228 
ON ALCOHOLIC FERMENTS. 
vegetables do not possess the property of decomposing the 
solution of sugar. 
Experiment on the development of the globules of alco- 
holic ferments. 
I dissolved the whites of 4 eggs and 1 kilogramme of su- 
gar in 4 quarts of water, containing 0.001 of hydrochloric 
acid. The liquors were filtered with the greatest care, and 
divided into two equal flasks. I added nothing to the first 
flask, and, after two months, the temperature varying from 
59° to 77° F., alcoholic fermentation had not manifested 
itself. To the second flask I added an equally limpid solu- 
tion of 10 grains of tannin in 100 grammes of water. An 
abundant precipitate was immediately formed, which, after 
49 hours' exposure to a temperature of 77° F., was partly 
converted into globules of of a millimetre, acting abso- 
lutely with a solution of sugar like the ferment of dregs. 
On the multiplication of the globules of ferment. 
All chemists know, since the experiments of M. Thenard, 
that when a solution of sugar is fermented with a sufficient 
quantity of globules of ferment, when the first fermentation 
is accomplished, the weight of the globules is considerably 
diminished. After a second fermentation they almost en- 
tirely disappear, and are replaced by an ammoniacal salt 
which is found in the liquid, and by the remains of micro- 
scopic vegetables, in which M. Thenard recognized the 
existence of ligneous matter ; but this observation can be 
invoked only to establish the non-production of the globules 
of the ferment. It may be said that these globules require 
two kinds of nourishment: sugar, to produce heat by its 
dedoublement, and nitrogenous matter, to furnish the ele- 
ments adapted for their assimilation and reproduction. The 
following is the reply offered by experiment to this latter 
supposition : — 
I took 1 kilogramme of sugar, 4 quarts of water, 50 
