Page 72 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

THE SOLUBLE FERMENT 69

chapter, ofhis great work Les Microzymas, where the matter
is explained fully. Here we can only briefly summarize
some of its teaching.
The outstanding evidence that faced the Professor in his
observations was the fact that the moulds, which appeared
in sweetened water exposed to air, set free ammonia when
heated with caustic potash. This was evidence that a
nitrogenized organic substance, probably albuminoid, had
been produced and had served to constitute one of the
materials necessary for the development of an organised
being. Whence had it arisen? The Professor finds his
answer by a study of Nature. He describes how the seed
of a flowering plant will germinate and the plant that
appears will grow and develop, always weighing more
than the seed sown originally. Whence were the chemical
compounds derived that were wanting in the seed? The
answer, he says, is elementary, and he goes on to explain
how the organs of the young plant are the chemical
apparatus in which the surrounding media (i.e. the water
in the soil, in which it strikes its roots, supplying nitrogenous
salts, and the atmosphere providing its leaves with
carbonic acid and oxygen) are enabled to react and pro-
duce according to chemical laws the compounds whereby
the plant is nourished and wherewith it builds up its cells
and hence all its organs. In the same way behaves the
spore of the mucorina, which the air carried to the
sweetened solution. It develops, and, in the body of the
microscopic plant, the air, with its nutrient contents, the
water and the dissolved materials in the sweetened
solution react and the necessary organic matter is elabor-
ated and compounds are produced which were non-
existent in the original medium. He goes on to explain
that it is because the mucorina is a plant, with the faculty
of producing organic matter, that it is able to develop in a
medium that contains nothing organized. For this pro-
duction of organic matter, the help of certain minerals is
indispensable. Bechamp here reverts to Lavoisier's
explanation of the way in which water attacks glass and