160 BACTERIA IN DAILY LIFE 



was peacefully consuming what proved to be its 

 last meal, nature's method of cold storage must 

 indeed be regarded as unsurpassable in the 

 excellence of its results. 



I believe it was in the year 1884 that the first 

 attempts were made to follow more closely and 

 in greater detail the precise effect upon different 

 bacteria of submitting them to temperatures of 

 such a low degree as - 130 C, obtained by means 

 of solid carbonic acid. These experiments were 

 carried out by Pictet and Young, and are recorded 

 in the Comptes Rendus of the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences. 



They differ from those which we have so far 

 been considering, inasmuch as the bacteria were 

 not frozen in water, but in culture-material, or, 

 in other words, like the mammoth, whilst enjoying 

 a midday meal ! 



One of the micro-organisms experimented with 

 was a bacillus known at that time as the rinderpest 

 bacillus, capable of producing disease in animals 

 when inoculated into them and existing both in 

 the spore and bacillar form. Pictet and Young 

 specially state that the spore form was present 

 in the specimens employed by them, and hence 

 the fact that this micro-organism was alive after 

 being frozen and exposed to this low temperature 

 of - 130 C. for the space of twenty hours is not, 



