260 
NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
which as large quantities as possible of putrescible matter were placed 
in contact with the smallest possible quantities of oxygen. 
The matters which I made use of, viz. urine, blood, soup, yeast, 
and milk, as well as water and raw meat, and grains of rice, beans, 
peas, pieces of coagulated albumen, &c., taken in a fresh state, were 
infected by bacteria taken from similar matters in a state of full 
putrefaction. The flasks were then sealed and exposed to a tempera- 
ture of 38-40 degrees ; putrefaction was immediately established, to 
be definitely arrested, however, in all the flasks after a longer or 
shorter period, often very short, but always sensibly proportional to 
the quantity of oxygen which was supposed to be present. I have 
had in my possession for nearly two years a considerable number of 
these flasks whose contents have lost little or nothing of their 
primitive freshness. 
The details of these experiments are related in a memoir which 
has been published in the ‘Annals of the Academy of Sciences, 
Amsterdam,’ vol. xii., 1878, and in the sixth part for the year 1878 of 
the ‘ Journal of Practical Chemistry,’ as well as the arguments which 
led me to attribute the cessation of the putrefaction solely to the 
death of the bacteria caused by the absence of free oxygen. 
I will ask permission to cite here one of these arguments, because 
it relates especially to a subject which has often occupied this 
Academy. 
When the flasks containing the putrescible matters terminate in 
tubes provided with cotton- wool, or are re-curved many times upon 
themselves, and whose tapered points are hermetically sealed, we are 
able at any given moment by breaking the point to expose the con- 
tents anew to the contact of the air, deprived of germs. If to 
establish this contact we wait for the moment when the contents have 
arrived at a state of complete inertia, we observe that the air no 
longer produces the least phenomenon of putrefaction or appreciable 
alteration. This proves in my opinion not only that the bacteria as 
well as their germs are really dead, but also that the organic matters 
are not susceptible of spontaneously producing others. These 
experiments are then, as it seems to me, very strong arguments 
against archebiosis, and so much the more that the organic matters 
are not subjected here to any other manipulation than the seclusion 
during several days or weeks of the air — a manipulation which pro- 
duces no alteration either in colour, structure, or solubility, and which 
seems to preserve them as much as possible in their natural state. 
This is why I have applied this method to the well-known ex- 
periments of M. Bastian with urine neutralized by potash ; my pro- 
cedure was the same as his, with this difference, that no measures 
were taken to sterilize the matter operated on ; on the contrary, it was 
mixed with a drop of urine in full putrefaction. A certain number of 
flasks of about 500 cubic centimetres capacity were filled as com- 
pletely as possible with this prepared urine, then sealed and exposed 
to a temperature of 40°. The urine got thick, but became perfectly 
limpid again at the end of some days ; it then remained in this state 
without change of colour and without presenting any other sign of 
