Louis Pasteur et les maladies des vers à soie : un regard épistémologique sur les recherches sur la pébrine / Louis Pasteur and the silk worm diseases: an epistemological view on the researches on pebrine

Abstract

Pasteur’s works on the silkworm diseases, from 1865 to 1870, were a turning point that allowed him to proceed from microbiology to veterinary and human medicine. Rereading the history of his research from an epistemological point of view allows to show the transition from an erroneous conception of the disease named pebrine to a justified conception of the disease as a contagious one due to a parasite. This transition could take place thanks to the alliance of various, persistently used methods, such as microscopy, comparative statistics, longitudinal observations of the consequences of experimental intoxications, autopsy revealing previously unknown phenomena in the diseased organism. This last method brought the final proof of the infectious character of the disease.