322 LOUIS PASTEUR 



is very different from that of the savants with whom we 

 discussed the subject before the Academy, on the occasion 

 when the communication which we addressed to the Academy 

 in October, 1872, attracted attention once more to the 

 remarkable observations of Messrs. Lechartier and Bel- 

 lamy. M. Fremy, in particular, was desirous of finding 

 in these observations a confirmation of his views on the 

 subject of hemi-organism, and a condemnation of ours, 

 notwithstanding the fact that the preceding explanations, 

 and, more particularly our Note of 1861, quoted word 

 for word in the preceding section, furnish the most con- 

 clusive evidence in favor of those ideas which we advocate. 

 Indeed, as far back as 1861 we pointed out very clearly 

 that if we could find plants able to live when deprived 

 of air, in the presence of sugar, they would bring about 

 a fermentation of that substance, in the same manner that 

 yeast does. Such is the case with the fungi already studied; 

 such, too, is the case with the fruits employed in the ex- 

 periments of Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy, and in our 

 own experiments, the results of which not only confirm 

 those obtained by these gentlemen, but even extend them, 

 in so far as we have shown that fruits, when surrounded 

 with carbonic acid gas immediately produce alcohol. When 

 surrounded with air, they live in their aerobian state and 

 we have no fermentation; immersed immediately after- 

 wards in carbonic acid gas, they now assume their an- 

 aerobian state, and at once begin to act upon the sugar 

 in the manner of ferments, and emit heat. As for seeing in 

 these facts anything like a confirmation of the theory of 

 hemi-organism, imagined by M. Fremy, the idea of such a 



vessel, out of contact with atmospheric oxygen, without our being able to 

 discover alcoholic ferment in the interior of those fruits. 



" M. Pasteur, as a logical deduction from the principle which he has 

 established in connection with the theory of fermentation, considers that 

 the formation of alcohol may be attributed to the fact that the physical and 

 chemical processes of life in the cells of fruit continue under new condi- 

 tions, in a manner similar to those of the cells of ftrment. Experiments, 

 continued during 1872, 1873, and 1874, on different fruits have furnished 

 results all of which seem to us to harmonize with this proposition, and to 

 establish it on a firm basis of proof." Comptes rendus, t. Ixxix., p. 049, 1874. 



PASTEUR, Faites nouveoux pour servir a la connaissance de fa theorie 

 des fermentations proprement dites. (Comptes rendus de V Academic des 

 Sciences, t. Ixxv., p. 784.) See in the same volume the discussion that 

 followed; also, PASTEUR, Note sur la production de I'alcool par les fruits, 

 same volume, p. 1054, in which we recount the observations anterior to our 

 own, made by Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy in 1869. 







