Page 55 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
52
Academy of Science, which published an extract of it
1
among its Reports of the 4th January, 1858. The full
publication of this all-important document was actually,
for some unknown reason, deferred for eight months,
when it appeared in September, 1858, in the Annales de
2
Chimie et de Physique.
The title of the Memoir was: "On the influence that
Water, either Pure or Charged with Various Salts,
Exercises in the Cold upon Cane-Sugar."
3
Bechamp thus comments upon this: "By its title the
Memoir was a work of pure chemistry, which had at first
no other object than to determine whether or no, pure cold
water could invert cane-sugar, and if, further, the salts had
any influence on the inversion; but soon the question, as I
had foreseen, became complicated; it became at once
physiological and dependent upon the phenomena of
fermentation and the question of spontaneous generation
—thus, from the study of a simple chemical fact, I was led
to investigate in my turn the causes of fermentation, the
nature and origin of ferments."
The main sweeping result of all the experiments went to
prove that "Cold Water modifies Cane-Sugar only in
Proportion to the development of Moulds, these Elemen-
tary Vegetations then acting as Ferments." 4
Here at one stroke was felled the theory of alteration
through the action of water, the change known as fermen-
tation being declared to be due to the growth of living
organisms.
Furthermore, it was proved that "Moulds do not
Develop when there is no Contact with Air and that no
Change then takes Place in the Rotary Power"; also that
"The Solutions that had Come in Contact with Air
Varied in Proportion to the Development of Moulds."
The necessity of the presence of these living organ-

1
Comptes Rendus 46, p. 44.
2
A. de Ch. et de Ph. 3e sine, 54, p. 28.
3
Les MicrozymaSy par A. Bichamp, p. 55.
4
Comptes Rendus y 46, p. 44.