
CHAPTER X2V1 
FINAL EXPERIMENTS ON THE CAUSE OF THE FERTILITY 
OF BOILED NEUTRAL OR SLIGHTLY ALKALINE 
ORGANIC SOLUTIONS 
eae reason of the great interest aroused, both in 
this country and in France, by the urine and 
liquor potasse experiments was due to the fact that 
it was regarded by most people as an absolutely 
crucial experiment, seeing that all investigators 
hitherto had found boiled acid urine to remain a 
barren fluid, and that they were all equally unani- 
mous in believing that the barrenness was due to 
the fact that all Bacteria and their germs were 
killed therein by a brief exposure to 100° C. 
Surprise was great, therefore, when, at this juncture, 
the principal opponent of Pasteurs germ theory 
said he could, with ease, cause life to appear, and 
apparently by mere physico-chemical processes, in 
this fluid hitherto universally believed to be germ- 
less. 
I have already shown how Sir William Roberts 
and Professor Tyndall, purporting to repeat my ex- 
periment, departed widely from my method (did, in 
fact, what I had specially warned them against 
doing), and as a consequence utterly failed to obtain 
my results-—-by reason of adding an excessive 
167 
