life: its nature, origin, and maintenance SCHAFER. 501 



protoplasm, phosphorus is always associated. "Ohne Phosphor kem 

 Gedanke" is an accepted aphorism; "Ohne Phosplior kein Leben" 

 is ecj[iially true. Moreover, a large proportion, rarely less than 70 

 per cent, of water appears essential for any manifestation of life, 

 although not in all cases necessary for its continuance, since organ- 

 isms dTo known which will bear the loss of the greater part if not the 

 whole of the water they contaui without permanent impairment of 

 their vitality. The presence of certain morganic salts is no less 

 essential, chief amongst them bemg chloride of sodium and salts of 

 calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron. The combmation of 

 these elements into a colloidal compound represents the chemical 

 basis of life; and when the chemist succeeds in building up this com- 

 pound it will without doubt be found to exhibit the phenomena 

 which we are in the habit of associating with the term "life." ^ 



SOURCE OF LIFE — THE POSSIBILITY OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



The above considerations seem to point to the conclusion that the 

 possibihty of the production of life, i. e., of U\ing material, is not so 

 remote as has been generally assumed. Since the experiments of 

 Pasteur, few have ventured to affirm a belief in the spontaneous gen- 

 eration of bacteria and monads and other micro-organisms, although 

 before his time this was by many beheved to be of universal occur- 

 rence. My esteemed friend Dr. Charlton Bastian is, so far as I am 

 aware, the only scientific man of ennnence who still adheres to the old 

 creed, and Dr. Bastian, in spite of numerous experiments and the 

 pubfication of many books and papers, has not hitherto succeeded 

 in winning over many converts to his opinion. I am myself so entirely 

 convinced of the accuracy of the results which Pasteur obtained — are 

 they not within the daily and hourly experience of everyone who 

 deals with the sterihzation of oi-ganic solutions? — that I do not hesi- 

 tate to beheve, if liA^ng torulse or mycelia are exliibited to me in 

 flasks which had been subjected to prolonged boiling after being 

 hermetically sealed, that there has been some fallacy either in the 

 premises or in the carrjang out of the operation. The appearance 

 of organisms in such flasks would not furnish to my mind proof that 

 they were the result of sj)ontaneous generation. Assuming no fault 

 in manipulation or fallacy in observation, I should find it simpler to 

 believe that the germs of such organisms have resisted the efi'ects of 

 j)rol()nged heat than that they became generated spontaneously. If 

 s])ontaneous generation is possible, wo can not expect it to take the 

 form of Uving beings which show so marked a degree of differentiation, 

 both structural and functional, as the organisms which are described 



1 Tho most recent account of the chemistry of protoplasm is that by Botazzi (Das Cytoplasma u. die 

 Korpcrsiifte) in Wintcrstcin's Haudb. d. vcrgl. Physiologie, Bd. I, 1912. The literature is given in this 

 article. 



85360°— SM 1912 33 



