24 
FOREIGN MICROSCOPY. 
removed from the action of oxygen became the seats of alcoholic 
fermentation with evolution of carbonic acid, and without the appear- 
ance in their tissues of any alcoholic fungi. These observations con- 
firm the statements of Pasteur in 1861, that if plants continued to live 
in an atmosphere of carbonic acid they became ferments for sugar and 
behaved like beer yeast. M. Fremy thought that the true explana- 
tion was that yeast cells were formed, and to settle this question 
M. Muntz made his experiments, and found that the plants he grew in 
air produced no alcohol ; that those grown in nitrogen afforded 
appreciable quantities ; and the plants continued to develop. He did 
not search for mycoderms, but assumed none were present, because the 
plants began in a few hours to produce oxygen and preserved their 
vitality, which he considers they would not have done had they been 
invaded by fungi. To detect minute quantities of alcohol he employed 
Lichen’s method, which depends upon the action of iodine and an 
alkali at a slightly elevated temperature upon alcohol. It gives rise 
to iodoform (a yellow solid), the production of which he watched 
under the microscope. He supports the conclusions of Pasteur that 
the living cells of the higher plants can in the absence of oxygen act 
like fungus cells and j^roduce a true alcoholic fermentation.* 
The Inversion of Sugar hy Fungi. — M. Gayon states to the French 
Academy, as the result of his observations, that Penicillium glaucum, 
Sterigmatocystis nigra {Aspergillus niger) rapidly invert sugar solu- 
tions, but other Mucors, such as M. spinosiis, M. mucedo, M. circi- 
nclloides, Bhizopus nigricans, leave them intact. The unicellular plants 
Pasteur calls torulas, act also as inverting ferments. When the mucors 
are obliged to live without free oxygen in the must of beer or wine, 
their mycelium becomes chambered and develops ferment cells, which 
reproduce themselves in the same form while the conditions are 
unchanged, but develop in the normal state when replaced in very 
aerated liquids. The ferment cells of Mucor circinelloides are 
spherical, and remarkable for activity of pullulation. In solutions of 
levulose, or glucose, the alcoholic fermentation proceeds as in beer 
must, but in cane-sugar solutions no such action occurs, as the sugar 
is not inverted by the mucors mentioned. M. Trecul, commenting 
u2)on these observations, concluded that those observers were right 
who affirmed that P. glaucum could pass into the form of beer yeast 
and return back to its original form, which M. Pasteur denied. M. 
Pasteur, in reply, referred to his ‘ Etudes sur la Biere ’ as confuting 
this idea.f 
Formation of Blood Fibrin. — M. Hayem described to the French 
Academy microscopical studies on this subject. He states that the 
bodies he calls hoematoblasts, which can be recognized in living 
animals, experience great alterations when they pass out of the 
vessels. He states that when a preparation of coagulated frog’s blood 
has a current of iodized serum passed through it the “ haematics ” 
may be seen disposed in rosettes around masses of haematoblasts, 
fixed in their positions by filaments springing from the centre of the 
t Ibid. 
* ‘ Comptes Rendus,’ January 7, 1878. 
