ioo ORIGIN OF LOWEST ORGANISMS. 



alteration for a week, ten days, a fortnight, or even 

 more although freely exposed to the air, and there- 

 fore to the access of any living germs which might be 

 floating about in the atmosphere.* 



The views hitherto expressed with reference to the 

 causes of fermentation and putrefaction, and to the 

 interpretations which M. Pasteur's experiments are 

 capable of receiving, seem to derive all the additional 

 support that can be needed, from the results of my 

 own experiments with boiled fluids, in sealed flasks, 

 from which all air had been expelled. 



Some of the same fluid being taken and divided 

 into three parts, each portion is placed in a separate 

 flask, in which it is boiled for a period of ten minutes. 

 One of the flasks (A) is provided with a long and bent 

 neck, so that the air which re-enters is deprived of 

 its germs and organic particles ; another (B) has only 



* See notes on pp. 73 and 79. It was not that these fluids 

 were incapable of being inoculated, or that they were unsuitable 

 for the development of the lower forms of life, as was shown by 

 their subsequent fate, and by the fact that they can always 

 speedily be made to become turbid if they are really inoculated 

 with living Bacteria. Almost similar facts in opposition to the 

 prevalent Panspermic views have been noted by Professor Can- 

 toni (Rend, del R. Istit. Lombardo, Novembre, 1869). He found 

 (as I have also frequently found) that when fluids had been sub- 

 jected to the influence of high temperatures, and had subse- 

 quently remained sterile in closed flasks, they might be freely 

 exposed to the air for one or two weeks, or more, without be- 

 coming turbid although at any time a general turbidity could 

 be speedily induced, by introducing a few living Bacteria into 

 the fluid. 



