THE BEGINNINGS. OF LIFE. 



fate of other simple organisms, however, it is by no 

 means improbable that they should be killed even by 

 a short desiccation. I have found, for instance, that 

 desiccation for half-an-hour in a room at the tempera- 

 ture of 65 F suffices to kill all the larger, naked, lower 

 organisms with which I have experimented, including 

 Amoebae, Monads, Chlamydomonads, Euglenje, Desmids, 

 Vorticellae, and other Ciliated Infusoria. 



And as a result of his more recent experiments, 

 Dr. Burdon Sanderson l has definitely come to the con- 

 clusion, not only that c the germinal particles of micro- 

 zymes are rendered inactive by thorough drying without 

 the application of heat,' but also that c fully-formed 

 Bacteria are deprived of their power of further develop- 

 ment by thorough desiccation.' The amount of desic- 

 cation induced being merely that occasioned by keeping 

 them for two or three days in an uncovered condition 

 exposed to a temperature of IO4F, which is, of course, 

 a far lower temperature than that to which the Bacteria 

 and their germs would be exposed in the atmosphere, 

 in many hot countries, where putrefaction, nevertheless, 

 occurs with amazing facility. 



Certain other evidence also seems to speak most 

 authoritatively against the supposition that the air con- 

 that these are the legitimate descendants of the dried Bacteria which were 

 sown, because we cannot be sure that the dried mass may not have 

 acted as a mere dead ferment, which by its motor-decay determined a de 

 novo production of Bacteria in the test-liquid. 



1 Thirteenth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, p. 61. 



