Phenomena of Putrefaction and Infection, go, 



Previous to reading this statement the author had operated upon 

 16 tubes of hay- and turnip-infusions, and upon 21 tubes of beef, 

 mackerel, eel, oyster, oatmeal, malt, and potato, hermetically sealed 

 while boiling, not by the blowpipe, but by the far more handy spirit- 

 lamp flame. In no case was any appearance whatever of Bacteria 

 or allied organisms observed. The perusal of the discussion just 

 referred to caused the author to turn again to muscle, liver, and 

 kidney, with a view of varying and multiplying the evidence. Fowl, 

 pheasant, snipe, partridge, plover, wild duck, beef, mutton, heart, 

 tongue, lungs, brains, sweetbread, tripe, the crystalline lens, vitreous 

 humour, herring, haddock, mullet, codfish, sole, were all embraced 

 in the experiments. There was neither mistake nor ambiguity about 

 the result. One hundred and thirty-nine of the flasks operated on 

 were submitted to the Fellows ; and not one of this cloud of wit- 

 nesses offered the least countenance to the assertion that liquids 

 within flasks, boiled and hermetically sealed, swarm, subsequently, 

 more or less plentifully with Bacteria and allied organisms. 



The evidence furnished by this mass of experiments, that Dr. 

 Bastian must have permitted errors either of preparation or obser- 

 vation to invade his work, is, it is submitted, very strong. But to 

 err is human ; and in an inquiry so difficult and fraught with such 

 momentous issues, it is not error, but the persistence in error by 

 any of us for dialectic ends that is to be deprecated. The author 

 shows by illustrations the risks of error run by himself. On the 

 21st of October he opened the back door of a case containing six 

 test-tubes filled with an infusion of turnip which had remained per- 

 fectly clear for three weeks, while three days sufficed to crowd six 

 similar tubes exposed to mote-laden air with Bacteria. "With a small 

 pipette he took specimens from the pellucid tubes, and placed them 

 under the microscope. One of them yielded a field of Bacterial 

 life, monstrous in its copiousness. For a long time he tried vainly 

 to detect any source of error, and was perfectly prepared to abandon 

 the unvarying inference from all the other experiments, and to 

 accept the result as a clear exception to what had previously 

 appeared to be a general law. The cause of his perplexity was 

 finally traced to the tiniest speck of an infusion containing Bacteria 

 which had clung by capillary attraction to the point of one of his 

 pipettes. 



Again, three tubes containing infusions of turnip, hay, and 

 mutton were boiled, on the 2nd of November, under a bell-jar con- 

 taining air so carefully filtered that the most searching examination 

 by a concentrated beam failed to reveal a particle of floating matter. 

 At the present time every one of the tubes is thick with mycelium 

 and covered with mould. Here, surely, we have a case of sponta- 

 neous generation. Let us look to its history. 



After the air has been expelled from a boiling liquid it is diffi- 

 cult to continue the ebullition without "bumping." The liquid 

 remains still for intervals and then rises with sudden energy. It 

 did so in the case now under consideration; and one of the tubes 

 boiled over, the liquid over spreading the resinous surface in which 



