The Annales de l'Institut Pasteur, one hundred years later…

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Ann. Inst. Pasteur/Virol. 1988, 139, 9-12

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Paris

1988

THE A N N A L E S D E L ' I N S T I T U T PASTEUR, ONE H U N D R E D YEARS LATER... C. Hannoun

Institut Pasteur, Paris

The first issue of the Annales de l'Institut Pasteur was published in 1887 under the patronage of Louis Pasteur, the editorship of Emile Duclaux and with the assistance of an Editorial Committee constituted by Chamberland, Grancher, Nocard, Roux and Straus. The table of contents included original papers, general reviews, book analyses and critical reviews. Many names appearing in this first volume are still famous today, at least for Science historians: Chamberland, Chantemesse, Duclaux, Gamaleia, Laveran, Metchnikoff, Nocard, Roux, Vignal, Behring, Loeffler and Winogradski, in addition of course to Pasteur himself. This date represents a significant step in the history of modern biology as well as in the memories of the Institut Pasteur. Scientific publication in biology had remained very personalized until that time and scientists used to exchange handwritten letters in which they communicated to each other their own experimental results and conclusions. The information circulated privately in a very restricted milieu and probably very slowly. The advent of scientific knowledge constituted as an organized system which took place at the end of the XIXth century had, however, demonstrated a clear need for a wider diffusion of scientific data and theories. The first page of the first issue of the Annales is a clear expression of this need. It is a paper entitled <>, written on December 27, 1886 in Bordighera, Italy, where Pasteur took some rest after severe health problems. It starts with an introduction aimed at presenting the new journal and its objectives. It continues with a long paper presenting original notes on rabies and immunity against rabies, of which Pasteur says that it would still necessitate further experimental data. The letter is addressed to the Director of the Institute, Emile Duclaux and is interesting because it gives the background and the direct reasons for the decision to initiate the publication of the new Annales de l'Institut Pasteur. Here are the first two paragraphs. M y dear Duclaux, Very often, during our talks in the laboratory, we have regretted the absence o f a simpler mode o f communication, less f o r m a l than the

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C. H A N N O U N Compte Rendus de l'Acad~mie des Sciences. Either we have ignored facts and observations which deserved to be disclosed, or left unanswered criticisms which were easy to refute. The interest o f research in a laboratory is sometimes so fluctuating, and one can so easily be distracted f r o m one direction to another that there is a risk o f neglecting some useful studies almost on the point o f being published. Scattered data and experimental plans are sacrlfied to the impulse o f new ideas. I could quote many examples in the work o f my own laboratory i f I wanted to take the time to recall them. I would certainly f i n d gaps, experiments to be checked, new evidence to be gathered, but an additional advantage o f such special publications would to be prevent us f r o m disregarding certain observations under the false pretext that they need to be completed. You tell me, my dear Duclaux, that you have decided to start a monthly collection with the title: Annales de l'Institut Pasteur. This service will be appreciated especially by young scientists, ever more numerous, who are attracted by the study o f microbiology. Laboratory works will, in your Annales, have a natural place and the contributions coming from elsewhere will be f o r all o f us a cause o f emulation. You were kind enough to ask me f o r a f e w unpublished notes on rabies. I am sending them to you with the comment that the question o f immunity, which I mention at the end, will necessitate further experiments on my part; f o r the last year, I have been hampered by the requirements f o r our new Rabies Vaccine Institute and presently, my poor health prevents me f r o m returning to these programmes. But the underlying ideas will eventually inspire some workers to go further.

Without reaching the hypertrophic level of communication which we have reached today, with the appearance even in the public press of information on the most recent results and the possibility for scientists themselves to read <>in their daily newspaper giving the latest news in their own field, this new (for the time) conception of scientific publication was in itself a considerable advance. After 100 years, the above text is quite pertinent. A scientific paper indeed has several properties and functions: - it is different from a communication to a scientific Society or Academy in that it persists as a written document;

a it gives the opportunity to expose in detail and to carefully discuss experiments and their interpretations, much better than in a Note; - it safeguards knowledge which exists only in a fragile way in a file or an experimental notebook, and perpetuates it (for better or for worse); - - i t obliges the author, during its writing, to explain ideas and even sometimes to perform complementary experiments, the necessity of which has become obvious after analysis of the complete results.

