THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



solution, were deprived of their virtues by the pre- 

 liminary boiling. These experiments also seemed to 

 show that such solutions, after having been boiled, and 

 shut up in hermetically-sealed flasks from which all 

 air had been expelled, were quite incapable of giving 

 birth to Bacteria. The unboiled fluid, exposed to the 

 air, must have become turbid, either merely because 

 it was capable of nourishing living Bacteria which it 

 contained, or else because it was capable of evolving 

 these de novo^ under the influence of fermentative 

 particles whose activity had not been destroyed by heat, 

 Hence, in such a solution we have a fluid which is 

 eminently suitable for testing the vital resistance of 

 Bacteria, one which, although quite capable of nourish- 

 ing and favouring their reproduction, does not appear 

 capable of evolving them, when, after previous ebulli- 

 tion, it is enclosed in airless and hermetically-sealed 

 flasks. 



Three flasks were, therefore, half filled with this 

 solution l . The neck of the first (a) was allowed to 

 remain open, and no addition was made to the fluid. 

 To the second (), after it had been boiled and had 

 become cool, was added half a minim of a similar 

 saline solution, which had been previously exposed to 

 the air, and which was quite turbid with Bacteria, 

 Vibriones, and Torul*. From this flask after its inocula- 

 tion with the living organisms the air was exhausted 



1 In the proportion of ten grains of neutral ammonic tartrate, with 

 three grains of neutral sodic phosphate, to an ounce of distilled water. 



