Page 153 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
i 5 o
The only timidity apparent is the wariness with which
Pasteur put forward a conviction that "every being, every
organ, every cell must possess the character of a ferment."
Such teaching was entirely opposed to the theories he had
formulated since 1861 and really seems to have been
nothing less than a cautious attempt to plagiarise
Bechamp's microzymian doctrine. As we have seen,
Bechamp, though maintaining that the grape, like other
living things, contains within itself minute organisms,
microzymas, capable of producing fermentation, yet
ascribed that particular fermentation known as vinous to a
more powerful force than these, namely, organisms found
on the surface of the grape, possibly originally air-borne.
Therefore, if Pasteur were accused of plagiarising
Bechamp's microzymian ideas, he had only to deny the
accusation by pointing out that the provocative cause of
vinous fermentation came from outside the grape; though,
here again, he was only following Bechamp. The Reports
of the Academy of Science show us how well the clever
diplomatist made use of these safeguards.
M. Fremy was quick to return to the contest. In a Note
—
upon the Generation of Ferments, 1 he said: "I find in
this Communication of M. Pasteur a fact that seems to me
a striking confirmation of the theory that I maintain and
which entirely overturns that of my learned confrere.
M. Pasteur, wishing to show that certain organisms, such
as the alcoholic ferment, can develop and live without
oxygen, asserts that the grape, placed in pure carbonic
acid, can, after a certain time, ferment and produce
alcohol and carbonic acid. How can this observation agree
with the theory ofM. Pasteur according to which ferments
are produced only by germs existing in the air? Is it not
clear that if a fruit ferments in carbonic acid, conse-
quently under conditions in which it can receive nothing
from the air, it must be that the ferments are produced
directly under the influence of the organisation within the
interior of the cells themselves and that their generation is
1
Comptes Rendus 75, p. 790.