Page 97 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
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borne organisms to be agents of fermentation, now, in
1864, equally clearly set forth the manner in which the
phenomenon is induced. All the while he was at work on
Nature's further mysteries, undertaking experiments upon
milk in addition to many others, and in December of the
same year informed M. Dumas of his discovery of living
organisms in chalk. Later, on the 26th September, 1865,
he wrote to M. Dumas on the subject and, by the latter's
request, his letter was published the next month in the
Annates de Chimie et de Physique. 1
—
Here he stated: "Chalk and milk contain living beings
already developed, which fact, observed by itself, is proved
by this other fact that creosote, employed in a non-
coagulating dose, does not prevent milk from finally
turning, nor chalk, without extraneous help, from con-
verting both sugar and starch into alcohol and then into
acetic acid, tartaric acid and butyric acid."
Thus we clearly see the meaning in every single experi-
ment of Bechamp's and the relation that each bore to the
other. His rigid experiments with creosote made it
possible for him to establish further conclusions. Since
creosote prevented the invasion of extraneous life, living
organisms must be pre-existent in chalk and milk before
the addition of creosote. These living organisms were the
"little bodies" that he had seen associated in cells and
singly in the tissues and fibres of plants and animals. Too
minute to differentiate through the microscope, Bechamp
—
tells us 2 that "The naturalist will not be able to dis-
tinguish them by a description; but the chemist and also
the physiologist will characterise them by their function."
He was thus not checked in his investigations by the
minuteness of his objects of research, so infinitesimal as,
in many cases, no doubt, to be ultra-microscopic. Neither
was he disturbed by the ridicule with which many of his
contemporaries received his account of the little bodies in
chalk and milk. Being a doctor, he was much helped in
1
4e sirie, 6, p. 248.
2
La Theorie du Microzyma, par A. Btchamp, p. 124.