The Dream & Lie of Louis Pasteur by R. B. Pearson
The Dream & Lie of Louis Pasteur by R. B. Pearson The Dream & Lie of Louis Pasteur by R. B. Pearson (originally Pasteur, Plagiarist, Imposter 1942) PREFACE 1. PRIOR HISTORY OF THE "GERM THEORY" 2 BECHAMP, PASTEUR, AND FERMENTATION 3 VINOUS FERMENTATION 4 BECHAMP'S MICROZYMAS OR `LITTLE BODIES' 5 SILK WORM DISEASE: ANOTHER STEAL! 6 PASTEUR ALSO A FAKER: ANTISEPSIS 7 ARE BIOLOGICALS INJURIOUS? TUBERCULIN A FRAUD IMMUNITY IN ANIMALS VACCINATED WITH B.C.G. BIOLOGICALS MAY DISSOLVE THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES GERMS IN SERUMS MAY ATTACK THE HEART VALVES 8 ANIMAL SEROLOGY: ANTHRAX FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE RABIES OR HYDROPHOBIA PASTEUR'S TREATMENT CAUSES RABIES THE TUBERCULIN TEST 9 REAL IMMUNITY [NB: See dispute about quotes.] PREFACE It is a rather serious matter to attack the reputation of a famous man, one who has posed and been accepted as one of the world's greatest scientists. For many years, Pasteur has been looked upon as a founder and leader in serology; but it is always pertinent to look into the beginnings of any subject on which there is a difference of opinion, with the hope of finding the truth in the matter. The writer has made an effort in his prior books and pamphlets to show that the germ theory is false, and that illness was practically always due to errors of diet or manner of living, the germs being present solely as scavengers of dead and waste tissues and foods, and not as the cause of the disease. However, the erroneous belief that germs cause disease and must be controlled or eliminated before it can be cured is so widespread as to close the minds of many people to any other ideas on this subject. For this reason it seems that a thorough investigation of this idea, the grounds on which it is based, and even the bona-fides of those who started it on its way, is necessary before any sane ideas as to the proper treatment of disease can be widely promulgated. When Miss Ethel Douglas Hume brought out Bechamp or Pasteur? in 1923, it appeared to be just the thing that would fill this gap and end the use of serums and other biologicals forever. But it is now 19 years since that book, which should have marked an epoch in the healing arts, appeared. It did not receive the attention it deserved in medical circles and, though it is now in its second edition,* the medical profession are pushing biologicals harder than ever. Hence it seems appropriate to go over the subject in order to show the truth regarding the falsity of Pasteur's ideas and claims to fame, and the fraudulent basis on which the germ theory rests, as was so well shown by Miss Hume in B«champ or Pasteur?, and to add other facts and statistics that support the idea that the germ theory is false, in the hopes that it may receive wider circulation and more general attention, and possibly lead to a complete overhauling of the question of the treatment of disease, especially regarding serology. The translations from the French, and other material in chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 not otherwise credited, are from Beauchamp or Pasteur? by Ethel Douglas Hume. In closing, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Reverend and Mrs Wilber Atchison of Chicago for many suggestions and valuable assistance in the preparation of the manuscript. Miss L. Loat, secretary of the National Anti-Vaccination League of London, has also been very kind, responding to every request for information with more than could be used, some of it being especially compiled at the cost of considerable effort. R. B. Pearson January 15th, 1942 1. PRIOR HISTORY OF THE "GERM THEORY" If you back into the history of the medical profession and the various ideas regarding the cause of disease that were held by leading physicians before Pasteur first promulgated his notorious "germ theory", you will find convincing evidence that Pasteur discovered nothing, and that he deliberately appropriated, falsified and perverted another man's work. The 'germ theory', so-called, long antedated Pasteur - so long, in fact, that he was able to present it as new; and he got away with it! F. Harrison, Principal Professor of Bacteriology at Macdonald College (Faculty of Agriculture, McGill University), Quebec, Canada, wrote an Historical Review of Microbiology, published in Microbiology, a text book, in which he says in part: "Geronimo Fracastorio (an Italian poet and physician, 1483 - 1553) of Verona, published a work (De Contagionibus et Contagiosis Morbis, et eorum Curatione) in Venice in 1546 which contained the first statement of the true nature of contagion, infection, or disease organisms, and of the modes of transmission of infectious disease. He divided diseases into those which infect by immediate contact, through intermediate agents, and at a distance through the air. Organisms which cause disease, called seminaria contagionum, he supposed to be of the nature of