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THE "LITTLE BODIES" 95

his research work by his medical studies. In the year 1865
he found in fermented urine that, besides other minute
organisms, there were little bodies so infinitesimal as to
be only visible by a very high power of the microscope,
obj. 7, oc. I, Nachet. He soon after found these same little
bodies in normal urine.
The following year, 1866, he sent up to the Academy of
Science a Memoir entitled "On the Role of Chalk in
Butyric and Lactic Fermentations and the Living
1
Organisms Contained in It."
Here he detailed experiments and proposed for the
"little bodies" the name of microzyma, from Greek words
that mean "small" and "ferment." This very descriptive
nomenclature portrayed them as ferments of the minutest
perceptible order.
To the special little bodies found in chalk, he gave the
name of microzyma creta.
Without loss of time, he continued his investigations on
the relation of the microzymas of chalk to the molecular
granulations of animal and vegetable cells and tissues, and
also made numerous further geological examinations. The
results of the latter were partly incorporated in a Memoir
"On Geological Microzymas of Various Origin," an
extract of which was published among the Reports of the
Academy of Science. 2
—
In this he asks: "What is now the geological signifi-
cance of these microzymas and what is their origin?" He
—
answers: "I believe that they are the organised and yet
living remains of beings that lived in long past ages. I find
proof of this both in these researches and in those that I
have carried out by myself and in collaboration with M.
Estor on the microzymas of actual living beings. These
microzymas are morphologically identical, and, even
though there may be some slight differences in their
activity as ferments, all the components that are formed
under their influence are, nevertheless, of the same order.
1
Comptes Rendus 63, p. 451. Les Microzymas, par A. Btchamp, p. 940.
2
Comptes Rendus 70, p. 914. Les Microzymas, par A. Bechamp, p. 944,