342 . THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



tomatoes are often covered with the fungus, though there 

 is no communication with the outward air ; and a crop 

 of the mould has been seen to grow in a few hours from 

 the cut surface of a diseased potato even though the 

 foliage itself had exhibited no trace of the parasite.' 

 Multitudes of such facts might be referred to, and the 

 facts themselves are, I believe, admitted by all. Dr. 

 Lionel Beale, for instance, says: c Lowly vegetable 

 germs appear in closed cavities in the substance of 

 dead animal and vegetable tissues. I have often seen 

 them within vegetable cells in which not a pore could 

 be discovered when the tissue was examined by the 

 highest powers.' And again he says : c I have detected 

 them in the interior of the cells of animals, and in the 

 very centre of cells with walls so thick and strong that 

 it seems almost impossible that such soft bodies could 

 have made their way through the surrounding me- 

 dium V 



Again, nothing is easier for us than to discover 

 such organisms within the very centre of the organs 

 of dead animals, whenever the parts begin to exhibit 

 signs of putrefaction. They are often met with in 

 the centre of a mass of brain-tissue, for instance ; and 

 MM. Bechamp 2 and Estor have also observed that 

 most active 'Bacteria in great abundance are always to 

 be found in the midst of a portion of liver which has 



1 'Disease-Germs,' 1870, p. 72. Dr. Beale's mode of accounting for 

 these facts will be subsequently referred to. 



2 ' Compt. Rend.' t. Ixvi. 



