Page 37 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
34
globule of yeast decomposes sugar in the act of nourishing
itself. B. Dumas maintained the necessity for nitro-
J.
genised albuminoid matter, as well as sugar, for food for
yeast cells. Schwann, the German, went furthest of all by
declaring that all fermentation is induced by living
organisms and undertook experiments to prove these to be
air-borne. But, in spite of other experiments confirming
Schwann's work, for a time this teaching was set aside for
the view that vegetable and animal matters are able to
alter of themselves. For instance, the theory was held that
by dissolving cane-sugar in water it changes of itself into
grape-sugar, or glucose; or, using technical terms, cane-
sugar undergoes inversion spontaneously. 1
Such, roughly speaking, were scientific ideas at the
middle of the nineteenth century, when Antoine Bechamp
and Louis Pasteur appeared on the scene with details of
their respective experiments. As Pasteur is renowned as
the first to have made clear the phenomenon of fermenta-
tion, besides being appraised as the one who overthrew
the theory of spontaneous generation, let us, instead of
taking this on trust, turn to the old French scientific
documents and see for ourselves what he had to say in the
year 1857.
1 The usual product of this hydrolysis, or inversion of cane-sugar, is invert-
sugar; but, as this was formerly described as grape-sugar, that expression is
usually retained here.