Page 44 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

PASTEUR'S MEMOIRS OF 1857 41
tion ofa dead organism ; or by the conversion into globules
of its soluble part, whatever that may mean; or by spon-
taneous alteration? No wonder that Bechamp com-
ments 1 : "Pasteur's experiments were so haphazard that
he, who acknowledged with Cagniard de Latour the fact
of the organisation and life of yeast, boiled this living being
to study its soluble part!" Indeed, Bechamp's account of
Liebig's and Pasteur's closely allied work is well worth
perusal from p. 56 to p. 65 ofLes Grands Problemes Medicaux.
The chief point to be noted is that as Pasteur made use
for these experiments of substances with life in them, such
as yeast broth, etc., they could not, in any case, furnish
evidence as to the foremost question at stake, namely,
whether life could ever arise in a purely chemical medium.
That problem was never so much as touched upon by
Pasteur in 1857. If we had only his explanation of
fermentation, made during that year, we should indeed
^ave a strange idea ofthe phenomenon. We should believe
in the spontaneous generation of alcoholic, lactic and other
ferments. We should be puzzled to understand how fer-
mentation could be a vital act and yet be effected by dead
organisms. Of the air-borne origin of ferments we should
not have an inkling, that is, so far as Pasteur was con-
cerned, for, either, he was ignorant of, or else, he ignored
the truth already propounded by others, particularly by
Schwann, the German. Pasteur passed over with slight
allusion the contacts with air that" were involved in his
experiments, because his aim was to disprove Liebig's
theory that the alteration of yeast broth was due to an
oxidation by air and he seems to have had no idea of the
important part that air might play, although for a very
different reason from the one imagined by Liebig.
Clearly, in 1857, Pasteur was a Sponteparist, without,
however, shedding light upon the controversy. The house-
wife, puzzled by the souring of milk, could only have
learned from him that living globules had put in a
spontaneous appearance, which explanation had held
1
Les Grands ProbUmes Midicaux, p. 60.