viscous or glutinous matter, similar to the colloidal states of substances described by modern physical chemists. These particles, too small to be seen, were capable of reproduction in appropriate media, and became pathogenic through the action of animal heat. Thus Fracastorio, in the middle of the sixteenth century, gave us an outline of morbid processes in terms of microbiology." For a book published more than three hundred years before Pasteur 'discovered' the germ theory, this seems to be a most astonishing anticipation of Pasteur's ideas, except that - not having a microscope - Fracastorio apparently did not realize that these substances might be individual living organisms. According to Harrison, the first compound microscope was made by H. Jansen in 1590 in Holland, but it was not until about 1683 that anything was built of sufficient power to show up bacteria. He continues: "In the year 1683, Antonius van Leenwenhoek, a Dutch naturalist and a maker of lenses, communicated to the English Royal Society the results of observations which he had made with a simple microscope of his own construction, magnifying from 100 to 150 times. He found in water saliva, dental tartar, etc., what he termed animalcula. He described what he saw, and in his drawings showed both rod-like and spiral form, both of which he said had motility. In all probability, the two species he saw were those now recognized as bacillus buccalis maximus and spirillum sputigenum. Leenwenhoek's observations were purely objective and in striking contrast with the speculative views of M. A. Plenciz, a Viennese physician, who in 1762 published a germ theory of infectious diseases. Plenciz maintained that there was a special organism by which each infectious disease was produced, that micro-organisms were capable of reproduction outside of the body, and that they might be conveyed from place to place by the air." Here is Pasteur's great thought in toto - his complete germ theory - and put in print over a century before Pasteur thought of it(?), or published it as his own! Note how concisely it anticipates all Pasteur's ideas on germs. While there seems to be no proof that Plenciz had a microscope, or knew of Leenwenhoek's animalcula, both are possible, and likely, as he was quite prominent; and he, rather than Pasteur, should have any credit that might come from such a discovery - if the germ theory has any value. This idea, which, to the people of that time at least, must have accounted easily and completely for such strange occurrences as contagion, infection and epidemics, would have been widely discussed in the medical or scientific circles of that time, and in literature available to Pasteur. That it was widely known is indicated by the fact that the world-famous English nurse, Florence Nightingale, published an attack on the idea in 1860, over 17 years before Pasteur adopted it and claimed it as his own. She said of 'infection': Diseases are not individuals arranged in classes, like cats and dogs, but conditions growing out of one another. Is it not living in a continual mistake to look upon diseases as we do now, as separate entities, which must exist, like cats and dogs, instead of looking upon them as conditions, like a dirty and a clean condition, and just as much under our control; or rather as the reactions of kindly nature, against the conditions in which we have placed ourselves? I was brought up to believe that smallpox, for instance, was a thing of which there was once a first specimen in the world, which went on propagating itself, in a perpetual chain of descent, just as there was a first dog, (or a first pair of dogs) and that smallpox would not begin itself, any more than a new dog would begin without there having been a parent dog. Since then I have seen with my own eyes and smelled with my own nose smallpox growing up in first specimens, either in closed rooms or in overcrowded wards, where it could not by any possibility have been 'caught', but must have begun. I have seen diseases begin, grow up, and pass into one another. Now, dogs do not pass into cats. I have seen, for instance, with a little overcrowding, continued fever grow up; and with a little more, typhoid fever; and with a little more, typhus, and all in the same ward or hut. Would it not be far better, truer, and more practical, if we looked upon disease in this light (for diseases, as all experience shows, are adjectives, not noun-substantives): - True nursing ignores infection, except to prevent it. Cleanliness and fresh air from open windows, with unremitting attention to the patient, are the only defence a true nurse either asks or needs. - Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection. The greater part of nursing consists of preserving cleanliness. - The specific disease doctrine is the grand refuge of weak, uncultured, unstable minds, such as now rule in the medical profession. There are no specific diseases; there are specific disease conditions." Here you have Florence Nightingale, one of the most famous nurses in history, after life-long experience with infection, contagion and epidemics, challenging the germ theory 17 years before Pasteur put it forward as his own discovery! (See Ch.8, p.61). She clearly understood it and its utter fallacy better before 1860 than Pasteur did, either in 1878 or later! And, to see what a parasite Pasteur was on men who did things, let us digress and go back a few years, to the time when the study of germs was an outgrowth of the study of fermentation. 