CONDITIONS FAVOURING FERMENTATION. 



69 



particles possess no higher power of resisting the destructive in- 

 fluence of heat than the parent Bacteria themselves possess." 



In 1S75 Professor Tyndall began to work at this subject and 

 announced his results early in the following year*. He did not 

 endeavour to ascertain the lowest temperature which would prove 

 destructive to Bacteria, Torulie, and their germs, though he came 

 to the conclusion that they were always killed by being boiled for 

 five minutes in organic fluids, and he seemed to imply that this 

 result was irrespective of the precise degree of acidity or neutra- 

 lity of the fluids employedf. Since this conclusion as to the death 

 of ferment organisms and their germs in infusions raised for a few 

 minutes to 212° F. was based upon about five hundred experi- 

 ments with fluids of the most varied nature, Prof. Tyndall seemed 

 to feel considerable confidence in its truth. So far as it went, 

 therefore, his evidence on this part of the subject was entirely con- 

 firmatory of mine. Indeed, in the beginning of 187G, Professor 

 Tyndall's views on this important subject were as much opposed 

 to those of M. Pasteur as mine were ; we both disbelieved, as we 

 thought, on good evidence, in the survival of germs in boiling neu- 

 tral or faintly alkaline fluids. 



At this time M. Pasteur's positive results with some of 

 such fluids would seem to have been forgotten by Prof. 

 Tyndall. At all events, not being able himself to get evidence 

 that any boiled and guarded fluids would ferment, he attempted 

 to throw discredit upon me because I had obtained such re- 

 sults. Forgetful of Pasteur's experiments above referred to, 

 and apparently unaware of the confirmation which my experimen- 

 tal facts had obtained at the hands of many independent workers, 

 he triumphantly brought forward a " cloud of witnesses " to con- 

 vince the Royal Society and the world of science generally, as well 

 as others, that my particular results in which fermentation had 

 been made to show itself in boiled and guarded fluids were due to 

 experimental errors into which it was conjectured that I had 

 easily fallen, since it required all Prof. Tyndall's great skill and 

 long experience to avoid them. He strenuously denied that a 

 certain experimental result could be obtained when strict methods 

 were followed. It was as regards the question of fact, rather than 

 in regard to its interpretation, that Prof. Tyndall then did his best 

 to throw discredit upon my work. 



* Philosophical Transactious, 1870, pt. i. p. 27. 

 t Loc. cit. p. 51. 



