ATMOSPHERE IN RELATION TO PUTREFACTION AND INFECTION. 
57 
They were then removed to another position where the temperature was a few degrees 
higher. Dr. Bastian mentions 115° as favourable to spontaneous generation. For 
fourteen days the temperature hovered about this point, falling once as low as 106°, 
reaching 116° on three occasions, 118° on one, and 119° on two. The result was quite the 
same as that recorded a moment ago. The higher temperatures proved perfectly incom- 
petent to develop life*. 
Fifty-six observations, including both the maximum and minimum thermometers, 
were taken while the tubes occupied their first position in the washing-room, and 
seventy-four while they occupied the second position. The whole record, carefully 
drawn out, is before me, but I trust the statement of the major and minor limits of 
temperature will suffice. 
Dr. Bastian’s demand for these high temperatures is, as already remarked, quite recent. 
Prior to my communication to the Boyal Society on January 13, he had successfully 
worked with temperatures lower than those within my reach in Albemarle Street. 
There I followed his directions, adhered strictly to his prescriptions ; but, taking care to 
boil and seal the liquids aright, his results refused to appear in my experiments. On 
learning this he raised an objection as to temperature, and made a new demand. With 
this I have complied ; but his position is unimproved. 
With regard to the question of concentration, I have already referred, in sections 3 
and 16 of this memoir, to the great diversity in this particular presented by all my 
infusions, through their slow evaporation. But more than a general conformity to 
prescribed conditions was observed here also. The strength of an infusion is regarded 
as fixed by its specific gravity ; and I have worked with infusions of precisely the 
same specific gravity as those employed by Dr. Bastian. This I was specially careful 
to do in relation to the experiments described and vouched for, I fear incautiously, 
by Dr. Burdon Sanderson in vol. vii. p. 180 of ‘ Nature.’ It will there be seen that though 
failure attended some of his efforts, Dr. Bastian did satisfy Dr. Sanderson that in boiled 
and hermetically sealed flasks Bacteria sometimes appear in swarms. With purely liquid 
infusions I have vainly sought to reproduce the evidence which convinced Dr. Sanderson. 
Hay- and turnip-infusions, of accurately the same character and strength as those employed 
on the occasion referred to, were prepared, boiled in an oil-bath, carefully sealed up, and 
subjected to the proper temperatures. In multiplied experiments they remained uni- 
formly sterile. I am therefore compelled to conclude that Dr. Sanderson has lent the 
authority of his name to results whose antecedents he had not sufficiently examined, 
and that the life to which he testifies, in the case of the purely liquid infusions, arose 
from errors of manipulation. 
* My thanks are due to the managers of the bath for their obliging kindness in this matter. 
