STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. OOD 



which has been passed through the flame, and which we must 

 fasten with a thread round the part of the neck still left. In 

 this manner we may increase or prolong the fructification of 

 funffoid o-rowths, or the life of aerobian ferments in our flasks. 



What we have said of penicillium glaucum will apply equally 

 to mycoderma cerevisue. Notwithstanding what Turpin and 

 Trecul may assert to the contrary, yeast, in contact with air 

 as it was under the conditions of the experiment just described, 

 will not yield mycoderma vini or mycoderma cerevisice any more 

 than it will 2)enicillmm. 



The experiments described in the preceding paragraphs on 

 the increase of organized ferments in mineral media of the 

 composition described, are of great physiological interest. 

 Amongst other results, they show that all the proteic matter of 

 ferments may be produced by the vital activity of the cells, 

 which, apart altogether from the influence of light or free 

 oxygen (unless, indeed, we are dealing with aerobian moulds 

 which require free oxygen), have the power of developing a 

 chemical activity between carbo-hydrates, ammoniacal salts, 

 phosphates and sulphates of potassium and magnesium. It 

 may be admitted with truth that a similar effect obtains in the 

 ■case of the higher plants, so that in the existing state of science 

 we fail to conceive what serious reason can be urged against 

 our considering this effect as general. It would be perfectly 

 logical to extend the results of which we are speaking to all 

 plants^ and to believe that the proteic matter of vegetables, and 

 perhaps of animals also, is formed exclusively by the activity 

 of the cells operating upon the ammoniacal and other mineral 

 salts of the sap or plasma of the blood, and the carbo-hydrates, 

 the formation of which, in the case of the higher plants, 

 requires only the concurrence of the chemical impulse of green 

 light. 



Viewed in this manner, the formation of the proteic sub- 

 stances would be independent of the great act of reduction of 

 carbonic acid gas under the influence of light. These substances 

 would not be built up from the elements of water, ammonia, 



