122 STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. 



and various other organisms. They are contained in milk, 

 blood, eggs, the infusion of barley, and such like ; nay, we may 

 even find them in chalk, and so we have the fine discovery of 

 Microzyma cretae as a distinct species ! 



Those who, like ourselves, cannot see in these granulations of 

 organic liquids ought besides things whose nature is still 

 undetermined, term them molecidav granules, or, in reference to 

 their Brownian movements, mobile granules. Indefinite expression 

 is the best exponent of imperfect knowledge ; when a precise 

 terminology is invented, without any basis of precise ideas 

 derived from a rigid observation of facts, sooner or later the 

 hypothetical facts disappear, but the terminology prematurely 

 created to explain them, hangs about the Science, and, bearing 

 an erroneous interpretation, retards rather than promotes real 

 progress. 



We may here introduce a summary of Turpin's system, as 

 given by himself. It forms a complete biogenesis, which leaves 

 far behind it M. Bechamp's theory oi microzymata, M. Fremy^s 

 descriptions of hemi-organism, and M. Trecul's account of the 

 genesis of bacteria and lactic ferment : — 



" When a mucous substance presents nothing visible through 

 the microscope, as, for example, gelatinous matter, dissolved 

 gum, the white of eggs, or plant-sap, simply thickened on its 

 way to cambmni, we call it organic matter or organizahle matter. 

 We attribute to it the fecundating power of organic life in the 

 simplest degree ; we consider it as material still isolated from 

 organization. We suppose that the invisible molecules, of which 

 this organizable matter is composed, come together, combine and 

 serve through this association in the construction of the different 

 elementary forms of future tissues. 



" May we not with greater truth believe that organizable 

 matter is of varied origin, formed of innumerable globulines, 

 too minute and transparent as yet to be observed by our present 

 microscopical means, and that these globulines which are 

 always endowed with motion and a special vital centre, are all 

 capable, although many of them do abort, of separate develop- 



