616 VITAL ACTIONS OF THE LOWER FUNGI. 



Hoppe-Seyler has tried to show that when oxygen is 

 present the nascent hydrogen breaks up the molecule of 

 oxygen and thus renders the latter active ; the nature of 

 the process heing that, as the hydrogen is gradually 

 formed, two atoms of it constantly take up one atom of 

 the oxygen molecule and thus form water, while the 

 other atom of oxygen is capable in the free state of 

 causing the most powerful oxidations. Hoppe-Seyler* 

 has recently shown that hydrogen arising in other ways 

 also possesses this power of rendering oxygen active ; 

 thus it is possible to set up energetic oxidation pro- 

 cesses by means of palladium hydrate by gradual dis- 

 sociation of the hydrogen in the presence of oxygen ; 

 and the action of phosphorus on oxygen has a similar 

 explanation. 



On this view we can understand how it is that in the 

 presence of oxygen putrefaction runs such a completely 



Inodorous different course than when oxygen is excluded. It is 

 not only that the true reduction products, such as hydro- 

 gen, or sulphuretted hydrogen, do not appear, having 

 undergone oxidation, but also that a number of other 

 substances, which at the ordinary temperatures are quite 

 resistant to the closed oxygen molecule, are attacked 

 by the active oxygen and converted into the most simple 

 compounds. Thus the destruction of the putrescible 

 material occurs in as complete a manner as when it is 

 broken up in the living animal body, or in that of 

 bacteria which normally oxidise the nutrient materials 

 when oxygen is present. Further, it is not uncommon 

 that, both on and under the surface of the fluid, bacteria 

 or, when the circumstances are favourable, yeast, or 

 mould fungi obtain their nutriment from the products 

 of the fermentation and burn these up to the most 

 simple compounds ; and we must regard it as at present 

 undetermined whether the products of putrefaction can be 

 more frequently and in larger quantities destroyed in 

 this way, or as the result of the nascent hydrogen, and 

 its action on the oxygen. 



Spontaneous In our normal surroundings, both putrefaction and 



putrefaction * Zdtsckr.f.physiol. Chemie, ii., 22. See also Baumann, ibid., v. 244. 



and decay. 



