ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
541 
puscles are endowed with a greater vitality than the developed 
organisms. In the state of powder they constitute germs 
without morphologic characters proper to reveal their organ¬ 
ized nature, but they are not less apt, when replaced in a proper 
medium, to develope themselves and produce perfect bacterias. 
While these observers were making researches for the germs of 
the ferments, and found them in the molecular granules which 
pervade all living beings and organic matter, others who have 
made similar researches on virushave arrived at identical results. 
MM. Coze and Feltz, in their remarkable experiments on the 
presence of infusorii, and the state of the blood in infectious 
maladies, have established that, in fact, they are the molecular 
elements of putrid fluids, and hot the liquids which are 
septic. M. Chauveau, Professor of the Veterinary School of 
Lyons, has also ascertained that the active element of virus 
does not reside in the liquid, but in the corpuscles which it 
contains ; on this ground he endeavours to explain the dif¬ 
ferences which exist between some virulent maladies relating: 
to their transmission by infection. But the different questions 
will be examined hereafter; let us return to those specially 
concerning the origin of ferments. The results of this rapid 
analysis of the last works published on this subject are, that 
there exist in all living beings in the normal state germs of 
organism-ferments represented by corpuscle-granulations, 
either molecular or microzymas. These corpuscles act as on 
the substances which are yet an integral part of the living 
body, or on one of those which are already departed from it. 
The microzymas do not present morphologic characters which 
reveal their organic nature, or would enable them to be 
distinguished one from the other; they only differ amongst 
themselves by their function. In their physical state they 
preserve their form, which is that of a sphere, but as soon 
as the medium in which they exist becomes favorable 
to their evolution they speedily become developed. Thus it is 
that in the pathological state, or in isolated parts of the living 
subject, they are apt to undergo a series of transformations 
under which, without the influence of any other germ, they 
become bacterias, or any other similar infusorii, in a complete 
state of development. 
These facts are of the greatest importance, as much on 
account of the great number of experiments which have been 
made to elucidate the question of fhe spontaneous generation, 
as w ell as w ith a view to the" pathogeny of the zymotic 
maladies. Concerning this last point, if there exist 
in living beings, in the physiological state, germs which 
by their abnormal development can produce, or rather consti- 
