Secrecy of Pouilly-le-Fort

Certain authors reproach Louis Pasteur for having induced the scientific public in error as for the exact way in which the experiments of Pouilly-le-Fort proceeded on vaccination against the coal. One speaks on this subject about the “secrecy of Pouilly-le-Fort”.

Facts

With the meetings of February 28th and of March 21st, 1881 of the Academy of Science, Pasteur states to have obtained a very effective vaccine against the coal by attenuating the virulence of the bacterium using oxygen. Having been informed of these results, the section of Melun of the Company of the farmers of France proposes in Pasteur a public experiment of vaccination on about fifty sheep, in Pouilly-le-Fort, close to Melun. This experiment will be a success complet.
The bacteriologist Adrien Dormouse, nephew and former assistant-preparer of Pasteur told, in memories published in 1937-1938, qu ' in fact, at the time when Pasteur signed the protocol of the experiment, the process of attenuation by oxygen still left something to be desired and that, finally, Pasteur used a method with potassium the Bichromate developed by his collaborators Charles Chamberland and Emile Roux but says to them that there was no question of publishing this method before to have obtained the attenuation by oxygen. The notes of laboratory of Pasteur confirm formally that it is the potassium bichromate which was used in Pouilly-le-Fort.
On the site of the Institut Pasteur, in the biography of Charles Chamberland, one of the collaborators of Louis Pasteur, one also reads that the vaccine used with Pouilly-le-Fort was that which had been attenuated by Bichromate of potassium: Chamberland “takes share with the experiments of checking of the anticharbonneux vaccine of All Saints' day, veterinary professor at the School of Toulouse, and shows that the vaccine is not effective. 04/1881 Two days before the signature of the experimental protocol of Pouilly-le-Fort (public experiment of anticharbonneuse vaccination on sheep), Charles Chamberland devotes itself with L. Pasteur to a comparative experiment. Each one prepares a anticharbonneux vaccine, Pasteur treating the microbe culture by oxygen in air, Chamberland by a Antiseptique, the potassium bichromate. The second vaccine proves to be most effective; Pasteur will use it during the experiments, crowned success, of Pouilly-le-Fort. ”
It is thus now uncontested that the vaccine used with Pouilly-le-Fort against coal was well the vaccine attenuated using potassium bichromate. However, in all the publications of Pasteur on Pouilly-le-Fort, not only it is not question of potassium bichromate, but Pasteur, without affirming formally that one had used oxygen like means of attenuation, expresses himself in order to make it conclude with the reader.

Interpretations

The interpretation of Gerald L. Geison

After having stated clearly that “Pasteur deliberately misled the public and the scientific community on the nature of the vaccine really used with Pouilly-le-Fort”, G.L. Geison seeks to include/understand what could bring Pasteur to enfreindre the scientific standard of veracity in the public statements. He recalls that Pasteur, when it was invited to make the experiment of Pouilly-le-Fort, had already announced twice publicly that it obtained an effective vaccine against coal by attenuating the virulence of the microbe by oxygen and notes that “if Pasteur had acknowledged now when one proposed the experiment of Pouilly-le-Fort to him the uncertainty which he felt into private as for the effectiveness as of his vaccines attenuated with oxygen, he would have been surely made reproach for having, like Henry All Saints' day, makes his advertisements prematurely, without reasonable evidence”. Geison is not satisfied however with this explanation to give an account of the persistence of Pasteur to dissimulate, afterwards, the true nature of the vaccine used with Pouilly-le-Fort. Substitute with the account for Dormouse and the notes for laboratory, it conjectures that the control of Pasteur came from the desire not to recognize that by using potassium bichromate, it had imitated Henry All Saints' day, which was then in competition with him in a kind of race to the vaccine against the coal and which had tried to obtain the attenuation using an other disinfectant, the phénol.
To measure the range of control towards All Saints' day that this conjecture lends to Pasteur, Geison notes that Pasteur could have said the truth without really losing the benefit of the priority: first of all, nothing indicates that All Saints' day used potassium bichromate (nor no other disinfectant that the phenol); moreover, contrary to the complete success of Pouilly-le-Fort, the tests of All Saints' day, carried out with primitive methods, gave imperfect results. Geison also notes that Pasteur recognized a certain debt towards All Saints' day and recommended it even for an important price decreed by the Academy of Science. Finally, Geison estimates that Pasteur was rather mû by the fear which its detractors wrongfully do not allot the merit of its discovery to All Saints' day.

