322 Infusorij 4''^imah not formed flom Dead Organic Matter. 



form synthetically an artificially organized matter, and con- 

 cludes, " If infusory animals could be obtained in this way, the 

 Bonnetian theory of generation would be overturned."" 



Koelle also gives a peculiar chemical microscopic explanation, 

 {Kastner'^s Archiv. f. Natiirlehre, xii. 348,1827.) He says: 

 Zymom consists of microscopic globules, and forms with Glyadine 

 Gelatin (p. 350.) Zymom is the substance from which the 

 simplest organic forms are produced on the occurrence of fa- 

 vourable circumstances (p. 352.) The globules of milk and 

 blood are zymom ; gelatin, caseum, starch, sugar, &c. certain 

 zymom, (p. 350.) Silica assumes first a vegetable structure, 

 and from the zymom formed from thence arises animal life, 

 (p. 358.) Vegetable matter can be immediately changed into 

 an infusory animal (p. 360.) In favourable circumstances, the 

 different kinds of infusory animals can be formed from zymom 

 (p. 358.) The first infusory animal, the lowest organic form, 

 is an animated zymom globule (p. 358.) Zymom may, in cer- 

 tain points of view, be considered as an egg^ (p. 360.) The 

 yolk of egg consists of zymom united with mucus, (p. 357.) 

 These are not hypotheses but facts, (p. 361.) 



That the origin of many organisms is the effect of putrefac- 

 tion or fermentation, and therefore a purely chemical process, is 

 a very old opinion, and therefore could not fail of being repro- 

 duced in an improved form in modern times. Gruithuisen 

 (GehleTCs Journal der Phystk^ viii. 519. 1809) has characterised 

 the formation of the smallest organic forms as a peculiar kind 

 of fermentation, and specifies, besides the vinous and acetous, 

 the infusorial fermentation as a source of organization. For- 

 merly the autochthoniens were supposed to have been formed in 

 this way, afterwards it was limited to insects, and the plants 

 produced during the process, but now insects and the larger 

 plants have been withdrawn from this category. It has since 

 been extended a little to include the Infusoria and Fungi, on 

 account of their difficulty of observation, but from which, as our 

 observations have shewn, it must be equally withdrawn. 



Berzelius, who notices the subject in his classical Lehrhuch 

 der Chcmie, but does not give any observations of his own, con- 

 siders as probable the fact mentioned by others, that dead orga- 

 nic matter, on being moistened with water, generates infusory 



