538 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914, 
great astonishment that these little beings may remain dried up for 
five months amid moss and dust without showing the slightest trace 
of life and then, when moistened, resume their vital functions. 
In 1743 Needham made analogous observations upon the nematodes 
from musty wheat. But the most interesting experiments upon 
these organisms have been chiefly those of Baker and Spallanzani. 
Baker, working with nematodes (anguillula), succeeded in bringing 
them to life 28 years after their desiccation. Since we know that 
the life cycle of these minute beings does not exceed 10 months, it is 
thus proved that their life has been strikingly prolonged by this 
procedure. 
On the other hand, Spallanzani verified the observations made by 
Leeuwenhoek on the rotifers. After having dried and preserved them 
for three years, he found that they returned to life when placed in 
water. All these experiments amazed the public of that period. It 
was at that time believed that these beings had the power of resus- 
citation. The extraordinary properties of these animalcule having 
been doubted in the nineteenth century, Doyére and Davaine, from 
1840 to 1860, studied the subject very critically. Their experiments, 
confirmed by Gavarret, but bitterly contested by Pouchet and Penne- 
tier, were the subject of very spirited discussions. In fact, at that 
time two rival theories, vitalism and organicism, were sharing the 
approbation of physiologists. Some, and they were in the majority, 
considered life as a mysterious principle of action which animates 
matter and sets it in motion. The others saw in life only the result 
of the organization of a special complex substance, merely the mani- 
festation of the activity of organized matter. 
In order to show the soundness of their conception of the question, 
those holding the latter view called attention to the phenomena pre- 
sented by the revivified animals, notably in the experiments of 
Doyére and Davaine, in which they believed that they had seen a 
very clear example of an arrest of the functions of an organism and 
of their startmg again under the action of a physical phenomenon, 
namely, the imbibition of water. 
Organized matter therefore needed only a vital principle to resume 
activity. In the Société de Biologie the strife between the two fac- 
tions was so earnest that to put an end to discussion it was decided 
to repeat the experiments before a committee of scientists which 
included Balbiani, Brown-Séquard, Dareste, Guillemin, and Robin, 
and was presided over by Broca. 
Before this committee it was then established: First, that there is 
no appreciable life in the inert body of reviviscent animals; second, 
that the bodies preserve their revivifying property in conditions 
incompatible with every kind of functioning life, as for example, for 
