110 PASTEUR: THE HISTORY OF A MIND 



their experiments, they would have embarrassed the 

 Commission very much, and Pasteur would not then 

 have known how to reply to them. 



It is in reality quite true that if one opens, at any 

 point whatsoever on the globe, flasks filled with a decoc- 

 tion of hay, as Pouchet, Joly and Musset did, it often 

 happens that all the flasks become clouded and filled 

 with living organisms. In other words, with this in- 

 fusion the experiments of Pasteur with the water of 

 yeast do not succeed, and one is led to admit that the 

 air which enters into all the flasks carries germs into 

 them. 



Let us say immediately that the germs of this air 

 are a negligible quantity, and that any one would ob- 

 tain the same result by filling the flasks with air sterilized 

 by heat. The fact is that the germs already exist in 

 the infusion. They have resisted boiling, as is the case 

 with a great number of micro-organisms. They have 

 remained inert as long as the flask, sealed during the 

 boiling, remains devoid of air. They develop when 

 the air enters, thanks to its oxygen. But Pasteur did 

 not yet know this fact. Pouchet, Musset and Joly 

 were not any more aware of it, but if they were ignorant 

 of the explanation, they had observed the fact, and if 

 they had been better experimenters, more men of the 

 laboratory, if they had studied more thoroughly the 

 conditions of their success, they would have accepted 

 the challenge, and would have won the battle, or at 

 least each of the adversaries would have retained his 

 own position. 



Perhaps it would have been better had things taken 

 this turn, and the Academic commission been obliged 

 to determine that all of the adversaries were right, 

 instead of putting an end to its labors by a bulletin 

 announcing the victory of one of them. Pasteur would 



