164 - PASTEUR (Louis), 1822–1895.

PASTEUR (Louis), 1822–1895. Autograph manuscript, undated [1875–1876]; 1 p., 1/3 in-8, with numerous strikings-through and corrections. An important scientific text dedicated to the chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1800–1884), written at the request of Academician Saint-René Taillandier for Dumas’s induction speech at the Académie Française. Jean-Baptiste Dumas had been elected to the Académie Française on December 16, 1875, to Guizot’s seat; he was inducted on June 1, 1876, by Saint-René Taillandier. Taillandier had asked Pasteur to contribute to the scientific portion of his speech: in the scientist’s hands, the simple notes he was asked to provide took the form of a true eulogy of Dumas and his work as a chemist. Pasteur first draws a parallel between Dumas and Lavoisier: “It is the common view among French chemists that no one among your contemporaries has better understood and continued the work of Lavoisier [...].” He celebrates Dumas’s research on “the laws and transmission of life on the Earth’s surface,” mentioning his collaboration with Boussingault, his analyses of air, water, and carbonic acid, and their implications for our understanding of plant life. He then traces the evolution of chemistry since Lavoisier and Berzelius and emphasizes the importance of Dumas’s concepts regarding chemical substitutions, to which he attributes the advances in modern chemistry and their medical applications, notably chloroform: “How many benefits does humanity owe—and will continue to owe in the future—to one of these substitution products, chloroform, which has given surgery the power to eliminate pain even during the most grueling operations… “” Pasteur concludes his tribute by also celebrating Dumas as a professor and mentor, recalling his role in scientific education and the influence he exerted on his students: “The affection and encouragement with which you have always surrounded emerging talent have earned you this fine tribute from one of your students [...]"" A beautiful manuscript, heavily revised, bearing direct witness to Pasteur’s admiration for one of the masters of 19th-century French chemistry and to his contribution to the academic tribute paid to Dumas. Includes its original cultural property export certificate from the Ministry of Culture, accompanied by the entry from the Charavay 815 catalog (May 1996), no. 44950.