192 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



these reasoners do not say, though some of them are cautious about 

 openly suggesting an antecedent and protective state of extreme 

 desiccation in the face of Dr. Sanderson's experiments proving that 

 this would be in itself destructive. The futility of this reasoning has, 

 however, been completely demonstrated by the fact that organisms 

 will occur just as freely under conditions where no such objection can 

 be alleged, that is, when the vessel and its contents are heated by 

 submergence in boiling water, after it has been hermetically sealed a 

 mode of heating that has been occasionally adopted by different ex- 

 perimenters since the time of Spallanzani. 



(c.) The third objection raised is no less remarkable, owing to its 

 being similarly brought forward as an unsupported supposition in 

 the face of much other evidence testifying to its nullity. When the 

 writer's earlier experiments were first recorded, the public was au- 

 thoritatively told by Prof. Huxley that the results were unworthy 

 of credence, because the fact that tons of meats and vegetables were 

 annually preserved from putrefaction by a very similar process was 

 in itself the strongest evidence that he had in some manner deceived 

 himself. It was never suggested or thought of, therefore, at this time, 

 that such moist meats and vegetables were incapable of being heated 

 through, even when pounds of them were aggregated together. It 

 was, in fact, implicitly said that they could be so heated, and the fact 

 of the preservation of the meats and vegetables was itself deemed to 

 be the best evidence that all germs contained in their interior had 

 been killed. N"ow that the writer has demonstrated to unbelievers, 

 and when others have ascertained for themselves, that organisms are 

 to be met with and that putrefaction will occur within almost airless 

 and hermetically-sealed flasks whose contents have been previously 

 boiled, the tactics of these unbelievers are entirely changed. Forget- 

 ting altogether their previous objection upon which they relied so 

 long as they doubted the writer's facts, they now advance the inter- 

 pretation of his results, which must carry with it its own stultification 

 to the minds of those who have not entirely forgotten their previous 

 position. The writer's methods are declared to be faulty for not free- 

 ing his infusions from all particles, however minute and however soft. 

 The oracles now shake their heads, and talk w T ith apparent learning 

 about " the protective influence of lumps." While heat was pi'evi- 

 ously supposed to be capable of operating as a germ-killer through 

 pots of meats and vegetables, and while it has been proved to act in 

 the same way through the thick and dry envelopes of seeds, now a 

 pea or a minute particle of cheese, even though smaller than a pin's 

 head, is thought to exercise a "protective influence " over imaginary 

 germs ! Such puerilities may safely be left to die a natural death, 

 though it may be as well to remind those who trust to them, that, 

 although they do not put their notions to the test of direct experiment, 

 others have, for certain practical reasons, had occasion to do so. Dr. 



