Page 83 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

8o BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
barrel. He looked upon muscle, milk, blood and so forth
as mere mixtures of chemical proximate principles. He
did, it is true, draw some distinction between the interior
of an organism and that of a barrel of beer, or a cask of
1
wine, for we find that he said that the first is "endowed
with powers of transformation that boiling destroys"
("vertus de transformation que V ebullition detruit"). Bechamp
here shows how Pasteur's mind reverted to the old-
fashioned belief in spontaneous alteration. Recognising
nothing inherently alive in the composition of animal and
vegetable bodies, it was his aim to show that meat, milk,
blood, etc., would remain unchanged if completely
secured from invasion by aerial organisms. And when,
later on, he copied an experiment that Bechamp had
undertaken on meat, and found, in his own observation,
that, in spite of precautions against germs of the air, the
muscular masses of the meat yet became tainted, he was
driven to fall back for an explanation upon vague, occult
"powers of transformation."
In the same way, for the wonderful evolution of an egg
into a bird, he had no solution except these same mysterious
transformatory powers. How can it be said that he had
destroyed belief in spontaneous generation, when he
could only ascribe to a spontaneous change the amazing
development of, for instance, the cells of an egg to a
circulatory apparatus, bony and nervous systems, glands,
organs, and finally a bird covered with feathers? For a
spontaneous change there must be if the substance of an
egg is only a chemical mixture of the same order as wine or
beer. What are Pasteur's "powers of transformation," if
not the same as Bonnet's "excellent modification," which
produces the organisation of matter, or if not the same as
the "nisusformativus" or productive forces, vegetable and
plastic, with which Needham, and, later Pouchet, the
believers in spontaneous generation, were satisfied to
explain the phenomenon? Pasteur appears merely to have
provided fresh words in place of other words.
1
Les Microzymas t p. 399.