58 STUDIES ON FERMKNTATIOX. 



transformation of albuminous substances into ferments, by 

 a process of oxidation. 



Our readers ma}^ be curious to know what M. Freray has 

 been able to oppose to such crucial experiments ; they could 

 scarcely have imagined the following : — 



" In my experiments, which I have varied in every possible 

 manner," says that gentleman, " I have found that it is almost 

 impossible to discover alcoholic fermentation, appreciable by its 

 results, in a single drop of grape juice, and I may add that this 

 fermentation must be still more difficult to discover when this 

 drop has been drowned in a large quantity of juice that has 

 been previously boiled/'* 



It will be admitted that we were justified in saying, at the 

 commencement of this paragraph, that we should demolish the 

 theory which was opposed to ours, and which its advocates have 

 been constrained to defend by hypotheses manifestly false. 



At the meeting following the one in which M. Fremy declared 

 that minute quantities do not ferment, we had the malicious 

 satisfaction of showing a great many very small closed flasks, 

 into each of which we had caused a single drop of the must of 

 crushed grapes to be introduced by suction. We broke the thin 

 points of many of them, in the presence of the Academy, and 

 every one of them showed by a sharp hissing, which was 

 audible at a distance, that fermentation was proceeding in the 

 drop of liquid they contained. M. Fremy was there, but he 

 made no remark. 



We may cite some very curious facts on the subject of the 

 period at which the germs that develop yeast are in a con- 

 dition to be able to cause fermentation. 



On July 25th, 1875, in the neighbourhood of Arbois (Jura), 

 the grapes were still green and of the size of peas. We went 

 to a vine that was far from paths and roads, and there, with a 

 pair of small scissors, cut some grapes from off a bunch and 

 let them fall with their short stalks into tubes half filled with 



* Comptes rnuhts de V Academic, sennce da 28 Ocfohre, 1872. 



