848 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



flasks, the boiling was prolonged to 240, 300, and 360 min- 

 utes; and these three flasks were completely sterilized. 

 Animal infusions, which under ordinary circumstances are 

 rendered infallibly barren by five minutes' boiling, behave 

 like the vegetable infusions in an atmosphere infected with 

 hay-germs. On the 30th of March, for example, five flasks 

 were charged with a clear infusion of beef and boiled for 

 60 minutes, 120 minutes, 180 minutes, 240 minutes, and 300 

 minutes respectively. Every one of them became subse- 

 quently crowded with organisms, and the same happened 

 to a perfectly pellucid mutton infusion prepared at the 

 same time. The cases are to be numbered by hundreds 

 in which similar powers of resistance were manifested by 

 infusions of the most diverse kinds. 



In the presence of such facts I would ask my colleague 

 whether it is necessary to dwell for a single instant on the 

 one-sidedness of the evidence which led to the conclusion 

 that all living matter has its life destroyed by "the brief- 

 est exposure to the influence of boiling water." An in- 

 fusion proved to be barren by six months' exposure to 

 moteless air maintained at a temperature of 90° Fahr., when 

 inoculated with full-grown active bacteria ^fills itself in 

 two days with organisms so sensitive as to be killed by a 

 few minutes' exposure to a temperature much below that 

 of boiling water. But the extension of this result to the 

 desiccated germinal matter of the air is without warrant or 

 justification. This is obvious without going beyond the 

 argument itself. But we have gone far beyond the argu- 

 ment, and proved, by multiplied experiment, the alleged 

 destruction of all living matter by the briefest exposure to 

 the influence of boiling water to be a delusion. The whole 

 logical edifice raised upon this basis falls therefore to the 



