PASTEUR, LOUIS. - FOUNDING IMMUNOLOGY.

Sur la maladies virulentes, et en particulier sur la maladie appelée choléra des poules. (Séance du... 9 Février 1880). (+) Sur le choléra des poules; etudes des conditions de la non-récidive de la maladie et de quelques autres de ses caractères. (Séance du.. 26 Avril 1880).

Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1880. 4to. No wrappers. In: "Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Academie des Sciences", Tome 90, No 6 a. No 17. Pp. (233-) 260 a. pp. (937-) 1020. (2 entire issues offered). With title-page to vol. 90. Pasteur's papers: pp. 239-248 a. pp. 952-958. A few scattered marginal brownspots.

First printing of a these milestone papers which laid the foundations of immunology. Pasteur discovers the procedure for immunizing chicken against chicken cholera. Chickens injected with an old culture of chicken cholera microbes become sick briefly, but revive, and are henceforth immune to new virulent cultures.

"This paper (the first paper offered) marked the beginning of Pasteur's work onthe attenuation of the infective organism. Noting that fowls inoculated with an attenuated form of the chicken cholera bacterium acquired immunity, he developed the idea of a protective inoculation by attenuated living cultures, and subsequently adopted this principle with anthrax, rabies, and swine crysipelas. His wotk laid the foundatuion of the sciencwe of immunology."(Garrison & Morton No 2537).

"In February 1880 (the first paper offered) Pasteur announced that although the fowl cholera microbe retained its virulence through successive cultures in chicken brothe, he had found a way of decreasing its virulence "by certain changes in the mode of culture." In this milder form the microbe usually produced disease, but not death, in chickens. More important, the chickens that recovered from this less virulent form of the microbe became relatively immune to the highly virulent from. Unlike ordinary chickens they did not die from an injection of the microbe in its usual form. In other words, Pasteur concluded, "The disease is its own preventive. It has the character of the virus diseases, which do not recur. "what gave this result special importance and novelty was the demonstrably microbial nature of fowl cholera." (DSB).

"In April 1880 he admitted that inoculation with the attenuated form of the fowl cholera microbe produced very different results in different hens, but he insisted that the procedure always conferred some benefit. Even when two or more inoculations were required for complete protection against the disease, each acted in some measure to impede its course. He emphasized that "vaccinated" chickens, as well as species naturally resistant to the disease, must represent cultural media somehow ill-suited for the development of the microbe and suggested that this immunity probably resulted from the absence of some substance essential to the life of the microbe." (DSB).

Parkinson "Breakthroughs" 1880 B. - Garrison & Morton No 2537.

Order-nr.: 49459