# Pasteur publishes Études sur la maladie des vers à soie after the Cévennes missions

Date: 1870

## The fact

In 1870 [Louis Pasteur](/people/louis-pasteur) issued Études sur la maladie des vers à soie, the two-volume report of work begun in 1865 at Alès on pébrine and flacherie in Bombyx mori. It is not a human clinic and not a later synthetic-fibre patent. Pasteur distinguished corpuscular pébrine from flacherie and urged microscopic examination of moths before eggs were kept for the next season. Dumas had asked him, in the name of a collapsing Cévennes industry, to leave Paris chemistry for worms he had never reared.

## Context

French cocoon output had fallen hard since the 1840s–50s blight. Alès was a centre of the loss. Pasteur’s first seasons included error: he did not at once treat corpuscles as the cause. The 1870 book is the matured method, not the first week in 1865. Household rearers, his own family on site, and local commissions shared the labour. Sharing does not erase the signed volumes. Livelihood shocks during the trial years are a separate worsening row.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## Evidence and sources

Institut Pasteur history at https://www.pasteur.fr/en/institut-pasteur/history records the silkworm mission in the career sequence between wine and later vaccines. The Science History Institute biography at https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/louis-pasteur/ independently dates the 1865 Alès start and the published studies.

Official or archival record: Institut Pasteur — History (https://www.pasteur.fr/en/institut-pasteur/history; Institut Pasteur).

## Significance

Industrial-recovery path for sericulture. Mid weight locally, modest nationally: silk is not bread. High confidence on the 1870 publication.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Pasteur published the silkworm studies in 1870 after the Alès years. Not established: a unique franc total of industry saved, or that he identified Nosema with later zoological names in 1865. Contribution is recorded as He directed the Alès investigations and authored the two-volume study. Complex. The dated heading stays Pasteur publishes Études sur la maladie des vers à soie after the Cévennes missions on 1870-01-01, not a later statue, UNESCO listing, or school film. Printers, unnamed clerks, and later editors may appear in the same file without becoming this instrument.

The attached driver is [industrial-policy-activism](/drivers/industrial-policy-activism). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. Pébrine method is not rabies and not a later Lyon silk museum as an act. Mixed effects of Pasteur publishes Études sur la maladie des vers à soie after the Cévennes missions are separate paths.

Shared responsibility is part of Pasteur publishes Études sur la maladie des vers à soie after the Cévennes missions. Naming Louis Pasteur does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1870-01-01 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

## People

- Louis Pasteur: https://factrail.ai/people/louis-pasteur

## Drivers

- Industrial-Policy Activism: https://factrail.ai/drivers/industrial-policy-activism

## Sources

- https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/louis-pasteur/
- https://www.pasteur.fr/en/institut-pasteur/history

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/pasteur-silkworm-etudes-1870