by Infusoria capable of existing without free Oxygen. 317 



ment advancing at the expense of the fermentable material does 

 not show why the Vibrios must be the ferment. We know, in- 

 deed, that the habitual mode of action of animals and plants on 

 the substances from which they directly derive their nourishment 

 is not associated with a process of fermentation, properly so called, 

 of those substances. Yet it must be borne in mind, in making 

 any comparison between organisms previously known and those 

 which I have for the first time described, that animalcular fer- 

 ments present this peculiar physiological property, heretofore 

 overlooked, that they live and multiply without the presence of 

 free oxygen. 



" We are therefore led to associate the fact of nutrition at- 

 tended by fermentation with that of nutrition without the con- 

 sumption of free oxygen gas. Herein, no doubt, lies the 

 secret of the mysterious character of all fermentation, rightly so 

 called, and possibly also that of many normal and abnormal 

 actions in the organization of living beings. If any doubts yet 

 remain on these points, I trust to remove them by future re- 

 searches which I hope to lay before the Academy. 



" Henceforward it may be asserted that there are two modes 

 of life among inferior organisms — the one requiring the presence 

 of free oxygen, the other carried on without contact with this 

 gas, and always attended by the phenomena of fermentation. 



" As to the number of organisms capable of living deprived 

 of air, and of setting up fermentation, I regard it as considerable, 

 whether we look to those having no inherent power of self- 

 movement, in other words, vegetable beings, or to those which 

 have apparent voluntary motions, or animals. 



" I hope, in fact, to demonstrate in a subsequent communica- 

 tion, that infusory animalcules living without the access of free 

 oxygen are the ferments of putrefaction when this act proceeds 

 without contact with air ; and that there are other animalcular 

 ferments of putrefaction under exposure to air, which are found 

 associated with Infusoria or Mucors, that consume the free 

 oxygen and fulfil the double purpose of agents of combustion 

 with reference to the organic material, and of agents of preserva- 

 tion for the infusorial ferments, by protecting them from the 

 contact of the oxygen of the air." 



The results now described apply exclusively to the case of the 

 simple tartrate of lime ; but the author has a series of researches 

 which extend them to the other combinations of lime and tartaric 

 acid, and which he promises shortly to send to the Academy of 

 Sciences. 



J. T. Arlidge. 



