to discourage you. Live in the serene peace of your laboratories and your libraries. First, ask yourselves, What have I done for my education? Then, as you advance in life, What have I done for my country? So that some day that supreme happiness may come to you, the consciousness of having contributed in some manner to the progress and welfare of humanity. But, whether our efforts in life meet with success or failure, let us be able to say, when we near the great goal, 'I have done what I could.'"

JOSEPH O'DWYER, THE INVENTOR OF INTUBATION

I have hope and wish that the nobler sort of physicians will advance their thoughts, and not employ their time wholly in the sordidness of cures; neither be honored for necessity only; but that they will become coadjutors and instruments in prolonging and renewing the life of man.

--Bacon

At the beginning of the nineteenth century a young medical practitioner, working faithfully in the wards of his hospital in Paris, pitying especially the patients who suffered from pulmonary disease, and realizing how hopeless was their treatment, since medical science knew so little of the real nature of the ailment from which they suffered, invented the stethoscope and established the principles on which modern physical diagnosis is based in a method so complete that after the lapse of three-quarters of a century very little has been added to what was then discovered. This genius was the famed Laennec, of whom we have written in a preceding chapter, who was wont to spend his days walking the wards of the Necker Hospital in Paris, caring more for his poor patients than for the nobility and members of the wealthy classes, who willingly would have taken advantage of his clinical knowledge so conscientiously gained. Laennec made possible progress in medicine that places him among the five or six greatest medical men of all times.

At the end of the nineteenth century a man of about Laennec's age was touched with pity for the sufferings of the poor children whom he saw dying from suffocation because of the ravages of laryngeal diphtheria. Nothing could be done for them except, perhaps, to benumb their senses by means of narcotics, while nurse and medical man stood idly by suffering excruciatingly themselves while their little patients bore all the lingering, awful pains of death by asphyxiation. For years Joseph O'Dwyer labored at the problem of relieving these little patients, and finally achieved similar success to Laennec with his stethoscope. The modern doctor, moreover, was quite as patient in his work of research as Laennec, and though his discovery had not so wide an application as the latter's it was accomplished through the same tireless, persevering labor, and through the same instinct of genius that finally led to the culminating invention which no one has been able to improve, and which has made its inventor's name a familiar word to medical men over the world. American medicine has no more shining light than the name of Joseph O'Dwyer, and the record of his simple, sincere, straightforward life, faithful during his successful career to the simple religious principles imbibed in the bosom of an old-fashioned Catholic family, who, during a long career, thought little of self and mainly of the possibilities for good presented by his profession, cannot but prove one of the standard biographies in this country's medical history.

Dr. Joseph O'Dwyer, the inventor of intubation, was born in 1841, in Cleveland, Ohio. Shortly after his birth his parents, who were only moderately well to do, moved to Canada, so that O'Dwyer's boyhood was passed not far from London, Ontario. There he received his early education, and there also, as was the custom in those days, he began his medical studies by becoming a student in the office of a Dr. Anderson. After two years of apprenticeship, he came to New York and attended lectures in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was graduated in 1866, at the age of twenty-five. Immediately after graduation he obtained the first place in the competitive examination for resident physician and sanitary superintendent of the Charity or City Hospital of New York City, on Blackwell's Island. Shortly after his appointment an epidemic of cholera broke out in the workhouse (under his charge), and Dr. O'Dwyer nobly devoted himself to the care of the patients. While engaged in this work he contracted the disease himself, but fortunately recovered completely without suffering from any of its usual after-effects.

When, not long subsequently, another epidemic of cholera occurred in New York, and a number of cases of the disease were transferred to Hart's Island and there quarantined, volunteers for their medical attendance were asked from among the members of the medical staff of the Charity Hospital. Dr. O'Dwyer was one of the first to come forward and offer his services. Again he contracted the disease, but recovered from it as completely as from typhus. Years afterward he described to a friend his feelings as he lay in one of the hospital tents, the only accommodation that could be provided for him owing to the crowded condition of the wards. His attack was rather severe and yet left him his consciousness, while as he lay expecting death at almost any moment, the thought (as he was wont to relate) sometimes came to him that it was perhaps foolish of him to have volunteered in so dangerous a service. This thought was always put away, however, and he assured his friend that at no time had he ever regretted his exposure to the disease in the cause of suffering humanity. The risks that usually come with professional obligations (it appeared to him) are not to be avoided at the cost of the consciousness of a duty refused.

During his service at the Charity Hospital, Dr. O'Dwyer endeared himself to all those with whom he came in contact. In examination for the position of resident on the Island he had passed first, and during his service there it was generally conceded that he towered above his companions in his efficiency and attention to duty. Some of those who were residents with him afterward made names that are distinguished in the history of the practice of medicine in New York City, yet all of them were ever ready to acknowledge that O'Dwyer had been a leader among them in the service. With a very practical turn of mind, he united the capacity for patient work that enabled him to master difficulties, while his devotion to his profession gave him a deep interest in every department of medicine. The foundation of his future success as a practitioner of medicine was laid in these fruitful years of hard work among the poor charity patients of New York City, for whose welfare, as is evident from what we have said, he was ready to make any sacrifice.

After about two years of service on Blackwell's Island, Dr. O'Dwyer, who had attracted no little attention by his faithful fulfilment of duty, was appointed examiner of patients–applicants for admission to the hospitals under the control of the City Board of Charities and Correction. He therefore resigned his position on the Island, and in partnership with Dr. Warren Schoonover opened an office on Second Avenue, between Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth Streets. With his colleague, he devoted himself especially to obstetrical practice, in which he had great success, delivering in one year, it is said, over three thousand patients.

In 1872 Dr. O'Dwyer was appointed to the staff of the New York Foundling Asylum, in connection with which his real life-work was to be accomplished. While there Doctors Reynolds and J. Lewis Smith were his colleagues, and all three of them have added no little distinction to American medicine by the careful observations made at that asylum.

At this time one of the most fearful scourges that could afflict a foundling asylum or children's hospital was an epidemic of diphtheria. Those who pretend not to believe in the efficacy of the antitoxin treatment of diphtheria should listen to the account given by some of the Sisters, who for long years were in service in the New York Foundling Asylum, of the fear that came over them when it was announced that diphtheria had entered the wards in their charge. It was always certain beyond doubt that this disease would spread very extensively, and, in spite of all precautions and the enforcement of whatever quarantine was possible, the mortality rate would be very high. Usually forty or fifty per cent, of those who were attacked by diphtheria would perish from the disease, nor was it easy to foresee the end of any epidemic.