308 APPENDIX. 



G. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. (p. 172). 



USEFUL MICROBES. 



We have said that numerous bacteria exist in the diges- 

 tive canal of a man in good health. Recent researches by 

 Duclaux, Richet, and Bourquelot tend to show that these 

 microbes are not only innoxious, but that they play an 

 active part in gastric digestion, and especially in the 

 transmutation of albumins into peptones. Since they are, 

 in fact, living ferments, the transmutation is retarded, if 

 these microbes are eliminated. It is therefore probable 

 that they manufacture pepsin. 



Pasteur's experiments also tend to show that microbes 

 aid the germination of plants. If the microbes contained 

 in vegetable mould are withdrawn from it, without taking 

 away any other constituent, germination is retarded, arid 

 effected with difficulty. 



H. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER Y. (p. 241.) 



PTOMAINES OF FISH. 



Salt and smoked fish often produce in those who eat 

 them violent poisoning, which may even end in death. 

 Aurep, of Kharkov, has recently studied these causes, 

 and ascribes them to a ptomaine secreted by a microbe, 

 or perhaps evolved from the fish itself during life, under 

 the morbid influence of this microbe. 



