338 On the Heat necessary to kill Bacteria, Vibriones, fyc. 



But if living germs do not come from the air to contaminate the pre- 

 viously boiled fluids, and if it is not possible for any of them to have 

 escaped the destructive influence of heat in the boiling fluid or on the 

 walls of the vessel in which the fluid is contained, what can be the mode 

 of origin of the swarms of living things which so rapidly and invariably 

 appear in such infusions when contained in open flasks, and which so 

 frequently appear when the infusions are contained in flasks whose necks 

 are closed against atmospheric particles of all kinds? They can only 

 have arisen by the process which I have termed Archebiosis. 



Conclusions. 



If a previously boiled amnionic-tartrate solution remains free from 

 Bacteria and Vibriones when exposed to the air, it is because the air does 

 not contain living organisms of this kind or their supposed germs, and 

 because mere dead organic particles are not capable of initiating putre- 

 faction in such a fluid. 



And if ordinary organic infusions previously boiled and exposed to the 

 air do rapidly putrefy, though some of the same infusions when exposed- 

 only to filtered air remain pure, it is because such fluids are, in the ab- 

 sence of living units, quite amenable to the influence of the dead organic 

 particles which the air so abundantly contains, although they are not self- 

 fermentable. 



Whilst if other more changeable fluids, after previous boiling, when 

 exposed to filtered air or cut off altogether from contact with air, do 

 nevertheless undergo putrefaction or fermentation, it is because these 

 fluids are self -fermentable, and need neither living units nor dead organic 

 particles to initiate those putrefactive or fermentative changes which lead 

 to the evolution of living organisms. 



ganisms and their germs to resist desiccation shows the futility of some objections which 

 have been from time to time raised by those who thought that Bacteria, Vibriones, and 

 their germs might resist the destructive influence of heat by adhesion to the glass above 

 the level of the fluid, or even in the fluid itself, just as dried and very thick-coated seeds 

 have been known to do. Dry heat would seem to be even more fatal to such orga- 

 nisms and their germs than a moist heat of the same degree, owing to their extreme 

 inability to resist desiccation : if they become dry they are killed at a temperature of 

 about 104° F., whilst if they remain moist they succumb, as we have seen, to a tempe- 

 rature of 140° F. 



