HEAT UPON LIVING MATTER. I7I 
an old objection entirely unsupported by facts, and 
those who dwell upon it may be reminded that it was 
unhesitatingly rejected by the former chief of their 
school, Spallanzani, who said, “un raisonnement de 
cette sorte est absoluement contraire a toutes les 
notions que nous avons du feu.” They may be 
further reminded that the writer’s own experiments 
completely meet this objection, since they. refer to 
the death-point of invisible germs of Bacteria just 
‘as much as to the death-point. of those which are 
visible.* 
(6.) Others, without definitely committing them- 
selves to the belief that Bacteria germs can resist 
the destructive influence of boiling water when they 
are immersed in it, affect to believe that some germs 
may have escaped its influence by being -‘sourted’ 
out of the fluid on to the sides of the glass when the 
process of boiling commenced. How any such germs 
could escape the moistening and destructive influence 
of the hot steam with which they would still be in 
contact these reasoners do not say, though some of 
them are cautious about openly suggesting an ante- 
cedent and protective state of extreme desiccation 
in the face of Dr. Sanderson’s experiments proving 
that this would be in itself destructive. The futility 
of this objection, so far as the general question is 
* Seep. 86. 
