Page 123 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

120 BfiGHAMP OR PASTEUR?
freedom from dogma and the encouragement of original
opinions. Minds in a mass move at a snail's crawl, and the
greatest impediment, no doubt, to Bechamp's micro-
zymian doctrine was the fact that it so utterly outstripped
the scientific conceptions of that period.
What he did, first and foremost, was to lay the founda-
tions, of what, even to-day, is a new science, that of
cytology.
Having made his surprising discovery of the minute
organisms, agents of fermentation, in chalk, Bechamp's
next work was a thorough investigation of the "molecular
granulations" of cells with which he connected the "little
bodies" of chalk and limestone. Up to this date, Henle's
vague views regarding the granulations had been ignored
and they were generally considered to be mere formless,
meaningless particles. Calling the microscope and pola-
rimeter to his aid and undertaking innumerable chemical
experiments, Professor Bechamp, making use at first
principally of such organisms as yeast, found the granula-
tions which they contain to be agents provocative of
fermentations, and then bestowed on them the explanatory
name of microzyma. These same granulations he found
in all animal and vegetable cells and tissues and in all
organic matter, even though apparently^noLorganised,
such as milk, in which he proved them to account for the
chemical change^tr^at_j;esult in the milk clotting. ' He
found the microzymas teeming everywhere, innumerable
in healthy tissues, and in diseased tissues he found them
associated with various kinds of bacteria. One axiom he
1
laid down was that though every microzyma is a molecu-
lar granulation, not every molecular granulation is a
microzyma. Those that are microzymas he found to be
powerful in inducing fermentation and to be possessed of
some structure. In short, it was made clear to him that
they, not the cell, are the primary anatomical elements.
|||It was never his practice to let his imagination outstrip
his experiments. Invariably he propounded his question
1
Les Microzymas, par A. B&hamp, p. 133.