THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE, 



state that fermentable fluids which have been boiled, 

 will not undergo fermentation in vessels whose necks 

 have been many times bent, or in those into whose 

 necks a plug of cotton-wool has been inserted during 

 the ebullition of the fluid which they contain. And 

 they say that organisms are not found in such cases 

 because the hypothetical atmospheric 'germs/ from 

 which the Bacteria and Vtbriones of infusions are usually 

 produced, are arrested either in the flexures of the tube 

 or in the cotton -wool. It is obvious, however, that 

 if this explanation be the correct one, the preservation 

 should be equally well marked in all cases — quite irre- 

 spectively of the amount of albumenoid or other nitro- 

 genous material which the fluid contains. Any ex- 

 ceptions to the rule should at once suggest doubts as 

 to the validity of the explanation. 



Yet it was shown * in 1865 by M. Victor Meunier, 

 that whilst some fluids were preserved after having 

 been boiled in a vessel of this kind, others, when 

 submitted to the same treatment, speedily became 

 turbid from the presence of Bacteria and other organ- 

 isms 2. By these experiments he ascertained that 



^ ' Compt. Rend,' t. Ixi. p. 1060. 



2 When boiled solutions, containing mannite, with a little nitrate and 

 phosphate of ammonia, were employed, they always remained sterile. 

 Similar negative results followed the employment of ox-galL Of three 

 decoctions of beef with which M. Meunier experimented, the two 

 stronger of them were found to contain swarms of Bacteria in about 

 twelve days. Of three other flasks containing boiled urine, only one 

 was productive. 



