c;o ORIGIN OF GERMS. 



organisms could live at a temperature a certain 

 number of degrees above that of boiling water, and 

 that in cases in which any living forms are found in 

 fluids in closed vessels that have been exposed to that 

 temperature, they are formed de novo ? What is there 

 to prevent us from coming to the conclusion supported 

 by so many positive general facts in nature which 

 are well known, that the living forms discovered did 

 spring from living matter which resisted the high tem- 

 perature to which they had been exposed? 



Moreover, in many of the experiments it does not 

 appear that every part of the apparatus had been 

 subjected to the high temperature. If the smallest 

 portion were left above the bath in which the closed 

 vessel was immersed, a few living germs might have 

 escaped the destructive action, and from these might 

 have been developed those which were subsequently 

 detected and supposed "to have arisen in a new way. , 



Dr. Charlton Bastian exposed fluids to a tempera- 

 ture varying from 148 deg. C. to 152 deg. C. (298^4 to 

 305-6 Fahrenheit) for four hours, and yet in the course 

 of a few weeks living organisms were developed 

 (" Times," April I3th, 1870). But even this striking 

 fact proves nothing concerning the actual origin of the 

 living forms, and it is more in accordance with the 

 results of observation and experiment, to conclude 

 that living forms might live though exposed under 

 certain conditions to a temperature even of 350 Fah- 

 renheit, than it would be to infer that the living 



