646 
The Progress of Chemical Industry. 
results have been attained. How far “saccharine,” one of the latest 
results of the chemist’s ingenuity, is likely to supersede the use of 
ordinary sugar, is a question on which I decline to speculate. The 
manufacture of our every-day sugar has, however, itself undergone 
a complete metamorphosis within the last fifty years, with the result 
that it is now produced at what would formerly have been regarded 
as an absolutely impossible price. In 1840 the beet-sugar industry 
was in its infancy, but such has been the improvement in the growth 
of the beet, and in the process of manufacture, that nearly twice as 
much sugar is now produced from a ton of beetroot as there was at 
that date. In the production of cane-sugar also immense economies 
have been effected, especially in the process of evaporation. The 
study of the effects of saccharine solutions on the polarisation of light, 
and our acquaintance with the distinctions between dextrose and 
lsevulose, and of the conversion of starch into sugar, all come within 
comparatively modern times. 
Much of our knowledge of the mysterious processes of fermenta- 
tion is also of recent date, and it is in connection with these 
processes that the chemist finds himself brought into close contact 
with the botanist and the physiologist. 
Whatever suspicions Leeuwenhoek and the early miscroscopists 
may have had with regard to the vegetable character of yeast-cells, 
and however clearly Cagniard de la Tour and Schwann may have 
established their plant-like nature and their connection with fermen- 
tation, it was not until Pasteur’s researches from 1857 to 1861 that 
the true character of the yeast-plant, and of other micro-organisms 
which lie at the base of most fermentative processes, can be said to 
have been absolutely demonstrated. The beneficial effect of his 
inquiries, and of his methods of obtaining a pure cultivation of yeast, 
is universally recognised, and has reacted in the most remarkable 
manner on the brewing industry. 
But M. Pasteur’s researches have also led to much wider results, 
as it has been mainly in consequence of his careful observations that 
the wonderful influence for good or for evil of organisms so minute 
as in some cases almost to defy the power of the microscope has now 
been so fully recognised. The germ-theory of the origin of many 
diseases meets with much more general acceptance than it did but 
a few years ago ; and though the bacilli and bacteria which are 
characteristic of some virulent diseases, such as anthrax, are only 
agents in certain fermentative processes by which poisonous matters 
are engendered, their existence and character seem to be placed 
beyond all doubt. The process of obtaining immunity from the 
action of these poisons by the gradual introduction of the virus into 
the animal system, thus rendering it insusceptible of receiving 
further injury from the same poison, has been successfully intro- 
duced, both among men and animals, and hydrophobia and anthrax 
have been successfully combated. 
A recognition of the influence of germs has led to the introduc- 
tion into surgery of that antiseptic system of treatment with which 
the name of Lister will always be associated, and which has done so 
