SECT. ii. INFUSORIA. 67 



without oxygen, are developed below, and keep up the 

 fermentation, and between the two, the work of de- 

 composition is completed. 



It is not the worm that destroys our dead bodies ; it 

 is the Infusoria, the least of living beings. The in- 

 testinal canal of the higher animals, and of man, is 

 always filled during life not only with the germs of 

 vibrios, but with adult and well-grown vibrios them- 

 selves. M. Leewenhoeck had already discovered them 

 in man, a fact which has since been confirmed. They 

 are inoffensive as long as life is an obstacle to their 

 development, but after death their activity soon begins. 

 Deprived of air and bathed in nourishing liquid, they 

 decompose and destroy all the surrounding substances 

 as they advance towards the surface. During this 

 time, the little Infusoria, whose germs from the air had 

 been lodged in the wrinkles and pores of the skin, are 

 developed, and work their way from without inwards, 

 till they meet the vibrios, and after having devoured 

 them, they perish, or are eaten by maggots. 



Of all the Infusoria and ferments the Vibrios are the "} 

 most tenacious of life ; their germs resist the destructive 

 effect of a temperature of 100 Cent. The spores of the > 

 Mucedines are still more vivacious ; they grow after being \ 

 exposed to a heat of 120 Cent., and are only killed by ( 

 a temperature of 130 Cent. As neither spores of the ( 

 fungi nor the germs of the Infusoria are ever exposed ( 

 to so high a temperature while in the atmosphere,; 

 they are ready to germinate as soon as they meet with ^ 

 a substance that suits them. 



M. Ehrenberg has estimated that the Monas corpus- 

 culum is not more than the ^Jooth part of an inch in dia- 

 meter ; whence Dr. M. C. White, assuming that the ova 

 of the Infusoria and the spores of minute fungi are only 

 the ^th part in linear dimensions of their parent 

 organisms, concludes that there must be an incalculable 



F2 