THE ANNALES DE L'INSTITUT PASTEUR, ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER... 11

All of what Pasteur wrote in this (~Charter of Scientific Communication ~ remains true today and still sounds remarkably modern. For the last 100 years, the Annales de l'Institut Pasteur have fulfilled their mission by publishing works not only of Pastorians, first concerned, but also of all French and foreign biologists who wished to do so. Over the years, the journal also adapted itself to necessary evolutions. An Editorial Committee is responsible for evaluation and selection of the papers submitted, with the help of many experts who criticize the manuscripts, accept or refuse them, or propose corrections and improvements. The different sections have been separated according to specialties: Microbiology, Virology and Immunology. Several types of papers can be published: original articles, brief communications, reviews, forums. Papers can be published in French or in English. In spite of the difficulties met by all scientific journals in the world, the Annales de l'Institut Pasteur have been able to maintain their presence in the front ranks of French biological publications and are in a good position to stay there. In the field of virology, the Annales have played an especially important role: already in 1887, the young journal allotted a large space to this category of agents, the significance of which was not yet understood. In the following pages of the first issue, Pasteur, c o n f i d e n t of his m e t h o d of protection of dogs against rabies which had already been presented to the ~ Acad6mie des Sciences~ in 1885, was considering with passion the analysis of the results of its application to man, as performed in several rabies institutes in foreign countries: those of Warsaw, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Samara, Naples and Vienna. This information was received through letters personally sent to him by foreign experimenters. He was asking himself questions on the mechanism of this form of immunity and reached a conclusion which today seems quite evident but had not yet been clearly conceived and developed at that time. ... ~ The facts f i t best with the idea o f a vaccinal substance associated with the rabies microbe, which would maintain its virulence intact in all dessicating spinal cords but would be progressively destroyed faster than the vaccinal substance... ~

It was only in the first issue of the Bulletin de l'Institut Pasteur in 1903 that Roux mentioned the existence of these ~ ~tres de raison)) which were later to be named t~viruses)). The first virus, tobacco mosaic virus, was isolated in 1892, followed by the first animal virus, foot-and-mouth disease virus in 1898 and finally the first h u m a n virus, yellow fever virus in 1901. But the very specific nature of these germs was not defined, and they were considered as tiny microbes rather than as specific pathogens: at that time, the term ~ virus)) applied to all kinds of infectious agents (~ plague virus))). A n d yet, the contribution of Pasteur to the problem of rabies, as well as the development of a vaccine which resulted in the disappearance of the disease,

C. H A N N O U N

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at least from Western Europe, had been made 15 years before. In the first issue o f the Annales, in 1887, 103 out o f 612 pages dealt with rabies. In 1986, the Annales de l'Institut Pasteur~Virology published 541 pages of reports devoted to viruses, including 39 original papers and one forum. O f course, in the interval, many scientific journals, both national and international, were created, several of them devoted only to Virology. Pastorians do not necessarily publish only in the Annales, but also in various other organs. The list of subjects treated in the last three years is presented in table I. It is clear that many subjects are considered at several levels, from epidemiology to mol ,lar biology. Virology has developed on a spectacular scale with an ever increasing speed; the need for specialized journals ensuring rapid publication is therefore evident. The Annales de l'Institut Pasteur/Virology remain, one century after their creation, a privileged vehicle of publication in a discipline with a still promising future. TABLE I. - - Subjects of articles published in the <> in 1985, 1986 and 1987.

1985 Antivirals Arbovirus Lymphocytic choriomeningitis Coronavirus Miscellaneous EBV Foot-and-mouth disease Haemorrhagic fever Influenza Hepatitis Insect viruses Interferon Bacteriophages Papillomavirus Plant viruses Fish viruses Poliovirus Rabies Rotavirus Measles Rubella AIDS SV40 Vaccinia Vaccines Oncogenic viruses Visna Respiratory syncytial virus (*) + one Symposium. (**) + one Forum.

0 5 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 4 1 1 1 0 0 3 2 18 (*) 2 1 1 2 0 0 1 0 0 0

1986 2 3 1 0 4 2 0 0 1 4 3 3 1 1 0 0 2 3 2 0 0 4 0 1 1 0 1 1

1987 1 5 0 4 3 1 0 1 0 3 5 2 0 0 1 0 0 2 5 1 0 24 (*) 1 0 1 (**) 1 0 0