Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

putrefaction invariably occurs within two days; whilst, on the contrary, whenever they are subjected to a temperature of 158° F. (70° C.) putrefaction does not occur. To what can this difference be due, except to the fact that the previously living organisms, which, when living, always excite putrefaction, have been killed by the temperature of 158° F.? It would be of no avail to suppose that the absence of putrefaction in these latter cases is due to the fact that a heat of 158° F., instead of killing the organisms and their germs, merely annuls their powers of reproduction, because in the other series of experiments (with which these have to be compared), where similar fluids are exposed to ordinary or purified air, or are shut off from the influence of air altogether, the most active. putrefaction and multiplication of organisms takes place in two, three, or four days, in spite of the much more potent heat of 212° F. to which any pre-existing germs or organisms must have been subjected. The supposition, therefore, that the Bacteria, Vibriones, and their germs were not killed in our inoculation experiments at the temperature of 158° F., but were merely deprived of their powers of reproduction, would be no gain to those who desire to stave off the admission that Bacteria and Vibriones can be proved to arise de novo in certain cases, Let us assume this (which is indisputably proved by these inoculation experi

ments), viz. that an exposure to a temperature of 158° (70° C.) for five minutes deprives Bacteria, Vibriones, and their germs of their usual powers of growth and reproduction—that is, that it reduces them to a state of potential, if not necessarily to one of actual death. What end would be served by such a reservation ? The impending conclusion could not be staved off by means of it. The explanation of what occurs in the other set of experiments, where the much more potent heat of 212° F. is employed, still would not be possible without having recourse to the supposition of a de novo origination of living units, so long as those which may have preexisted in the flasks could be proved to have been reduced to such a state of potential death. It would be preposterous, and contrary to the whole order of Nature, to assume that the vastly increased destructive influence of a heat of 212° F. had restored vital properties which a lesser amount (158° F.) of the same influence had completely annulled.

The evidence supplied by these different series of experiments, in whichever way it is regarded, as it seems to me, absolutely compels the logical reasoner to conclude that the swarms of living organisms which so often make their appearance in boiled infusions treated in one or other of the various modes already proved to be either destructive or exclusive of preexisting living things are the products of a

new brood of 'living' particles, which, in the absence of any coexisting living organisms, must have taken origin in the fluid itself. For this mode of origin of living units, so long spoken of and repudiated as 'spontaneous generation,' I have proposed the new

term Archebiosis.

H

[blocks in formation]

GERMS ARE KILLED WHEN EXPOSED TO
HEAT IN A MOIST STATE; AND ON THE
CAUSES OF PUTREFACTION AND FER-

MENTATION.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »