PASTEUR, LOUIS

3 pages (255 x 198 mm) on a bifolium and 2 single sheets, unsigned. Housed in a custom folding case; first page with some faint offset from folding case.

The silk industry represented a significant portion of the French economy in the 19th century, and thus silk worms were particularly precious to the French. Starting in 1853, the worms began to be infected with two then-unknown diseases, now known as flacherie and pébrine, and by 1865, farmers were financially devastated due to the silk worms' resulting high death rate. Pasteur was asked to come to the town of Ales in the south of France to solve this mystery and save the silk industry. After five years, he was able to successful isolate the problems, and determine a method to stop the spread of the diseases.

Pasteur's groundbreaking work Études sur les maladies des vers à soie, written in 1870, recounts his researches and discoveries during this time. In the present manuscript, Pasteur analyses Apollinaire Bouchardat's 1850 work "De la digestion chez le ver à soie. Mémoire suivi d'observations sur les maladies de cet insecte,"which was published in chapter 31 of the Comptes Rendus in 1850, focusing on Bouchardat's description of the worm's anatomy, and in particular his descripotion of their digestive tract: "L'auteur rappelle que les anatomistes de... dans les vers à soie l'estomac et l'intestin, et il dit que les matières contenus dans l'estomac sont très alcalines..." Boucharat's work was one of many that Pasteur studied while trying to understand what was happening to the silk worms, and it is interesting to see that even at this early stage, Pasteur had an idea that the diseases killing the worms were related to their digestive systems.  Bouchardat (1806-1886) was a French pharmacist and hygienist known as the founder of diabetology. He believed that exercise and diet were major factors in controlling the disease, and speculated that the main cause of the disease was located in the pancreas.