section_path: Research/Silkworm disease
section_name: Silkworm disease
paragraph_text: Silkworm disease
  
  In 1865, Jean-Baptiste Dumas, chemist, senator and former Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, asked Pasteur to study a new disease that was decimating silkworm farms from the south of France and Europe, the pébrine, characterized on a macroscopic scale by black spots and on a microscopic scale by the " Cornalia corpuscles". Pasteur accepted and made five long stays in Alès, between 7 June 1865 and 1869.