STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. Oo 



admit that, under the influences which I have already cited* 

 they may assume a real and complete organization, and produce 

 ferments which are not derived, as we have seen, from a germ 

 or an ovum but from a semi-organized body, the vital energy of 

 which has become active. f It will be seen that these opinions 

 are quite different from those which M. Pasteur has maintained 

 in his works, since they attribute the origin of alcoholic and 

 lactic ferments to an albuminous substance. Taking the case 

 of alcoholic fermentation alone, I assert that, in the production 

 of wine, it is the juice of the grape itself which, in contact with 

 air, produces grains of yeast, by the transformation of the albu- 

 minous substances. M. Pasteur, on the contrary, maintains 

 that the grains of yeast are produced by certain germs. "| 



We have combated these propositions, so extraordinary and 

 unsupported by any rigorous experiments, before the Academy of 

 Sciences, where they were first enunciated. On that occasion we 

 related the facts in connection with blood and urine, which we 

 have just discussed. Could there be any more forcible argument 

 against the theory of our honourable colleague than those 

 facts ? Here we had natviral albuminous substances, forming 

 part of matter eminently liable to putrefactive change and 

 fermentation, which produced no ferments of any sort whatso- 

 ever when brought into contact with air deprived of its organic 

 particles of dust. 



Under no known circumstances is albuminous matter trans- 

 formed into grains of yeast or any other organized ferment, and, 

 to our thinking, nothing can be more chimerical than the 

 gratuitous hypothesis of hemi-organism. 



We shall proceed to new proofs of this, dealing this time 

 with a liquid formed by the life of a vegetable. 



* Amongst tliese influences one of the most important, according to 

 M. Fremy, is " organic impulse" — another gratuitous assumption. 



t Fremy, Comptes rendus de V Academic des Sciences, t. Iviii. p. 1167, 

 1864. 



X Fremy, Gomptes rendus de V Academie des Sciences, t. Ixxiii. p. 1425, 

 1871. M. Trecul shares M. Fremy's opinions, and extends them to the 

 development of diffei'ent fungoid growths. 



