Page 79 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

CHAPTER VII
Rival Theories and Workers

Undoubtedly, one ofthe chief factors of Pasteur's success
was the quickness with which he pushed into the forefront
of any scientific question, thus focusing public attention
upon himself. Bechamp's illuminating explanations of
ancient problems were conveniently to hand just at a
moment when M. Pouchet brought the controversy on
spontaneous generation again into the limelight of general
interest. Pasteur, seizing the opportunity, entered the
lists, and, as Bechamp comments, M. Pouchet's observa-
tions being as wanting in precision as Pasteur's, it was not
hard for the latter to emerge as victor, genuinely
impressing the world of scientists.
Thus he who had taught the spontaneous origin of
yeast and of micro-organisms of all sorts, now discoursed
with almost childish enthusiasm upon the germs of the air,
and began to make life synonymous with atmospheric
organisms. Not only, according to his new views, was
fermentation caused by pre-existing germs of air-borne
origin, but each germ induced its own definite specific
form of fermentation. Here he fell foul of Bechamp, for
according to the latter's physiological explanation, each
micro-organism may vary its fermentative effect in con-
formity with the medium in which it finds itself; may even
change in shape, as modern workers are finding out.
Pasteur, however, proceeded to label each with a definite
and unalterable function. In 1861, claiming to discover
a special butyric vibrio, which he thought could live only
without air, he divided living beings into two classifications,
the aerobic and the anaerobic, or those that require air and
those that flourish without it. Fermentation he defined as
life without oxygen. The verdict of time, to which he
himself has relegated all scientists for final judgment, is
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