BACTERIAL INVOLVEMENT IN LAB-PROCESS 29 



between the fat globules is full of very minute particles in 

 active molecular movement, often in such great numbers that 

 nothing of the otherwise dark looking plasma is to be seen, 

 and the whole field of vision is apparently filled by a dancing 

 mass in which the fat globules lie embedded. . . . Fresh 

 human milk may be distinguished from this picture at the 

 first glance. In the human milk the plasmatic field looks 

 black. ... If a preparation be made of a milk with lab- 

 ferment added it will be seen that at first the particles collect 

 into minute groups recognizable as composed of the lacto- 

 konids ; the smaller aggregates then unite into larger ones, 

 the latter entangling the fat globules and finally sinking to 

 the bottom of the container. . . . Coincidently in the 

 tube from which the preparation was taken coagulation can 

 be grossly seen." 



From this one would picture the lab coagulation as a 

 process characterized by the gradual clumping of suspended 

 colloidal particles, the individual phases of which are con- 

 stantly intermingling and therefore beyond any chance of 

 schematic arrangement in chemistry. Here, just as in case 

 of the process of blood coagulation, one cannot but feel that 

 too much importance has been assigned to the details of a 

 separation process which is an expression of disturbance of 

 equilibrium, and that too at tremendous expense of effort and 

 ingenuity. An architect who is seeking information about 

 the collapse of a building is, of course, particularly anxious 

 to discover the cause of the collapse. But he would scarcely 

 waste any great amount of energy in finding out in detail 

 whether at the moment of the fall a certain gable or a certain 

 arch had given way a little earlier or later or a little to one 

 side or to the other. 



Bacterial Involvement in Lab-process. Recent observa- 

 tions have been made by Kreidl and Lenk 84 which deserve 



"A. Kreidl and E. Lenk, Biochem. Zeitschr., 36, 357, 1911. 



