NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
271 
of the late Claude Bernard. These notes, to quote M. Pasteur’s 
words, “ are an absolute condemnation, without any restriction, of my 
views on the subject of fermentation in general, and alcoholic fer- 
mentation in i^articular.” M. Pasteur took the matter up with some 
warmth, and the ‘ Comptes Eendus’ of 22nd and 29th 'July contain 
two communications which he made to the Academy, together with 
the rejoinders of M. Berthelot. M. Pasteur considers he has esta- 
blished that the notes of M. Bernard refer to experiments only just 
commenced, and which Bernard intended to repeat and check. This 
view M. Berthelot does not appear to controvert. M. Pasteur con- 
cludes by saying that “ he is resolved to repeat the experiments of 
Claude Bernard, and that on a scale and with a fulness of results worthy 
of the subject and the respect due to the deceased. M, Berthelot 
applauds this resolution, and anticipates beneficial results to science, 
“ which lives by observations and contradictions. Since the dis- 
coveries of M. Pasteur have fixed our ideas of the origin and multi- 
plication of the organized beings which propagate fermentations, a 
new problem has been presented. The point is to know whether the 
chemical change produced in every fermentation is not resolved into 
a fundamental reaction, excited by a definite special principle of the 
order of soluble ferments, which in general consumes itself propor- 
tionately to its production — that is, transforms itself chemically during 
the very accomplishment of the result which it causes. To recognize 
such a ferment, we must know how to isolate it ; that is, to ascertain 
the special conditions under which the soluble ferment is secreted in a 
greater proportion than it is consumed. 
The definite relation between the soluble ferment and the micro- 
scopic being which forms it has been pointed out, I believe, for the 
first time with precision, in my researches on the inverting ferment 
contained in the cells of beer-yeast. It has been found since in the 
ammoniacal fermentation of urea and elsewhere. It may be well to 
examine now whether it can be extended to alcoholic fermentation itself 
— that is, whether some particular condition can be discovered such as 
those which Claude Bernard seems to have perceived — a condition in 
which the matter which provokes the alcoholic decomposition of the 
sugar is formed in an excessive proportion, and consequently capable 
of being isolated. Alcoholic fermentation would then, as is the case 
already with most of the others, be brought back to the purely 
chemical actions.” 
The Structure of the Brain in different Orders of Insects . — The 
Supplementary vol. xxx. of Siebold and Kolliker’s ‘ Zeitschrift fiir 
Wissenschaftliche Zoologie,’ contains an elaborate article by J. H. 
L. Flogel, illustrated by a number of microphotographs. This and 
Dietl’s excellent paper, published in 1876, are the only treatises on 
the minute structure of the brain of insects, Owskianikof having 
studied that of the spiny lobster Palinurus several years ago, while 
Dietl studied the brain of Astacus. Flogel establishes three points 
as the results of his researches. 
First, the constant presence of the remarkable central body in the 
matiu’e insects of all orders, while it is almost absent in the larvae of 
