66 FEBMENTATIOtf. 



Ferment cells are not necessary to fermentation, 

 only their contents are requisite. 



Vegetable gluten and vegetable albumen, with 

 sugar and gum, or vegetable mucus, form when 

 brought into contact in a sufficiently warm tempera- 

 ture, the new highly oxygenated matter, and engender 

 ferment, and at the same time set up fermentation ; 

 two operations, the result of one cause. 



The gum or vegetable mucus is thus changed into 

 cellulose, and forms insoluble cells in water. The 

 vegetable gluten, or albumen, is enclosed in the cells, 

 and retains the chemical capability peculiar to it, of 

 taking up oxygen. 



On this account the globules of ferment are well 

 adapted to the engendering of fermentation ; their 

 contents have only to exude through the walls of 

 the cells in order to give the sugar an impulse to 

 decomposition. It is however necessary that the 

 action of vegetable acids should keep the ferment 

 acid. "Without absorption of oxygen the albuminous 

 contents of the ferment cells, which are insoluble, 

 cannot be* changed into soluble bodies rich in oxygen, 

 and thus become capable of further decomposition. 

 Very little oxygen is, however, necessary, since two 

 parts sugar scarcely require for fermentation three- 

 fourth part of albuminous matter in a state of oxida- 

 tion. 



"When the air, which has either been dissolved in 

 the liquid or freely admitted to it, does not furnish 



