CONDITIONS FAYOURING FEEMENTATION. 15 



enable us to fix upon tlie true mode in which liquor potass® 

 operates in determining fermentation. If the fluids to which 

 boiled potash is added in suitable quantity still remained barren, 

 then such experimental results would unquestionably favour the 

 first interpretation, viz. that given by M. Pasteur and adopted 

 by other germ-theorists. If, on the other hand, the addition of 

 the boiled liquor potassse to the urine which has been boiled in 

 its acid state suffices to convert this previously pure fluid into 

 a turbid liquid teeming with ferment-organisms, then it would be 

 conclusively shown that the increased fermentability of neutra- 

 lized urine was ascribable to the second cause, viz. to the che- 

 mical influence of the liquor potassse in initiating fermentative 

 changes, whatever the precise nature of these early changes may 

 be, whether (a) partly vital, or (h) at first purely physico-chemical. 



Some preliminary experiments were made with an apparatus 

 closely similar to that employed by Dr. Boberts in the very few 



Fig. 2. 



Plugged Flask with liquor-potassae tube. 



