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Phar Percheron's avatar

this is a comment about the NAV stuff, the purported Pasteur quote "The germ is nothing. The terrain is everything"

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/53293/did-louis-pasteur-admit-on-his-deathbed-bernard-the-inventor-of-terrain-theory

"I think it is plausible that the original use of the phrase was a lazy shorthand describing French doctors who sought out what we might call preventative medicine, and was then exploited by a "novelist" falsely caricaturing Pasteur as a germ-crazy fool unaware of bodily conditions. Some decades later, this sort of caricature evolved into an entire pseudoscientific "terrain theory" although doctors never denied the importance of "terrain" in the first place.

The "novelist" in question is Paul Bourget. From Google Books, it looks like he initially published this anecdote in a 1922 issue of L'Illustration:

Professor Renon, who has just died prematurely, told me that, watching Pasteur during his last illness, the latter, whom he thought was asleep, had woken up from an indefinite reflection to tell him: "Renon, it is Bernard who was right. The germ is nothing. The terrain is everything." ("Le professeur Renon, qui vient de mourir prématurément, me racontait que, veillant Pasteur durant sa dernière maladie, celui-ci, qu'il croyait endormi, s'était réveillé d'une réflexion indéfinie pour lui dire : « Renon, c'est Bernard qui avait raison. Le germe n'est rien. Le terrain est tout. »")

This also appears word-for-word in his 1929 book Au service de l'ordre, on p.199. L. Renon was a real doctor at l'Hôpital Necker. However, according to an affidavit drawn up at the time of Pasteur's death, the attending doctors were named Emile Roux and Louis Vaillard.

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BeeB's avatar

Thank you Christine! You are an inspiration to me

I’ve been travelling similar paths since this 2020 joke started, though so far far behind you. My ailments are petty comparing, my focus completly scattered, my resources short. Also saved for a infrared professional Joylux and a bulb (bad choice, EMF levels, which i only found out i reacted to some crisis later on). And now i’m waiting for my genetic testing. I wish i could give you more support. I’m a 50 unvaxxed girl from Lisbon, wishing you the best and following your journey.

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