Ill 



such evolution as that implied having been artificially 

 accomplished. The idea in Bechamp's mind is, however, 

 essentially different from the idea of spontaneous generation ; 

 Bechamp's granulations are latent germs to begin with, which 

 may, according to their special surroundings, be differentiated 

 into all the forms of life. In the egg they are subservient 

 to the special life-history of the animal and are differentiated 

 with organs resembling those of the parent structure. But 

 freed from that mysterious vital bond which holds the com- 

 munity of cells together, each micro-zyme falls away into an 

 independent existence and may become a bacterium, or 

 bacillus, or vibrion. Thus, the apparently dead body is not 

 dead, it is simply the bond of union and co-operation which 

 is broken, and the structure is resolved into its still living 

 molecules. Nothing, says Bechamp, is the prey of death ; all is 

 the prey of life. Such an hypothesis would of course explain 

 the appearance of microbes in organic fluids without the inter- 

 vention of germs from the atmosphere being invoked. To the 

 experiments of Pasteur showing the non-development of life 

 in solutions previously heated, if atmospheric germs are 

 rigorously excluded, Bechamp replies that the heat which 

 has sterilised the fluids has destroyed the micro-zymes. 

 Pasteur in reply has carefully introduced blood direct from 

 the living animal into purified tubes from which all atmo- 

 spheric germs were excluded, and still without developing 

 fermentation or life in such fluids. This almost seems like 

 a conclusive experiment, but Bechamp is not convinced, and 

 may indeed reply that a negative result proves nothing in 

 this case, as the conditions may not have been suitable for 

 the development of the special micro-zymes present ^- the 

 blood. On the other hand there are analogies are 



worth noting, and which suggest that there may m 



both sides. Bdchamp cites the fermentation of os ', 



whose thick, ivory-like and unbroken shells exc 

 contends, all atmospheric life. In these cases, howc 



