Ferments, etc., Summary 849 



Subchapter V 

 SUMMARY 



As a result of these numerous experiments, we are now in a 

 position to state the first cause of the death of animals and plants 

 subjected to a fairly high oxygen tension. Let us set aside the 

 violent convulsions displayed by the higher animals and go to the 

 bottom of the phenomena. 



Life is only the result of a complex and harmonious combination 

 of chemical changes belonging to the group of fermentations; some 

 are due to the direct intervention of the formed elements of the 

 body; others are the consequence of the action of unstable and 

 soluble substances, like diastase, previously formed by the action 

 of the formed elements. In the interior of each of the anatomical 

 elements the vital activity is maintained only by the action of these 

 substances which are created, act, are transformed, and are de- 

 stroyed there. 



But that life may be maintained, the multiple phenomena must 

 go on with constant regularity, or rather harmony. When their 

 intensity alone is modified, without their relations being altered, 

 vital activity decreases, sometimes is even halted, possibly for a 

 long time, and then reappears when more favorable conditions 

 occur. This happens through cold, through desiccation, and, to 

 return to our subject, through decreased pressure. Seeds, pre- 

 served intact in a vacuum, germinate when returned to the air; 

 meat, which has remained fresh in a vacuum, decays when oxygen 

 restores activity to its vibriones. 



When, on the contrary, it is not merely the quantity, but also 

 the quality of the chemical changes that is altered, symptoms 

 appear, the details of which are far from being known and which 

 have such consequences that even if normal conditions are re- 

 stored, the vital activity is not resumed. This happens through 

 heat, through excessive moisture, and through increased pressure. 

 Seeds kept apparently intact in compressed air do not germinate 

 when returned to normal pressure, and it is in vain that oxygen 

 at its usual tension comes in contact with the definitely dead vibri- 

 ones which swarmed upon the meat previously subjected to com- 

 pressed oxygen. 



We do not need to go as far as death to show these important 

 differences. An animal subjected to decompression is seized, at a 

 certain moment, by convulsions, which a return to normal pressure 

 checks immediately: Sublata causa, tollitur ejfectus (If the cause 



