432 
What, then, are the facts which have been made known 
bearing upon the solution of this question ? 
Before the date of M. Pasteur’s researches, it was generally 
supposed that Living things were incapable of surviving in a fluid 
which had been raised even for afew minutes to the temperature 
of 100° C. ; but, after the results of his experiments, he claimed* 
to have a right to conclude therefrom that, whilst Living things 
were destroyed in acid fluids which had been raised for a few 
minutes to the temperature of 100° C., they were not certainly 
killed in alkaline fluids unless these had been raised for a few 
minutes to a temperature of 110° C. 
This, however, is the point at which Prof. Huxley has chosen 
to close what he considers to be the history of the rise and progress 
of the doctrine expressed by the phrase ommne vivum ex vivo. 
Then, ignoring all+that had been done in the interval between 
the years 1862 and 1870, he concludes a long but almost ir- 
relevant chain of evidence with an account of three recent (?) 
experiments of his own, concerning the cogency and worth of 
which I have already spoken. 
But let us briefly glance at the most important work which 
has been done, in order to throw light upon the subject 
in dispute, in the interval between the appearance of M. 
Pasteur’s memoir in 1862 and the three experiments made by 
Prof. Huxley himself—work which he so summarily dismisses 
from notice. 
I will say nothing now concerning the various experiments 
which have been made similar to those of M. Pasteur, but with 
contradictory results ; I will refer rather to experiments in which 
the flasks and solutions employed have been exposed to a de- 
gree of heat much higher and much more prolonged than that 
which was proclaimed by M. Pasteur to be adequate to prevent 
the occurrence of all organisms in the solutions, and in which, 
nevertheless, Living things have been found on opening the flasks. 
As I have elsewhere mentioned,t Prof. Jeffries Wyman,$ of 
Cambridge, U.S., published an account in 1862 of experiments 
in which he had boiled fluids containing organic matter for a 
period of two hours, under a pressure of two atmospheres, that is 
to say, at a temperature of 120°°6 C. To the fluid so treated, 
no air was allowed access except what had passed through the 
capillary bores of white-hot iron tubes. And yet, when, after 
a certain time, the flasks were broken, Living organisms were 
found in the fluids contained therein. Prof. Mantegazza,|| of 
Turin, has obtained Living organisms from the fluids of hermeti- 
cally closed flasks after these, containing the putrescible fluids 
and common air at ordinary atmospheric pressure, had been sub- 
jected for some time to a temperature of 140° C, Prof. Can- 
toni,** of Pavia, has found Living bacteria and vibrios in the 
fluids of similarly-prepared closed flasks, after these had been 
exposed in a Pepin’s digester to a temperature of 142° C. for four 
hours. And, lastly, 1 have myself recorded experiments, ++ 
made with the kind assistance of Prof. Frankland, showing 
that Living organisms almost similar to those which haye been 
ascertained to be incapable of resisting the influence of a fluid 
raised to the temperature of 100° C. for a few minutes may be met 
with, after atime, in solutions which had been exposed in her- 
metically-sealed and airless flasks, to a temperature varying 
between 146° and 153° C. for a period of four hours. Whilst, by 
another experiment, +} it was found that a fungus and spores, as 
nearly as possible similar to that which had been found in a 
living state in one of the former experiments, were all completely 
disintegrated, §§ after exposure for an equal period, and in a flask 
* That M. Pasteur’s experiments did not warrant him, however, in coming 
to the conclusion that Living things were capable of living in an alkaline 
solution when this was exposed to a temperature of 100° C., I have endea- 
youred to show in Nature, No. 37, pp. 224—228. 
+ With the exception of the recent investigations of Prof. Tyndall, which 
Prof. Huxley considers capable of supporting his own view of the question, 
although Prof.- Tyndall has really done nothing whatever to convince 
the public that the organic dust which exists in the atmosphere is even in 
part made up of the ‘*germs,” about which he talks so freely. 
+ Nature, No. 35, p. 175: 
§ ‘Experiments on the Formation of Infusoria, &c.” 
U.S. 
|| These experiments were not made in the interval above referred to, but 
even ten years before the publication of M. Pasteur’s memoir. See ¥ournal 
de Institut, Lombard, t. iii., 1852. 
** See Gaz. Med. Ital. Lombard. Ser. Der. v. t- i, 1868, and two com- 
munications made to the Royal Lombard Institute, one in April 1868, and 
one in November 1869. 
+4 Nature, No. 36. tt Ibid. 
§§ See Nature, No. 37, p. 219. The experiment in which the somewhat 
similar fungus was met with was No. 19 (NATURE, No. 36, p. 200), and to 
this I would particularly direct the reader’s attention. The mode of appear- 
ance of the fungus, its gradual increase in size, as well as its microscopical 
n 
Cambridge, 
NATURE 
[Sept 29, 1870 
containing a similar solution, to the same temperature of 146° to 
Thar. 
