SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 345 



sel so that the heated fluid exercises its scathing influence 

 upon an uncovered portion of the body — hand, arm, or 

 face. Here, at all events, there is no room for doubt. 

 Boiling water unquestionably exercises a most pernicious 

 and rapidly destructive effect upon the living matter of 

 which we are composed. ' ' * And lest it should be sup- 

 posed that it is the high organization which, in this case, 

 renders the body susceptible to heat, he refers to the ac- 

 tion of boiling water on the hen's egg to dissipate the 

 notion. " The conclusion, " he says, "would seem to force 

 itself upon us that there is something intiinsically delete- 

 rious in the action of boiling water upon living matter — 

 whether this matter be of high or of low organization. ' ' ' 

 Again, at another place: "It has been shown that the 

 briefest exposure to the influence of boiling water is de- 

 structive of all living matter. ' ' ' 



The experiments already recorded plainly show that 

 there is a marked difference between the dry bacterial 

 matter of the air, and the wet, soft, and active bacteria 

 of putrefying organic liquids. The one can be luxuriantly 

 bred in the saline solution, the others refuse to be born 

 there, while both of them are copiously developed in a 

 sterilized turnip infusion. Inferences, as we have already 

 seen, founded on the deportment of the one liquid cannot 

 with the warrant of scientific logic be extended to the 

 other. But this is exactly what the heterogenist has 

 done, thus repeating as regards the death-point of bacteria 

 the error into which he fell concerning the germs of the 

 air. Let us boil our muddy mineral solution with its 

 swarming bacteria for five minutes. In the soft succulent 

 condition in which they exist in the solution not one of 



> Bastian, "Evolution," p. 133. « j^j^j^^ p^ 135^ 3 i^id., p. 46. 