2 BECHAMP, PASTEUR, AND FERMENTATION About 1854, Professor Pierre Jacques Antoine Bechamp, one of France's greatest scientists, then Professor at the School of Pharmacy in the Faculty of Science at Strasbourg, later (1857-75) Professor of Medical Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Montpelier, a member of many scientific societies, and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, took up the study of fermentation. He had succeeded in 1852 in so reducing the cost of producing aniline as to make it a commercial success, and his formula became the basis of the German dye industry. This brought him some fame, and many more problems to solve. Up to this time, the idea prevailed that cane sugar, when dissolved in water, was spontaneously transformed at an ordinary temperature into invert sugar, which is a mixture of equal parts of glucose and fructose, but an experiment with starch had caused him to doubt the truth of this idea. Therefore in May, 1854, Bechamp undertook a series of observations on this change, which came to be referred to as his "Beacon Experiment". In this experiment, he dissolved perfectly pure cane sugar in water in a glass bottle containing air, but tightly stoppered. Several other bottles contained the same solution, but with a chemical added. In the solution without any added chemical, moulds appeared in about thirty days, and inversion of the sugar in this bottle then went on rapidly, but moulds and inversion did not occur in the other bottles containing added chemicals. He measured the inversion frequently with a polariscope. These observations were concluded on February 3, 1855, and his paper was published in the Report of the French Academy of Science for the session of February 19, 1855. This left the moulds without an explanation, so he started a second series of observations on June 25, 1856 (at Strasbourg) in order to determine if possible, their origin, and on March 27, 1857, he started a third series of flasks to study the effects of creosote on the changes. Both series were ended at Montpelier on December 5, 1857. In the second series he spilled a little liquid from flasks 1 and 2 during manipulation, so these two flasks contained a little air in contact with the liquid. In these two flasks, moulds soon appeared, and alteration in the medium ensued. He also found that the changes were more rapid in the flask in which the mould grew more rapidly. In the other nine flasks there was no air, no mould formed, and no inversion of the sugar occurred; plainly air was needed for the moulds and inversion to occur. This proved beyond any possibility of doubt that the moulds and inversion of the sugar could not be "spontaneous" action, but must be due to something carried in the air admitted to the first two flasks. Yet Pasteur later called fermentation "life without air, or life without oxygen." At this time, it was quite generally believed that fermentation could not take place except in the presence of albuminoids, which were in general use by Pasteur and others as part of their solutions . Hence, their solutions could have contained these living organizations to start with. Bechamp's solutions contained only pure cane sugar and water, and when heated with fresh-slaked lime did not disengage ammonia - ample proof that they contained no albumen. Yet moulds, obviously living organisms, and therefore containing albuminoid matter, had appeared in these two solutions. Bechamp proved to his own satisfaction that these moulds were living organisms and that cane sugar was inverted, as he said "... only in proportion to the development of moulds. These elementary vegetations then acting as ferments." Pasteur, apparently overlooking the air contact, challenged Bechamp's statements, saying: "... to be logical, Bechamp should say that he has proved that moulds arise in pure sugared water, without nitrogen, phosphates or other mineral elements, for that is an enormity that can be deduced from his work, in which there is not the expression of the least astonishment that moulds have been able to grow in pure water with pure sugar without any other mineral or organic principles." Bechamp's retort to this was: "A chemist au courant with science ought not to be surprised that moulds are developed in sweetened water, contained in contact with air in glass flasks. It is the astonishment of Pasteur that is astonishing" As Bechamp started with no nitrogen whatever except