Page 81 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
78
a part ofthe materials ofthe yeast, and that it (the alcohol)
is something like a product of excretion."
It seems strange that scientists should have required the
following simple physiological explanation from Professor
Bechamp:
1C 4
Suppose an adult man to have lived a century, to
weigh on an average 60 kilogrammes; he will have con-
sumed in that time, besides other foods, the equivalent of
20,000 kilogrammes of flesh and produced about 800
kilogrammes of urea. Shall it be said that it is impossible
to admit that this mass of flesh and of urea could at any
moment of his life form part of his being? Just as a man
consumes all that food only by repeating the same act a
great many times, the yeast cell consumes the great mass of
sugar only by constantly assimilating and disassimilating
it bit by bit. Now, that which only one man will consume
in a century, a sufficient number ofmen would absorb and
form in a day. It is the same with the yeast; the sugar that
a small number of cells would only consume in a year, a
greater number would destroy in a day; in both cases, the
more numerous the individuals, the more rapid the con-
sumption."
By the need of such an explanation evidence is given
that Pasteur had failed to understand fermentation to be
due to physiological processes of absorption and excretion.
It would take too long to follow the varying examples that
substantiate this criticism, and, naturally, difficult
scientific intricacies were beyond the comprehension of
the general public, a great part of whom, having no idea
of the processes required for the food they put into their
own bodies, were still far less likely even dimly to fathom
the nutritive functions of organisms invisible except
through the microscope! It was nothing to them that,
among the learned Reports of the Academy of Science,
treaties were to be found, by a Professor working at
Montpellier, that clearly explained the why and the
wherefore of the intricate chemical changes that go by the
1
Comptes Rendus de VAcadSmie des Sciences 75, p. 1523.