VITALITY OF PUTEEFACTIVE ORGANISMS. 209 



of his own experiments, Spallanzani was compelled to 

 assume that the germs of the lower infusoria do possess 

 this seed-like property of developing after desiccation. 

 Modern science, however, declares that they have no 

 such property. We are told most unreservedly by 

 Professor Burdon Sanderson, not only that the germinal 

 particles of Bacteria are rendered inactive by thorough 

 drying, without the application of heat, i.e. by mere 

 exposure to air for two or three days at a temperature 

 of 104° Fahr., but also that fully-formed Bacteria are 

 deprived of their power of further development by 

 thorough desiccation.' In this unqualified sense the 

 conclusion is untenable. I could cite a multitude of 

 experiments to prove this, but a reference to one or 

 two of them will here suffice. 



A small bunch of old Heathfield hay was washed 

 with distilled water, which was received into a eham- 

 pagne-glass. The glass was placed on a stove until 

 the water had all evaporated, and the dried residue 

 was permitted to remain upon the stove for several 

 days. Dr. Sanderson's drying temperature was 104° 

 Fahr., mine was 120° Fahr., and my period of drying 

 was longer than his. Scraping a little of the dry sedi- 

 ment treated as above from the bottom of the cham- 

 pagne-glass, I infected with it a bulb containing 

 bay-infusion which had been completely sterilized by 

 eight hours' boiling. When infected, the infusion was 

 brightly transparent, but forty-eight hours afterwards 

 it was teeming with Bacteria. With regard to 

 the doctrine that these organisms arise from ' dead 

 organic particles,' instead of from living germs,^ no 

 scientific man at the present day ought, I submit, to 

 be called upon to spend a moment's thought upon it. 



One other reference will suffice. I have had bun- 

 ' ' Evolution,' p. 44. 



