SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
313 
CHEMISTRY. 
The Elections at the Royal Society. — At a late meeting of the Royal Society, 
the following gentlemen were elected Fellows of the Society : — Isaac Low- 
thian Bell, F.C.S. ; W. T. Blanford, F.G.S. ; Henry Bowman Brady, F.L.S. ; 
Thomas Lauder Brunton, M.D., Sc.D. ; Professor W. Kingdon Clifford, 
M.A. ; Augustus Wollaston Franks, M.A. ; Professor Olaus Henrici, Ph.D . ; 
Prescott G. Ilewett, F.R.C.S. ; John Eliot Howard, F.L.S. ; Sir Henry 
Sumner Maine, LL.D. ; Edmund James Mills, D.Sc. ; Rev. Stephen Joseph 
Perry, F.R.A S. ; Henry Wyldhore Rumsey, M.D. ; Alfred R. C. Selwyn, 
F.G.S. ; Charles William Wilson, Major R.E. 
Volatile Acids of Wines. — According to E. Duclaux, who has a paper in 
the “ Comptes Rendus,” April 20, wines when sound contain acetic acids in 
slight amount, mixed with about j^th or -Ah part of butyric acid. Valerianic 
acid is found in quantities not exceeding 10 milligrams per litre, and a higher 
fatty acid in almost infinitesimal proportions. When wine is affected with 
the disease known as u tournef or “ pousse f acetic and metacetic acids are 
developed in about equal proportions, and to the amount of 2*5 or 2*6 grms. 
per litre. In the disease of bitterness, acetic acid is developed, along with 
butyric acid and traces of higher fatty acids. The amount of butyric acid 
formed is larger than in alcoholic fermentation. The author intends to 
investigate the disease of “ acescence ” on a future occasion. 
Alcoholic Fermentation. — Herr Oscar Brefeld, in the “ Journal of the 
Chemical Society of Berlin,” abstracted by the 11 Chemical News,” June 12, 
concludes that — (1) Alcohol yeast, like all other plants, requires for its 
development and increase the co-operation of free oxygen. (2) If air and 
free oxygen are excluded, the yeast cannot grow. These two facts overturn 
the theories of Pasteur on fermentation. (3) Yeast, in contradistinction to 
all other plants, when in solutions where its growth is possible, has a great 
affinity for free oxygen. It can completely extract free oxygen mixed with 
6,000 volumes of carbonic acid. (4) Mucor racemosus has the same pro- 
perty, and excites alcoholic fermentation in a saccharine solution. (5) 
Growth and increase of yeast may take place without fermentation, and, 
again, fermentation without growth of yeast. The carbonic acid thrown off 
in fermentation is remarkable for its purity. (6) In suitable solutions, 
exposed to the air, growth of the yeast plant and fermentation occur simul- 
taneously in different parts of the liquid. (7) Fermentation is the expres- 
sion of an abnormal incomplete vital process, in which all the bodies 
required for the nutrition of the yeast do not simultaneously and harmoniously 
co-operate. These results will prove of great technological interest. 
Gum in Fruit-trees considered as a Pathological Phenomenon.— M. 
Prilleux says, in u Comptes Rendus,” April 27, that the flow of gum is a real 
disease, which he names gommose. The alimentary substances, placed in 
reserve in the interior tissues, instead of promoting the plant’s growth, are 
diverted to production of gum, and a portion accumulate, awaiting the 
instant of their transformation about gummy centres, which seem to act 
as centres of irritation. The case is analogous to what occurs when an 
insect deposits one of its eggs in the tissues of a plant, leading to production 
