6oz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sterilized. Animal infusions, which under ordinary circumstances are 

 rendered infallibly barren by five minutes' boiling, behave like the 

 vegetable infusions in an infective atmosphere. On the 30th of March, 

 for example, five flasks were charged with a clear infusion of beef and 

 boiled for 60 minutes, 120 minutes, 180 minutes, 240 minutes, and 

 300 minutes respectively. Every one of them became subsequently 

 crowded with organisms, and the same happened to a perfectly pel- 

 lucid mutton-infusion prepared at the same time. The cases are to 

 be numbered by hundreds in which similar powers of resistance were 

 manifested by infusions of the most diverse kinds. 



In the presence of such facts I would ask my eminent colleague 

 whether it is necessary to dwell for a single instant on the one-sided- 

 ness of the evidence which led to the conclusion that all living matter 

 has its life destroyed by " the briefest exposure to the influence of 

 boiling water." An infusion proved to be barren by six months' ex- 

 posure to moteless air kept at a temperature of 90 Fahr., when inoc- 

 ulated with full-grown, active bacteria, fills itself in two days with 

 organisms so sensitive as to be killed by a few minutes' exposure to a 

 temperature much below that of boiling water. But the extension of 

 this result to the desiccated germinal matter of the air is without 

 warrant or justification. This is obvious without going beyond the 

 argument itself. But we have gone far beyond the argument and 

 proved by multiplied experiment the alleged destruction of all living 

 matter by the briefest exposure to the influence of boiling water to 

 be a delusion. The whole logical edifice raised upon this basis falls, 

 therefore, to the ground ; and the argument that bacteria and their 

 germs being destroyed at 140 must, if they appear after exposure to 

 212, be spontaneously generated, is, I trust, silenced forever. 



Through the precautions, variations, and repetitions observed and 

 executed with the view of rendering its results secure, the separate ves- 

 sels employed in this inquiry have mounted up in two years to nearly 

 10,000. Here, however, and w r ith good reason, the editor cries, " Halt ! " 

 I had hoped, when I began, to carry the argument further. Besides 

 the philosophic interest attaching to the problem of life's origin, 

 which will be always immense, there are the practical interests in- 

 volved in the application of the doctrines here discussed to surgery 

 and medicine. The antiseptic system, at which J have already glanced, 

 illustrates the manner in which beneficent results of the gravest mo- 

 ment follow in the wake of clear theoretic insight. Surgery was once 

 a noble art; it is now, as well, a noble science. Prior to the intro- 

 duction of the antiseptic system, the thoughtful surgeon could not 

 have failed to learn empirically that there is something in the air 

 which often defeated the most consummate operative skill. That 

 something the antiseptic treatment destroys or renders innocuous. 

 At King's College Mr. Lister operates and dresses while a fine shower 

 of mixed carbolic acid and water, produced in the simplest manner, 



