HEAT UPON LIVING MATTER. 153 
Now then for the application of the facts, towards 
the interpretation of Spallanzani’s other experiments 
in which the lowest organisms appeared in closed 
flasks whose contents had been exposed to the tem- 
perature of boiling water for half an hour. Certainly 
the ‘germs’ of such animalcules could not be supposed 
to have survived an ordeal of this kind, if they are to 
be compared with the eggs of animals, seeing that the 
death of the latter has been brought about by momen- 
tary exposure to a temperature far short of the boiling 
point. The supposition would however seem more 
possible if, instead of comparing these germs with the 
eggs of animals, one regarded them as belonging to 
the same category as the seeds of plants. Spallanzani 
frankly admits that they would seem to be more 
allied to eggs than to seeds, though he attempts to 
bridge the gap by saying that certain eggs are known 
(to which these germs may be allied) in some respects 
of the seeds with which he experimented required a high temperature to 
kill them, merely on account of their dryness. If the seeds had been 
well soaked in cold water beforehand, so as to have thoroughly 
moistened them, might they not have been killed at a much lower 
temperature—that is, only a little, if at all, above rqgo° F., or the tem- 
perature which proved destructive to the more moist animal germs? 
Facts to be subsequently mentioned (p 161), which have been ascertained 
by Max Schultze and Kiihne, would seem to render this very prubable, 
and compel us to regard Spallanzaui’s experiments with sceds as needing 
repetition with the modification above suggested. The plants also, like 
the animals, should have been wholly instead of partially immersed in 
the heated water. 
