Fabre has a mind propitious to such processes; and if, by chance,
circumstances had directed his attention to medicine, that science which is
based upon an abundant provision of facts, but in which good sense and a
kind of divination play a still wider part, there is no doubt that he would
have been capable of becoming a shining light in this new arena.

He was full of admiration for that other illustrious Vauclusian, François
Raspail (7/16.), whose medical genius anticipated Pasteur and all the
conceptions of modern medicine. It would seem that he found in him his own
temper, his own fashion of seeing and representing things. He loved
Raspail's books and his prescriptions, full of reason and a most judicious
good sense, distrusting for himself and for his family the complicated
formulae and cunning remedies of an art too considered and still unproved.
At Carpentras, while his first-born, Émile, was hovering between life and
death, and the physician who came to see him, "being at the end of his
resources," did nothing more for him and soon ceased to come, thinking that
the child would not last till the morrow, Fabre flew to the works of
Raspail.

"I searched to discover what his malady was. I found it, and he was treated
day and night accordingly. To-day he is convalescent; and his appetite has
returned. I believe he is saved, and I shall say, like Ambroise Paré, 'I
have nursed him; God has cured him.'" (7/17.)

The episode which he relates, when, at the primary school of Avignon, a
retort had just burst, "spurting in all directions its contents of
vitriol," right in the midst of the suddenly interrupted chemistry lesson,
and when, thanks to his prompt action, he saved the sight of one of his
comrades, does honour to his initiative and presence of mind. (7/18.)