EMANCIPATION OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 51 



Generality of Vital Phenomena. — If we add that 

 Claude Bernard opposed the narrow opinion, so dear 

 to early medicine, which limited the consideration of 

 vitality to man, and the contrary notion of the essential 

 generality of the phenomena of life from man to the 

 animal, and from the animal to the plant, we shall 

 have given very briefly an idea of the kind of revolu- 

 tion which was accomplished about the year 1864, the 

 date of the appearance of the celebrated l' Introduction 

 a la niedecine experiuientale. 



The ideas we have just recalled seem to be as 

 evident as they are simple. These principles appear 

 so well founded that in a measure they form an in- 

 tegral part of contemporary mentality. What scientist 

 would nowadays deliberately venture to explain some 

 biological fact by the intervention of the evidently 

 inadequate vital force or final cause ? And who, to 



tests required in the problem before him. The following is 

 an instance which happened since the above pages were 

 written : — Several years ago a chemist announced the exist- 

 ence in the blood serum of a ferment, lipase, capable of 

 saponifying fats— that is to say, of extracting from them the fatty 

 acid. From this he deduced many consequences relative to the 

 mechanism of fermentations. But on the other hand, it has 

 been since shown (April 1902) that this lipase of the serum 

 does not exist. How did the error arise ? The author in 

 question had mixed normally obtained serum with oil, and he 

 had noted the acidification of the mixture ; he assured himself 

 of the fact by adding carbonate of soda. He saw the alkalinity 

 of the mixture, serum + oil + carbonate of soda, diminish, and he 

 drew the conclusion that the acid came from the saponified oil. 

 He did not make the comparative test, serum + carbonate of 

 soda. If he had done so, he would have ascertained that it also 

 succeeded, and that therefore as the acid did not come from 

 the saponification of the oil, since there was none, its production 

 could not prove the existence of a lipase. 



