That doctrine was about to be noisily re-introduced.
On December 20, 1858, a correspondent of the Institute, M. Pouchet, director of the Natural History Museum of Rouen, sent to the Académie des Sciences a _Note on Vegetable and Animal Proto-organisms spontaneously Generated in Artificial Air and in Oxygen Gas_. The note began thus: “At this time when, seconded by the progress of science, several naturalists are endeavouring to reduce the domain of spontaneous generation or even to deny its existence altogether, I have undertaken a series of researches with the object of elucidating this vexed question.” Pouchet, declaring that he had taken excessive precautions to preserve his experiments from any cause of error, proclaimed that he was prepared to demonstrate that “animals and plants could be generated in a medium absolutely free from atmospheric air, and in which, therefore, no germ of organic bodies could have been brought by air.”
On one copy of that communication, the opening of a four years’ scientific campaign, Pasteur had underlined the passages which he intended to submit to rigorous experimentation. The scientific world was discussing the matter; Pasteur set himself to work.
A new installation, albeit a summary one, allowed him to attempt some delicate experiments. At one of the extremities of the façade of the Ecole Normale, on the same line as the doorkeeper’s lodge, a pavilion had been built for the school architect and his clerk. Pasteur succeeded in obtaining possession of this small building, and transformed it into a laboratory. He built a drying stove under the staircase; though he could only reach the stove by crawling on his knees, yet this was better than his old attic. He also had a pleasant surprise--he was given a curator. He had deserved one sooner, for he had founded the institution of _agrégés préparateurs_. Remembering his own desire, on leaving the Ecole Normale, to have a year or two for independent study, he had wished to facilitate for others the obtaining of those few years of research and perhaps inspiration. Thanks to him, five places as laboratory curators were exclusively reserved to Ecole Normale students who had taken their degree (_agrégés_). The first curator who entered the new laboratory was Jules Raulin, a young man with a clear and sagacious mind, a calm and tenacious character, loving difficulties for the sake of overcoming them.