Page 94 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

THE "LITTLE BODIES" 91
tains organisms of infinitesimal size, which according to
him, are living and which he imagined might possibly be of
immense antiquity. The block of limestone he had ob-
tained was so old that it belonged to the upper lacustrian
chalk formation of the Tertiary Period; yet he proved it to
be possessed of wonderful fermentative properties, which
he satisfied himself to be due to the presence of the same
1
"little bodies."
He continued a persistent examination of various cal-
careous deposits and not only found the same minute
organisms, but discovered them to possess varying powers
of causing fermentation. The calcareous tufa and the coal
areas of Bessege had very little power either to liquefy
starch or to invert cane-sugar; while the peat-bogs, on the
other hand, and the waste moors of the Cevennes, as well
as the dust of large cities, he proved to contain "little
bodies" possessing great powers for inducing fermentation.
He continued his investigations and found them in mineral
waters, in cultivated land, where he saw that they would
play no inconsiderable role, and he believed them to be
in the sediment of old wines. In the slime of marshes,
where the decomposition of organic matter is in progress,
he found the "little bodies" in the midst of other inferior
organisms, and, finding also alcohol and acetic acid,
attributed to these minute living beings the power that
effects the setting free of marsh-gas.
Nature having confided such wonderful revelations, the
time had come for Professor Bechamp to allow his mind to
interpret their meaning. The experiments he had omitted
from his great Memoir, instead of being faulty, now
seemed to hold marvellous suggestions. The "little bodies"
he had discovered in the chalk appeared to be identical
with the "little bodies" he had observed in the cells of
yeast and in the body-cells of plants and animals, the
"little bodies" that, for the most part, went by the name of
"molecular granulations." He remembered that Henle
had, in a vague way, considered these granulations to be
1
Les Microzymas, par A. Bechamp, pp. 940, 944.