from an Agricultural and Veterinary Point of View. 
63 
This simple process, founded on the exact knowledge of the cause 
of acetic fermentation, has been eminently successful. A large 
manufacturer of Orleans stated, that at the end of a week or ten 
days all the acetified wine is converted into vinegar, and that 
from a hundred litres of the former he drew off ninety-five oi~ 
the latter. After the great rise of the temperature noticed when 
the vinegar is being formed — due to the combination of the 
oxygen with the alcohol, that fluid is allowed to cool, is drawn 
from the vat, barrelled, refined, and is ready for use. The vat 
being emptied, is cleaned, again charged, the acetified wine sown 
with the plant, and the same process gone through. 
It has long been noticed that vinegar, when kept for some 
time, becomes turbid and impoverished in a remarkable manner, 
and finally becomes putrid. Pasteur pointed out the cause of 
this, and also the remedy. After the alcohol has become 
changed into acetic acid, the mycoderm still exists, as it can 
live upon the acid — beginning with the ethereal and aromatic 
portion, the most valuable — transforming it into carbonic acid 
and water, and leaving a small quantity of mineral salts and 
albuminous matter — the decomposed remains of the plant. This 
neutral organic fluid is a suitable home for moulds and putre- 
factive organisms, which consequently rapidly grow, the moulds 
forming a film over the mass beneath, in which anaerobic organ- 
isms can consume the dead mycoderms ; and thus we have 
putrefaction in the deeper parts, and combustion at the surface. 
Minute eel-like organisms also appear in vinegar, and rapidly 
deteriorate it. It is asserted that there is not a barrel of vinegar 
manufactured on the now obsolete Orleans system which does not 
contain them in immense numbers, and, astonishing to mention, 
they were, previous to Pasteur's investigations, actually con- 
sidered necessary to the production of vinegar. The mischief 
wrought by these microscopic creatures is owing to their requiring 
air to live — like the Mycoderma, they are aerobic ; and when the 
vinegar reaches a certain depth, they form a moving stratum in 
the upper part of the liquid, where they can obtain air. Here, 
however, they come into competition with the mycoderms for 
the essential oxygen which they both must have, and there 
ensues a struggle for existence. If, for some reason, the film of 
mycoderms is not formed, or its production is delayed, the ever- 
moving little eels take possession of the surface of the vinegar 
and absorb all the oxygen ; consequently, the mycoderm cannot 
develop, or it dies. But if acetification is very active, and the 
plant has occupied the upper strata, the eels are gradually 
driven away, and take refuge against the moist sides of the 
vessel, where they compose a thick grey lining, which is all in 
movement, and where their enemy cannot so seriously injure 
