THE MYCODERMA OF VINEGAR 125 



meter, covered in 24 hours. The ferment best known up 

 to that time, the yeast, gave figures much smaller and less 

 striking. 



This is not all, for we are about to see appear a new 

 conception, which the future will make productive 

 the conception of the fermenting poiver. These 300 

 thousand millions of cells weigh about 1 gram and can 

 acidify in 4 or 5 days, when the conditions are favorable, 

 10 kilograms of alcohol. That is to say, each one of 

 these cells demands per day two thousand times its own 

 weight in food material. And here there is raised one 

 of the corners of the veil which for so long a time has 

 masked from us the grandeur of the role of the infinitely 

 small organisms. Their power of work is out of all pro- 

 portion to their weight. With a feeble volume, they can 

 produce great effects: we understand that they may 

 occupy a great place in the economy of the globe and yet 

 pass unperceived. 



The oxidation of these 10 kilograms of alcohol requires 

 the putting into play of more than 6 kilograms of oxygen; 

 that is to say, more than there is in 15 cubic meters of 

 air. We explain thus the utility of the current of air 

 ascending in the column of shavings in the German 

 method, and of the large open window in the upper end 

 of the Orleans casks. 



This oxygen, which it derives from the air through its 



aerial surface, the mycoderma transmits to the alcohol 



through its submerged surface. But oxidation does not 



always take place in the same way. Sometimes it is 



arrested in the aldehyde state and the organism yields 



products with a disagreeable and suffocating odor. As 



in case of the oxidation due to platinum black, the 



process is arrested half way. At such times the organism 



lives with difficulty; it suffers. Why should we not 



say that it is sick? Disease and death are the natural 

 11 



