58° 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 22, I914 
the microscope slip on which they are contained, is at 
once ringed with paraffin melting at 40° C., and the 
slip is then put aside in a warm place for a few days. 
Fig. 4 shows a portion of a mould that had developed, 
and Fig. 5 shows Torulz that after several days had 
f greatly multiplied, 
under such condi- 
tions. Why the 
Calswime, ots secre 
organisms out of 
the tube, and plac- 
ing them between 
two layers of glass 
surrounded by para- 
fin should = so 
greatly favour their 
development [I am 
unable to say, but 
that it does do so | 
am perfectly —cer- 
Fic. 3.—TVorula from 3 per cent. glucose 
on sixth day alter its inoculation from tain. I will cite one 
tube No. 437. 500. very striking in- 
stance that I ob- 
served a short time since. In some of the 
sediment taken from the centrifuged contents of a 
tube, 1 found, beneath the coyer-glass, during a 
thorough examination, about forty to fifty minute 
solitary bodies like embryo Torule. The cover-glass 
was ringed and the 
slide put aside. When 
| examined it again 
after only thirty hours, 
in place of the solitary 
bodies groups were seen 
of larger bodies from 
which hyphe were 
being developed in 
almost all cases. I have 
several photographs 
illustrating this, and 
one of the largest of the 
groups is shown in 
Fig. 6, while another 
group is shown in 
Fig. 7, as seen some 
days later, , under a 
lower magnification, but in which the hyphe had 
grown considerably longer. The tube had been pre- 
pared and sterilised many weeks previously, and during 
that time within the tube only very minute solitary 
bodies had been produced. But in thirty hours after 
having been 
taken out of 
the tube and 
placed beneath 
the cover-glass 
they grew, 
they multiplied, 
and developed 
hy phe, a's 
shown by the 
photographs, 
From the 
evidence above 
detailed it 
seems very 
difficult to re- 
sist the fol- 
lowing conclu- 
sions :-— 
(1) That the bodies alleged to have been taken from 
the experimental tubes have really been: taken there- 
from, and are not mere accidental products which have 
dropped from.the atmosphere during the transit of the 
sterilised pipette from the tube to the microscope slide. 
NO. 2308, VOL. 92] 
FiG. 4.—Mould trom 3 per cent. glucose 
on ninth day after its inoculation 
from tube No. 557. 500. 
Fic. 5.—Large mass of Torulz as found beneath a 
ringed cover-glass on fourteenth day, from tube 
No 438. 
Xx 500, 
(2) That the bodies in question are actual organisms, 
and not mere plasmogenic simulacra of living things, 
such as are often to be found in colloidal solutions. 
(3) That they are actual living organisms which, 
as shown by the evidence of the ‘‘ control” tubes, have 
increased and multiplied within the tubes, and 
will often behave in a similar manner after they have 
Fic. 6.—Multiplication and deve'opment of fungus-germs from tube 
No. 631, after thirty hours under ringed cover-glass. 500. 
been taken from the tubes and placed under favourable 
conditions. RS 
(4) That as all the organisms in question have been 
shown to be killed by a brief single exposure in fluids 
to the temperature of boiling water (100° C.), none 
of them, even if present, could have survived the 
much higher or much more prolonged heatings to 
which the tubes and their contents were exposed 
during the process of sterilisation—that is to say, 
these tubes should have been after that process as 
devoid of living things as was our earth in the far 
Fic. 7.—Further development of another group of fungus-germs under 
the sane cover-glass, as seen six days later. x 325. 
remote past, and just as then, at some period, there 
must have been, as is now generally admitted in the 
world of science, a de novo origin of living matter 
on the previously lifeless earth under the influence of 
purely natural causes, so now it would seem that the 
simple living organisms which appear within the 
experimental tubes must have been produced, de novo, 
