On his deathbed, the victorious Pasteur is said to have recanted, “Béchamp was right,” declaring, “the microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything.”44 Miasma theory survives in marginalized, yet vibrant, pockets among integrative and functional medicine practitioners. And burgeoning science documenting the critical role of the microbiome in human health and immunity tends to vindicate Béchamp, and particularly his teachings that microorganisms are beneficial to good health.
