Page 39 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
36
of the new Faculty of Science at Lille. In 1856, a request
for advice from a local manufacturer of beetroot alcohol
made him turn. his attention to the problem of fermenta-
tion, which was then exercising the minds of the learned.
His observations were interrupted by a journey to Paris
to canvass for votes for his election to the Academy of
Science. Obtaining only sixteen and completely failing in
his attempt to enter the select circle of Academicians,
Pasteur returned to Lille to his study of fermentations.
In spite of the work done by Cagniard de Latour,
Schwann and others, the idea was prevalent that animal
and vegetable matters are able to alter spontaneously,
while the authority of the famous German chemist,
Liebig, carried weight when he asserted that yeast induces
fermentation by virtue of progressive alteration in water
1
in contact with air. Another German, named Luders-
2
dorff, so we learn from B^champ, had undertaken experi-
ments to prove that yeast ferments sugar because it is
living and organised. An account had been published in
the Fourth Volume of the Traiti de Chimie Organique, which
appeared in 1856.
Now let us examine Pasteur's contribution towards this
subject the following year, since at that date popular
teaching assigns to him a thorough explanation of
fermentation.
During 1857 Pasteur left Lille to work at the ficole
Normale in Paris; but we are not here concerned with his
movements, but simply with what he had to reveal on the
mysterious subject of fermentation.
3
His son-in-law tells us that it was in August, 1857, that,
after experimenting in particular with sour milk, Pasteur
first made a Communication on "Lactic Fermentation" to
the Scientific Society of Lille. Be this as it may, we find his
extract from a Memoir on the subject in the Comptes Rendus
4
of the French Academy of Science, Nov. 30, 1857. The
1
Traiti de Chimie Organique, traduitpar Ch. Gerhardt, Introduction, p. a 7. 1 840.
1
Les Grands Problimes M&dicaux, par A. Bichamp, p. 6a.
* The Life of Pasteur, p. 83.
4 Comptes Rendus 45, p. 913. Mimoire sur la fermentation appeUe lactique.