Dans les pas du fils

Le voyage initiatique et bouleversant d'un père et de son fils.

De nature et de parcours différents, ces deux créateurs complices (qui se respectent et s'estiment depuis un demi-siècle) ont visiblement pris un malin plaisir à philosopher de bon coeur, comme on le faisait entre honnêtes gens au siècle des Lumières. Elève de Milhaud, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen et Pousseur, Paul Méfano (né en 1937) a été rapidement repéré comme étant "non conformiste" pour les uns, "radical" pour les autres. Messiaen le qualifiait pour sa part de "révolté bouillant et puissant, une sorte de Berlioz du XXe siècle " ! Plus tard, le musicologue Harry Halbreich a parlé d'"oeuvres dures, dépouillées, concentrées sur l'essentiel". Ayant notamment joué dans les ensembles français du Domaine Musical de Boulez, Musique Vivante de Masson, 2e2m de Méfano, Renaud François (né en 1943) a créé de nombreuses oeuvres en création (Alsina, Aperghis, Berio, Boucourechliev, Decoust, Donatoni, Kagel, Koering...). Les musicologues admirent chez lui la finesse d'oreille, la science des couleurs... issue souvent de procédés avancés (battements, multiphoniques, microintervalles...).

Entre Renaud et son fils Tom, c'est l'incompréhension. A 17 ans, l'adolescent semble glisser sur une mauvaise pente : échec scolaire, violence, drogue... Une crise que traversent de nombreux parents. Convaincu que son fils doit rompre avec son environnement toxique, Renaud lui propose une aventure extraordinaire : la traversée à cheval, et à deux, des steppes d'Asie centrale, aux confins du Kirghizstan. Pendant trois mois, le père et le fils vont franchir des montagnes, traverser des déserts, rencontrer des personnages insolites, reproduire les gestes simples des nomades... Surtout, ils vont vivre une incroyable aventure humaine au cours de laquelle ils seront obligés de compter l'un sur l'autre. Chacun avec un objectif : pour Renaud, aller à la rencontre de son fils ; pour Tom, découvrir un père pour, à son tour, devenir un homme.

Those who are interested in bacteriology will find in this book explanations of the different fundamental concepts of bacteriology as well as the discovery of various bacteria. What fundamental roles did Richard Petri or Walther Hesse play in the big developments of our discipline? Did Antoni van Leeuwenhoek really invent the microscope? How did Hans Joachim Christian Gram describe the staining which has been the basis of bacterial identification for so many years? What influences did Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch have on the great scientific minds of the time? Writing this kind of book was not easy; one of the major difficulties was to create limits on dates and between disciplines. Only by observing the tiny living world of microbes through the eye of a microscope could the pioneers of microbiology make connections between the microbes and disease. Thereafter, the theory of spontaneous generation was severely criticized, and after much controversy, was finally abandoned. Some of these microbes, the viruses, were not visible because they were still too small to be observed with the equipment of the time. Scientists nevertheless manipulated them without knowing, for example, by creating immunizations. The emergence of the field of immunology was directly tied to the development of microbiology, since immunization techniques were practiced equally on bacteria and viruses. Concerning the limits on dates, the only thing which is certain is that all those in this book are no longer with us; this criteria possibly guided our choices. So that the text is not too boring, we willingly included aspects of these men and women's personal lives. These stories might serve as further source for reflection. Some of the discoverers are not listed here even though they may have deserved their own entry. For others that are listed, some aspect of their work may not have been described. We welcome your comments, additions, and suggestions because even if this book is historical, it should continue to live and evolve. We are keeping records for future editions. We thank the French Society for Microbiology and the photo library at the Pasteur Institute for their help and illustration of this book. Teachers will find here supplemental material for their courses to introduce their students to the history of bacteriology and epistemology, sciences becoming more and more important in our time. We dedicate this book to our two friends, Willy Hansen and Claude Bollet, with whom we wrote many scientific and historical books. They were great friends and their absence is especially saddening. We think of them and their families and we are glad to have known them.