Now, in reference to these results, it should be remarked that 
there is not one tittle of evidence, so far as I am aware, which 
can be adduced tending to show that any single Living thing can 
continue to /ive in a fluid which is exposed even for a few 
minutes to a temperature of 110° C.—the degree of heat which 
M. Pasteur thought necessary to ensure the destruction of all 
pre-existing Living things. And also it has been shown just as 
definitely that none of the lower Living things which have been 
submitted to the test, have ever been found to survive an ex- 
posure in dry air* for 30” to a temperature of 130°C. Still less, 
therefore, would they be capable of withstanding the influence 
of an extremely condensed vapour at a temperature of 150° C., or 
even at 140° C., fora period of four hours.+ There is, at present, 
no reason whatever for inducing people to believe that the living 
things met with in the experiments of Professors Wyman, Man- 
tegazza, Cantoni, and those made by myself in concert with Prof. 
Frankland, had been derived from germs which were capable of 
living through the fiery ordeal to which the flasks had been 
submitted, save the extreme reluctance of these people to bring 
themselves to believe that Livings things can now# arise in- 
dependently of pre-existing Living matter. Moreover, it should 
be understood, that experiments of this kind seem to be such 
as are alone capable of aiding us to come to a conclusion on 
this, the only question in dispute—whether the motionless 
specks which appear in previously homogeneous solutions, are 
more likely to have proceeded from the growth of pre-existing 
invisible germs, ox to have arisen quite independently of pre- 
existing Living matter, under the influence of molecular affinities 
analogous to those which are believed to lead to the formation 
of similar specks of crystalline matter. 
And yet, without one word concerning the limits of vital 
resistance ; with what must be considered as a tacit admission that 
the very organisms in question are destroyed in a fluid main- 
tained at a temperature of 100° C., for 15 minutes ; without a 
single explicit mention of the experiments to which I have just 
been referring ; with a seeming utter inappreciation of their 
important bearing upon the great question at issue—Prof. 
Huxley, closing his historical summary with a notice of the 
labours of M. Pasteur, ends an almost completely irrelevant 
statement with the mention of three experiments of his own, 
which, ifthey are not to be considered as altogether worthless, are, 
certainly, of no conceivable value for the establishment of the 
doctrine which he supports, or for the overthrow of the sup- 
position that Living things can at the present time arise de novo, 
Suryeying the field of science from the elevated ‘position in 
which the suffrages of his colleagues had, for the time, placed 
him,” recognising it as one of his privileges and duties, with 
“¢due impartiality,” to declare ‘‘where the advanced posts of 
science had been driven in, or a long-continued siege had made 
no progress,”’ Prof. Huxley ventures, in the face of the facts above- 
characters, all point to its having been a diving fungus. Whilst the partial 
preservation of the vacuum for 65 days shows pretty plainly that there was 
no unobserved crack in the glass. The partial destruction of the vacuum 
was most probably due to the liberation of gases within the flask, owing 
to some decomposition of the tartrate of ammonia during the growth of 
the fungus. J¢ 7s not likely that germs contained in the air could get 
through a crack, if any such existed, which was impervious to the air 
itself. 
* Nature, No. 35, p. 170. 
+ Prof. Tyndall seemed to have completely forgotten all this during the dis- 
cussion which took place in the Biological Section of the British Association 
on Wednesday, September 21. He there alleged as his principal reason why 
the conclusions which I am inclined to draw from my experiments should not 
be drawn—after I had pointed out to him that J Aad no wish to exclude 
“ germs” or Living things fromthe flasks which were hermetically sealed,— 
that germs might have adhered to the upper portion of the flask, and might 
never have come into contact with the heated fluid. But this objection 
was seen to be futile in the face of the work which had been done concerning 
the influence of dy heated air upon lower kinds of Living things—work of 
whose existence Prof. Tyndall seemed to be in ignorance, or which he had 
entirely forgotten, until he was reminded of the opinions of M. Pasteur on 
this subject. Prof. Tyndall, indeed, seeszed to know very little more of M. 
Pasteur’s views than he did of my own. Until it can be shown, however, 
that any single minute Living thing caz withstand the influence of a con- 
densed vapour at 150° C., for four hours, the objection which he started so 
triumphantly remains and exists only as a highly improbable supposition, 
in the face of which I can again fearlessly state my conclusion—that, 
taking all the evédence as it at present exists, 1 am as much, even more, 
entitled to believe that the organisms found in my flasks had been evolved 
de novo, than that they had been produced from pre-existing germs of 
Living matter, seeing how universally destructible this has been shown to 
be by heat. 
t Even though some of these are quite willing to admit the Jossibzdety of 
such an occurrence, and are ready to accept the notion that in past ages of 
the earth the first Living matter did so originate from a combination of mere 
non-living materials, 
