
DISCUSSION WITH M. PASTEUR 155 
ing that my experiment was only a reproduction 
under another form of what he had shown in 1862; 
and that we only differed as regards the interpreta- 
tion to be given to it. He made no reply to my 
request for direct evidence that germs could survive 
in liquor potasse raised to 100° C., even for an 
instant. In repeating my experiment he rendered 
the urine “alkaline,” as he said, by the addition of 
solid potash. He concluded by telling the Academy 
that my interpretation was ‘absolutely erroneous,’ 
while his was ‘“‘incontestably established.” 
On August 21 I pointed out that in rendering the 
urine “alkaline” by solid potash, he had probably 
added too much, and thus had failed to obtain 
fertility—as even a slight excess almost always 
resulted in the urine remaining sterile. I reported 
that I had used liquor-potassee tubes which had been 
heated to 110° C., and that they were just as potent 
as if they had only been heated to 100° C. The 
fact, indeed, that too little or too much_ liquor 
potassz heated only to 100° C. left the urine sterile 
showed clearly enough that the liquor potassz was a 
germless fluid. It was useless, therefore, further to 
press M. Pasteur for direct proofs (which he did not 
attempt to give) that such a fluid heated to 100° C. 
could contain living germs.! 
No reply came for many months, but in the 
1 In reference to Pasteur’s contention that liquor potassz raised to 
100° C. contains living germs Zhe Lancet said in a leading article 
(February 17, 1877) : “It is difficult to conceive a weaker objection to 
the above experiments than the assertion that living things can sur- 
vive boiling in liquor potassz, a reagent which in the cold state 
dissolves and destroys protoplasm.” 
