272 STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. 



observations of Messrs. LecUartier and Bellamy.* M. Fremy, 

 in particular, was desirous of finding in those observations a 

 confirmation of his views on the subject of hemi-organism, and a 

 condemnation of ours, notwithstanding the fact that the pre- 

 ceding explanations and, more particularly our Note of 1861, 

 which we have quoted word for word in the last paragraph, 

 furnish the most conclusive evidence in favour of those ideas 

 which we advocate. Indeed, as far back as 1861 we pointed 

 out very clearly that if we could find plants able to live when 

 deprived of air, in the presence of sugar, they would bring 

 about a fermentation of that substance, in the same manner as 

 yeast does. Such is the case with the fungi already studied in 

 Chapter IV. ; such, too, is the case with the fruits employed in 

 the experiments of Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy, and in our 

 own experiments, the results of which not only confirm those 

 obtained by these gentlemen, but even extend them, in so far 

 as we have shown that fruits, when surrounded with carbonic 

 acid gas, immediately produce alcohol. When surrounded with 

 air, they live in their aerobian state, and we have no ferment- 

 action ; immersed immediately afterwards in carbonic acid gas, 

 they now assume their anaerobian state, and at once begin to 

 act upon the sugar in the manner of ferments, and emit heat. 

 As for seeing in these facts anything like a confirmation of the 

 theory of hemi-organism, imagined by ]M. Fremy, the idea of 

 such a thing is absurd. The following, for instance, is the 

 theory of the fermentation of the vintage, according to M. 

 Fremy. t 



" To speak here of alcoholic fermentation alone," + our 



* Pasteur, Fa lies nouveaux pour servir d la connaissance de la theorie 

 (les fermentations proprement dites. {Camptes rendus de V Academie des 

 Sciences, t. Ixxv., p. 7(S4). See, in the same vohime, the discussion that 

 followed ; also, Pasteur, Note sur la production de Valcool par les fruits, 

 same volume, p. 1054, in which we recount the observations anterior to 

 our own, made by Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy in 18G9. 



t Comptes rendus, meeting of January 15th, 1872. 



t As a matter of fact, M. Fremy applies his theory of hemi-organism, 

 not only to the alcoholic fermentation of grape juice, but to all other 



