Louis Pasteur His Life And Labours

"In the early part of the present year the French original of this work was sent to me from Paris by its author. It was accompanied by a letter from M. Pasteur, expressing his desire to have the work translated and published in English. The translator's task was not always an easy one, but it has, I think, been well executed. A few slight abbreviations, for which I am responsible, have been introduced, but in no case do they affect the sense. It was, moreover, found difficult to render into suitable English the title of the original: 'M. Pasteur, Histoire d'un Savant par un Ignorant.' A less piquant and antithetical English title was, therefore, substituted for the French one. This filial tribute, for such it is, was written, under the immediate supervision of M. Pasteur, by his devoted and admiring son-in-law, M. Valery Radot. It is the record of a life of extraordinary scientific ardour and success, the picture of a mind on which facts fall like germs upon a nutritive soil, and, like germs so favoured, undergo rapid increase and multiplication."--