334 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



Such is the evidence concerning the power of 

 resisting the destructive influence of heat, manifested 

 by the organisms about which we are at present most 



some ' dry dust in an open tube to 480 C ' (the mode of estimating the 

 heat not being stated), after it had cooled distilled water was added and 

 the mixture was boiled for a few minutes. The tube containing this 

 was closed with a stopper of cotton wool, and then, on the same even- 

 ing, again opened to the air, whilst some of the fluid was poured into 

 another tube which was afterwards plugged with cotton wool. The effect 

 of the high temperature was thus cancelled by the subsequent addition 

 of distilled water ; and the effects of the boiling of this mixture ' for 

 a few minutes' was subsequently rendered nugatory, so far as all strict 

 experimentation is concerned, by its exposure to the air whilst it was 

 poured into the new vessel. Such evidence is wholly inconclusive and 

 even inadmissible. What has lately been honoured by admission, in 

 detail, into a recent number of the ' Proceedings of the Royal Society ' 

 (vol. xix. No. 128), is not much more cogent in its nature. In a paper 

 on the ' Action of Heat on Protoplasmic Life,' Dr. Crace-Calvert asserts 

 that certain ' black Vibrios,' not commonly known to naturalists, and 

 other ordinary Vibrios, are capable of resisting the influence of fluids 

 heated to 300 F for half an hour. The conclusion that the organisms 

 were living or dead in the several experiments, was based apparently 

 upon the mere presence or absence of slight movements of a non- 

 progressive nature, whilst no details are given as to the conditions of 

 observation. In opposition to the statements and experiments of Dr. 

 Crace-Calvert, it may be well to call his attention to the fact (of which 

 he is apparently unaware) that MM. Milne-Edwards, Claude Bernard, 

 Pasteur, Professor Huxley, and many others who cannot be ranged 

 in the category of ' investigators of germ-life who favour the theory of 

 spontaneous generation,' have most deliberately given their assent, based 

 upon experiment and observation, to the view that the lowest forms of 

 life are killed by contact for a very short period with boiling water. 

 1 he truth of this conclusion has been again, of late, ratified by Dr. 

 Burdon Sanderson as I ascertain from a revise (with which he has kindly 

 furnished me) of a paper entitled ' Further Report of Researches conr 

 cerning Contagion,' shortly to appear in the Thirteenth Report of the 

 Medical Officer of the Priv\ Council. 



