1877.] Prof. J. Tyndall on Ferments and Germs, 353 



The conclusion to which the evidence contained in this communication 

 leads is that if the gravimetric application of the copper test used in the 

 accustomed manner is to be accepted as affording trustworthy information 

 with reference to the quantitative determination of sugar, and I confi- 

 dently submit that it is, the results which Bernard has obtained by the 

 experimental modus operandi he has been recently employing are shown 

 to be seriously fallacious. The results being fallacious, his inferences 

 must be looked upon as correspondingly in error. 



V. "Note on Dr. Burdon Sanderson's latest Views of Ferments 

 and Germs." By J. Tyndall, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. Re- 

 ceived June 21 } 1877. 



While writing the paper which the Council of the Royal Society has 

 recently done me the honour of accepting for the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, the abstract of a lecture delivered by Dr. Burdon Sanderson to the 

 Association of Medical Officers of Health was placed in my hands. The 

 esteem in which the author's name is justly held will certainly give 

 weight and currency to the views enunciated in this lecture. Speaking 

 of ferments Dr. Sanderson says : — " In defining the nature of ferment 

 action we are in a dilemma, out of which there is no escape except by 

 compromise. A. ferment is not an organism, because it has no structure. 

 It is not a chemical body, because when it acts upon other bodies it main- 

 tains its own molecular integrity. On the whole, it resembles an organism 

 much more than it resembles a chemical body, for its characteristic beha- 

 viour is such as, if it had a structure, would prove it to be living. Ten 

 years ago the opponents of spontaneous generation were called Pansper- 

 mists, because it was supposed that in the so-called generatio equivoca, in 

 every case in which Bacteria appeared to spring out of nothing, the result 

 was referable to the influence of unseen but actually existing germs. The 

 researches of the last few years have carried us beyond this stage .... the 

 outer line of defence, represented by the aphoristic expression omne 

 vivum ex ovo, has been for some time abandoned. The ground which the 

 orthodox biologist holds now, as against the heterodox, is not that every 

 Bacterium must have been born of another Bacterium, but that every Bac- 

 terium must have been born of something which emanated from another 

 Bacterium, that something not being assumed to be endowed with struc- 

 ture in the morphological or anatomical sense, but only in the molecular 

 or chemical sense. It is admitted by all, even by Professor Tyndall, that, 

 so far as structure is concerned, the germinal or life-producing matter out 

 of which Bacteria originate exhibits do characters which can be appre- 

 ciated by the microscope ; and other researches have proved that the 

 germinal matter is capable of resisting destructive influences, particularly 

 those of high temperature, which are absolutely fatal to the Bacteria 

 • 2b 2 



