14 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



the least doubt that their study would add to the wealth of the State 

 three dollars for every one judiciously expended in this work. 



A number of committees, each headed by an enthusiastic and persistent 

 naturalist should begin to make plans for the future, and then we need 

 means from the State to print and illustrate these reports and papers. 

 We must remember that nothing of importance can be accomplished 

 without labor. 



I congratulate you as members of an organization which has no lack of 

 interesting and useful work to perform. 



PBACTIOAL BENEFITS OF BACTERIOLOGY. 



FREDERICK G. NOVY, ANN ARBOR. 

 (Read before the Academy December 26, 1894.) 



Wilhiu a comparatively short period of time, perhaps 15 years, the field 

 of knowledge has been enlarged by a new science — bacteriology. The 

 study of bacteria, as such, may possess a great deal of interest to the 

 microscopist and botanist yet it is safe to say that without the recognition 

 of the extraordinary significance of these organisms this sudden and 

 remarkable evolution of the science would be impossible. Bacteria had 

 been known and studied, more or less, for a hundred years and more, yet 

 the impulse from the practical side was necessary to attract at once 

 scores and even hundreds of investigators into the field. We may not 

 inaptly compare, so far as development is concerned, bacteriology with 

 electricity. Electricity had been known for more than a century, but it 

 required an Edison and a Bell to develop its practical side just as 

 bacteriology required a Pasteur and a Koch. It is well known what 

 electricity has done, but is it known what has been accomplished by and 

 through bacteriology? 



To obtain a correct impression of the results of bacteriology it is neces- 

 sary to begin with the pioneer work of Pasteur, nearly 40 years ago. At 

 that time fermentation was explained by the great German chemist 

 Liebig as a purely chemical phenomenon. Pasteur as a chemist was led 

 to question this explanation and in a series of elaborate experiments 

 effectually disproved this view and firmly established the relation of cer- 

 tain microscopic organisms to fermentation and putrefaction. The 

 chemical theory of fermentation of Liebig was forced to give way before 

 incontrovertible evidence and facts to the vitalistic theory of Pasteur. 

 Today we no longer speak of the vitalistic theory for it has ceased to be a 

 theory. No series of facts in chemistry or in physics can be said to be 

 more clearly proven than the relationship of bacteria, yeast, etc., to 

 fermentation and putrefaction. This indeed, has greater significance than 

 may at first appear. Fermentation and putrefaction, the decomposition 

 of vegetable and animal matter, is carried on constantly on the earth's 

 surface. Without this decomposition, the nitrogen of the proteid molecule 

 and the carbon of the carbohydrate and proteid molecule would be as 

 useless to new plant life as the COo stored away in the vast deposits of 

 limestone within the earth's crust. Through the agency of the minute 



