Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-05

The good old term. dog days, mean
ing the long hot spell, when Summer
seems never ending, and we all pant
when chasing the 5 o'clock commuters
car or walking to the parking space
across a blistering street, has not the
sinister significance it once possessed.
Indeed, so secure are we all from
have forgotten what the dog days
were--the days when the cry of Mad
dog" rang down the street, and the
strongest men fled in terror.
1t Is almost inconceivable to us that
to have been bitten, by mad dog so
years ago was regarded as fatal You
made your will, and died in lingering
agony, inhumanly swapping and foam
ing, the brain a horrible disorder.
Every school child ought to be taught,
instead of learning the dates of battles
long ago, that the man who made the
Summer streets safe for children to
play on was Louis Pasteur, the great
Frenchman. Besides a dozen other
scientific accomplishments of the first
magnitude, he developed the serum that
saves countless lives every year.
When he first began working, on
little more than a bunch. with anti
hydrophobia serum thousands and
thousands of people died every year in
France and in all the rest of Europe
and America from the bites of mad
dogs and cats
Pasteur's work was still in the ex-
perimental stage when two peasants
came to his door with their little son in
their arms, raving in the delirium of
child a hundred miles in the. effort to
get him there IN time for the wonderful
cure they had heard about
But" said Pasteur. sadly, ut is toe
late I cannot save him. He will only
die" Still, the parents begged Pasteur
to try; he hesitated, knowing that If
his serum failed before its reputation
was wen established he might do irrep-
arabic injury to his cure. A cold man
fast in his refusal. Pasteur was melted
by the piteouS appeals of the mother.
He gave the serum. And, as he ex-
pected, il was too late. The peasants,
distraught with grief. went away say
ing that the doctors cure was bad and
had killed their son.
Pasteur always said that this was
the bitterest moment in his life work.
But his serum survived the injury to
its fame.
Tree of Heaven.
When yon step into one Of those back
yard outdoor tea rooms the proba-
dIC GlldO you Will UdAC q SCdG
| under spindling example of that par
ticular form Of vegetable growth called
| a tree-of Heaven. It Is question why
| 1t should be so called, more especially
as 1t too often looks, In city lots, like
| an overgrown and unhappy sumac-an
| impression carried out just now by its
compound. heavy. greenish spikes of
| flowers.
1t may seem hard to find anything
heavenly about it. One tradition is
that 1t smells TO heaven, or that II you
took 1t to heaven you could still
smell It,.
After having said disparaging things
about the Ailanthus tree, which comes
from China and holds a place of honor
| there, must confess that never saw
more magnificent trees of any sort than
some specimens of the tree -of-heaven
growing on an old abandoned estate in
Maryland, down near Port Tobacco.
! The trunks were noble as doric col
! umns; the foliage was as light and
lovely as II fern should be tree.
| Ohhand, should estimate those trees
| at a century Of growth
| 1t changed my views in the direction
OF respect for the species. Ailanthus
| altissima, as botanists call 1t.
The tree-of-heaven is above all