MICROSCOPY. 243 



not amounting altogether to five minutes in the aggregate, 

 and at a temperature lower than boiling water, and com- 

 mencing with the first application of the heat a few hours 

 after their preparation, the most obstinate infusions were 

 completely sterilized ; while other samples of the same infu- 

 sions, boiled continuously for fifteen or even sixty minutes, 

 were only less fertile, and after a short interval developed 

 swarms of Bacteria. 



Dr. Bastian has recently read before the Royal Society a 

 paper giving an account of some further researches " illustra- 

 tive of the physico-chemical theory of fermentation, and the 

 condition favoring archebiosis in previously boiled liquids," 

 summing up as follows : The experiments show, as others 

 have done, that an exclusive germ theory of fermentation is 

 untenable, and that living matter may, and does, originate in- 

 dependently during the progress of fermentation in previous- 

 ly germless fluids ; insoluble products reveal themselves as 

 specks of protoplasm, " living " matter, emerging gradually 

 into the region of the visible, and speedily assuming the well- 

 known forms of one or other variety of Bacteria, thus bridg- 

 ing, as he conceives, the narrow gulf between certain kinds of 

 " living" and "dead" matter, and affording the long-sought- 

 for illustration of the transition from chemical to so-called 

 "vital" combinations! In the Lancet, Aug. 5, will be found an 

 interesting note upon M. Pasteur's reply to Dr. Bastian on 

 the heterogeny controversy. M. Pasteur, while admitting 

 that Dr. Bastian's experiments, as detailed in his communi- 

 cation to the Paris Academy of Sciences, are very accurately 

 conducted, asserts that a temperature of 50 C. (122 Fahr.) 

 is not sufficient to kill the germs of the minute organisms 

 which maybe introduced by means of the solution of potash 

 employed by Dr. Bastian. He considers it fully proved, from 

 his own experiments, that the germs of certain organisms, 

 which do not resist a temperature of 100 in acid solutions, 

 are capable of such resistance in neutral or slightly alkaline 

 fluids. He expresses the hope that Dr. Bastian will abandon 

 his faith in spontaneous generation, and classes its supporters 

 with the theorizers in physics and mathematics who believe 

 in perpetual motion or the quadrature of the circle. Pro- 

 fessor Tyndall, after having read Pasteur's reply, gives en- 

 tire adherence to his views, and calls " on all enlightened 



