98 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



It was at the beginning of the Michaelmas 

 term, October, 1904, that we exhibited to a host 

 of people at the Cavendish and Pathological 

 Laboratories at Cambridge these first experiments 

 made on the action of radium salts on sterilised 

 bouillon. The bodies thus observed were very- 

 curious indeed, and some of their properties very 

 remarkable. 



M. R. Dubois stated in an inaugural address at 

 Lyons, shortly afterwards, in November, a somewhat 

 similar result. Claims to priority are always dis- 

 tasteful. It is therefore not our intention to enter 

 into controversy upon such matters, but merely to 

 tell the story of our own doings in our own way. 

 The proceedings of the laboratory in which we worked 

 constitute in themselves publicity and an exhibition 

 of our experiments to those outside it still more 

 so ; whilst the idea which led to those experiments 

 was outlined in the Monthly Review, Nov., 1903. 

 M. Dubois' vacuoUdes, which are also produced by 

 other means than by radium, as, for instance, by 

 barium and manganese salts, are not radiobes, but 

 only like one of the products of the reactions with 

 bouillon. They are so much larger, and resemble 

 the globules produced by gum and other bodies. Of 

 this more elsewhere anon. 



The piice de resistance is the sterilisation, and 

 upon this point M. Dubois says practically nothing ; 

 except that his culture medium was rendered 

 " aseptic " in the usual way. No doubt his precau- 

 tions have been carefully carried out and it must be 



