BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORANDA 



bonate-agar plate, that De Leeuw had streaked with a suspension from 

 an enrichment culture of vinegar bacteria, that initiated the further 

 developments. But let us not ascribe too great a role to chance, of 

 which Pasteur had said: 'In the realm of observation chance favours 

 only the prepared mind'. And here was a scientifically prepared mind 

 that already knew the questions on which were based the gradually 

 ripening answers; a mind, therefore, that was capable of recognizing 

 even in minutiis those features that could promote the ripening. In this 

 sense Acetobacter suboxydans contributed its share to a process that, once 

 started, rapidly advanced and kept the whole laboratory under tension. 



In daytime little was spoken about these developments outside the 

 assistants' lab; at most a casual remark was dropped during the early 

 morning hours, generally spiced by Kluyver's predilection for exag- 

 geration, such as: 'As of last night, microbiology has once more under- 

 gone a change of face'. The day was devoted to the students and cur- 

 rent matters. In the evening and during a large part of the night the 

 professor and his associate, H.J. L. Donker, ensconced themselves in 

 the study, surrounded by books, and endeavoured to distill true unity 

 out of the diversity of facts and apparently contradictory data. The 

 students, with the exception of a few initiates, at first understood little 

 more than that it must surely be an inspiring labour that called for so 

 much exertion and yet left so few traces of fatigue behind. 



As the concepts took on an increasingly definite form, their signif- 

 icance slowly began to penetrate to the students. The expectations 

 grew more and more intense; until one morning the newly acquired 

 insight found expression in the terse, and in its overstatement equally 

 characteristic, phrase: 'From elephant to butyric acid bacterium - it 

 is all the same!' The Unity in Biochemistry had been discovered. 



Can anything evoke a greater enthusiasm among the workers in a 

 laboratory than a discovery of this sort, whose scientific importance 

 is so evident? Everyone knew the enthusiasm that Pasteur had manag- 

 ed to awaken in his pupils ; everyone was admiringly aware of Beije- 

 rinck's pioneering work, particularly because of Kluyver's example. 

 Now all doubt as to whether the work of the 'great predecessor' could 

 be continued had been dissipated; once again a new field had been 

 opened to investigation. What did it matter if at first the extent was 

 overrated? The vast horizon supplied the one element that had thus 

 far been lacking: 'Inspiration'. 



