186 LOUIS PASTEUR, 



taneous generation remained discredited until it was 

 revived with ardour, ability, and, for a time with suc- 

 cess, by Dr. Bastian. 



A remark of M. Radot's on page 103 needs quali- 

 fication. " The great interest of Pasteur's method con- 

 sists," he says, " in its proving unanswerably that the 

 origin of life in infusions which have been heated 

 to the boiling point is solely due to the solid particles 

 suspended in the air." This means that living germs 

 cannot exist in the liquid when once raised to a tem- 

 perature of 212 Fahr. No doubt a great number of 

 organisms collapse at this temperature; some, indeed, 

 as M. Pasteur has shown, are destroyed at a tempera- 

 ture of 90 below the boiling point. But this is by no 

 means universally the case. The spores of the hay- 

 bacillus, for example, have, in numerous instances, suc- 

 cessfully resisted the boiling temperature for one, two, 

 three, four hours; while in one instance eight hours' 

 continuous boiling failed to sterilise an infusion of 

 desiccated hay. The knowledge of this fact caused me 

 a little anxiety some years ago when a meeting was 

 projected between M. Pasteur and Dr. Bastian. For 

 though, in regard to the main question, I knew that 

 the upholder of spontaneous generation could not win, 

 on the particular issue touching the death temperature 

 he would probably have come off victor. 



The manufacture and maladies of wine next occupied 

 Pasteur's attention. He had, in fact, got the key to 

 this whole series of problems, and he knew how to use 

 it. Each of the disorders of wine was traced to its 

 specific organism, which, acting as a ferment, produced 

 substances the reverse of agreeable to the palate. By 

 the simplest of devices, Pasteur at a stroke abolished 

 the causes of wine disease. Fortunately the foreign 



