Page 46 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

CHAPTER IV
Bechamp's Beacon Experiment

We may recall the fact that it was in the Alsatian capital,
Strasbourg, that Professor Bechamp achieved his first
scientific triumphs to which we have already alluded. It
was there, during the course of his chemical studies, that
the idea occurred to him to put the popular belief in the
spontaneous alteration of cane-sugar into grape-sugar 1 to
the test of a rigid experiment. In those days, organic
matter derived from living bodies, whether vegetable or
animal, was looked upon as being dead and, according to
the views held at that time, because dead liable to spon-
taneous alteration. This was the belief that Pasteur com-
bated in the way that we have already criticised. Bechamp
was before him in attacking the problem by methods
obviously more rigid and with results that we think will
now appear to be considerably more illuminating.
An experiment upon starch made Bechamp doubt the
truth of the popular theory that cane-sugar dissolved in
water was spontaneously transformed at an ordinary
temperature into invert-sugar, which is a mixture of
equal parts of glucose and fructose, the change being
technically known as the inversion of sugar. Here was a
puzzle that needed investigation and, in attacking this
chemical mystery, the Professor had no suspicion of the
biological results that were to ensue from Nature's
answers.
In May, 1854, he started a series of observations to
which he, later on, gave the name of" Experience Maitresse"
and finally agreed to call his "Beacon Experiment."
It was on the 16th May, 1854, that the first of the series
was commenced in the laboratory of the School of Phar-
1
See note to p. 34.
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