GERMS OF LIVING ORGANISMS. 129 



ercd due to a disturbance of chemical affinity by the loss of 

 life. 



Professor Wyman, of Harvard College, in a paper on " Living 

 Organisms in Heated Water,"* lias published the account of 

 experiments which support Pasteur's view, and he has shown 

 that prolonged boiling of the spores which give rise to decom- 

 position, at a temperature of 212°, effectually destroys all the 

 germs, and the organic matter excluded from the air in the 

 vessel in which it has been boiled resists putrefaction. His con- 

 clusions were as follows : — 



1. In thermal waters plants belonging to the lower kinds 

 of algse live in water the temperature of which, in some in- 

 stances, rises as high as 208° Fahr. 



2. Solutions of organic matter boiled for twenty-five min- 

 utes and exposed only to air wliich had passed through iron tubes 

 heated to redness, became the seat of infusorial life. 



3. Similar solutions, contained in flasks hermetically sealed^ 

 and then immersed in boiling water for periods varying from a 

 few minutes to four hours, also became the seat of infusorial 

 life. The infusoria were chiefly vibrios, bacteria and monads. 



4. No ciliated infusoria, unless monads are such, appeared 

 in the experiments referred to in the above conclusions. 



5. No infusoria of any kind appeared if the boihng was 

 prolonged beyond a period of five hours. 



6. Infusoria, having the faculty of locomotion, lost this when 

 exposed in water to a temperature of from 120° to 134° P. 



7. If vibrios, bacteria and monads are added to a clear 

 and limpid organic solution, this becomes turbid from their mul- 

 tiplication in from one to two days. If, however, they have been 

 previously boiled, the solution does not become turbid until from 

 one to two days later, and in some of the experiments not sooner 

 than does the same solution to which no infusoria have beeu 

 added. 



The lard and tallow-melters are daily affording us opportuni- 

 ties for the most extensive and satisfactory demonstration of the 

 truth of Professor Wyman's conclusions. The boiling down of 

 offal, which in winter in these cold latitudes is fresh, but in 

 summer is almost invariably in an advanced state of putrefac- 

 tion, proves that the employment of sufficient heat to liquefy and 



* " American Journal of Science and Arts," Vol. XLIV., September, 1807. 

 17 



