ALCOHOLIC FERMENTATION 73 



that fermentation is correlative with life, with the or- 

 ganization of globules, not with the death or putrefaction 

 of these globules, neither does it appear to be a phenom- 

 enon of contact where the transformation of the sugar 

 takes place in the presence of the ferment without 

 giving anything to it or taking anything from it. These 

 latter affirmations, one will soon see, are contradicted by 

 experiment." 



This was the announcement of the memoir on alcoholic 

 fermentation, to which we are now come. 



VI 

 ALCOHOLIC FERMENTATION 



In the memoir on alcoholic fermentation 1 the move- 

 ments and the tone differ wholly from those of the 

 memoir which precedes. The latter is not that tranquil 

 and almost ironical exposition of a new theory which 

 holds up its head and marches along easily over a land 

 where its competitors hobble and stumble, or where 

 they have need at every step of what Victor Hugo would 

 have called crutch hypotheses. It is a series of blows 

 straight from the shoulder, delivered with agility and 

 assurance. 



Ah! You insist on thinking of alcoholic fermentation 

 as a simple breaking up of sugar into alcohol and carbonic 

 acid! Undeceive yourselves: there are also glycerin and 

 succinic acid formed in considerable quantities and almost 

 as constantly as the principal products of the fermentation. 



Ah! So you are bound to ignore the yeast in this 

 phenomenon, or at the most will concede to it only the 

 role of an initiator! Very well! Learn that this yeast 



1 Ann. de ch. et de phys., 3" serie, t. LVIII, 1860. 