what was in the air in the first two flasks, it is probably the first time any growth or any kind of organism was proved to have absorbed nitrogen from the air. Apparently Pasteur could not grasp this idea! In the preface to his last book, The Third Element of the Blood, Bechamp says that these facts impressed him in the same way that the swing of the cathedral lamp had impressed Galileo. He realized that some living organisms had been carried into these two flasks in the small amount of air admitted, and acting as ferments had produced the mould and the inversion in the sugar. He compared the transformation of cane sugar in the presence of moulds to that produced upon starch by diastase, the ferment that converts starch into sugar. He sent in his report on these findings to the Academy of Science in December 1857, and an extract was published in its reports of January 4, 1858,5 though the full paper was not published until September that year. He says of these experiments: "By its title the memoir was a work of pure chemistry, which had at first no other object than to determine whether or not pure cold water could invert cane sugar and if, further, the salts had any influence on the inversion. But soon the question, as I had foreseen, became complicated; it became at once physiological and dependent upon the phenomena of fermentation and the question of spontaneous generation. Thus from the study of a simple chemical fact, I was led to investigate the causes of fermentation, and the nature and origin of ferments." Although Schwann had suggested airborne germs in about 1837, he had not proved his ideas; here Bechamp proved them to exist. Yet Pasteur in his 1857 memoirs still clings to the idea that both the moulds and ferments "take birth spontaneously", although his solutions all contained dead yeast or yeast broth which might have carried germs or ferments from the start. He does conclude that the ferment is a living being, yet states that this "cannot be irrefutably demonstrated". But Bechamp had demonstrated it "irrefutably" in his paper, and also had proved that water alone caused no alteration, there was no spontaneous alteration, and that moulds do not develop, nor inversion occur, without contact with the air; thus some airborne organism must cause the moulds and the inversion. According to Miss Hume, Bechamp was also the first to distinguish between the "organized" or living ferment and the soluble ferment which he obtained by crushing the moulds, and which he found to act directly on the sugar, causing rapid inversion. He named this substance zymase, in a paper Memoirs on Fermentation by Organized Ferments, which he read before the Academy of Science on April 4, 1864. Strange to say, exactly the same word is used by others whom various encyclopaedias have credited with this discovery in 1897, over 30 years later! In this paper he also gave his final complete explanation of the phenomena of fermentation, as being due to the nutrition of living organisms; i.e. a process of absorption, assimilation, and excretion. In the preface to his last work (The Third Element of the Blood), Bechamp says (p.16): "It resulted that the soluble ferment was allied to the insoluble by the relation of product to producer; the soluble ferment being unable to exist without the organized ferment, which is necessarily insoluble. Further, as the soluble ferment and the albuminoid matter, being nitrogenous, could only be formed by obtaining the nitrogen from the limited volume of air left in the flasks, it was at the same time demonstrated that the free nitrogen of the air could help directly in the synthesis of the nitrogenous substance of plants; which up to that time had been a disputed question. Thus it became evident that since the material forming the structure of moulds and yeast was elaborated within the organism, it must also be true that the soluble ferments and products of fermentation are also secreted there, as was the case with the soluble ferment that inverted the cane sugar. Hence I became assured that that which is called fermentation is in reality the phenomena of nutrition, assimilation and disassimilation, and the excretion of the products disassimilated." He explained further: "In these solutions there existed no albuminoid substance; they were made with pure cane sugar, which heated with fresh-slaked lime, does not give off ammonia. It thus appears evident that airborne germs found the sugared solution a favourable medium for their development, and it must be admitted that the ferment is here produced by the generation of fungi. The matter that develops in the sugared water sometimes presents itself in the form of little isolated bodies, and sometimes in the form of voluminous colourless membranes which come out in one mass from the flasks. These membranes, heated with caustic potash, give off ammonia in abundance." This proved that albuminoids were present, hence the li… truncated (124,965 more characters in archive)