The interpretation of Antonio Cadeddu

According to Antonio Cadeddu who is based on the writings of Adrien Loir (published in 1938), on the book of Emile Lagrange, biographer of Emile Roux, published in 1954 like on the Books of Pasteur, the critical assumptions of Dormouse, taken again by Emile Lagrange in his book are confirmed. According to Lagrange, the method of attenuation of the bactéridie of coal based on the use of chemical substances is entirely due to Charles Chamberland and Emile Roux and was kept secret by the will of Louis Pasteur until 1883, probably because it was in contradiction with the method of attenuation (based exclusively on the effect of the temperature and oxygen) recommended by Louis Pasteur, such as he had exposed it to the Academy of Science.

Written Lagrange: “Actually, he (= Red-headed Emile) is not only the executant of Pasteur, he can go this justice to have with, Chamberland, saved the prestige of his owner. It is him the true winner of Pouilly-le-Fort. (...). It is only in 1883, in two successive notes, which will be revealed the process of attenuation discovered by Chamberland and Roux, Pasteur having refused until there that it is published. They announce it like a fact various; it is the key of the method. Russet-red is obliged to return there in 1890, to draw the attention on this considerable work which is unperceived past. ”

Note: Written Cadeddu, while referring to secondary sources: “the technique of the addition of the Bichromate of potassium, used by Russet-red and Chamberland, as we will further see it, was recommended per All Saints' day, just as the use of the Phenol , to attenuate the bactéridie”. Geison, writes to him that nothing indicates that All Saints' day tested the effects of potassium bichromate. Unless considering that All Saints' day “recommended” potassium bichromate without testing it, Geison and Cadeddu are in contradiction.

Internal bonds

• Louis Pasteur
  

• Henry All Saints' day
  
• Red-headed Emile
  
• Charles Chamberland
  
• Coal (disease)
  

External bonds

• Pasteur by David V. Cohn, Ph.D., Professor emeritus of biochemistry of University off Louisville. David V. Cohn also says him that the vaccine against the coal used by Pasteur during the experiment of Pouilly-le-Fort is the vaccine attenuated by potassium bichromate. He reproduces (in English translation) the report/ratio of Pasteur on the experiment of Pouilly-le-Fort and note that Pasteur leaves in the shade the role of potassium bichromate. Cohn returns to Gerald L. Geison but made say to Geison that the vaccine attenuated by the Bichromate of potassium was due to Henry All Saints' day, whereas, according to Geison, nothing indicates that All Saints' day tested another disinfectant that the phenol.

• Louis Pasteur with the collaboration of Chamberland and Roux the experiment of Pouilly-le-Fort Yale Newspaper off Biology and Medicine (2002); 75,59-62. The introduction notes that Pasteur leaves in the shade the role of potassium bichromate. It returns to Gerald L. Geison but made say to Geison that the vaccine attenuated by potassium bichromate was due to Henry All Saints' day, whereas, according to Geison, nothing indicates that All Saints' day tested another disinfectant that the phenol.

• Kendall has Smith, Wanted, An carbuncle vaccinates: Alive Dead but? , Medical Immunology (2005) 4-5. The article partly treats history of the vaccine against coal and known as that the vaccine used by Pasteur with Pouilly-le-Fort is “the dead vaccine of Henry All Saints' day prepared by Chamberland using potassium bichromate”. Although the author returns here to Gerald L. Geison, it will be noted that, according to Geison, All Saints' day indeed used a disinfectant in the attenuation of the vaccine (the phenol), but does not seem to have tested potassium bichromate.