The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-06-17
Spontaneous Generation.

Professor Tyndall is again deeply involved in
controversy this time not with the clergy or the
ologians, but with the supporters of the "spon-
taneous generation - theory. DIR. Bastian, the
distinguished naturalist and e~xperimenter, is his
most prominent antagonist, and the war is carried
on not only through the columns of scientific
journals. but IN the Times, and other popular
newspapers. Several years ago Professor Tyndall
conducted some experiments which led him to
concluded that atmospherica air held the germs from
which sprang all the various forms of life found
in the mixtures and infusions of DIR. Bastian and
others, and consequently the notion that they
come into existence de moro is a fallacy. In Tyn-
dall's experiments with air, he found it loaded
under all ordinary conditions with minute par
tIcles and organisms, which alone conferred upon
it the power of scattering light. An absolutely
clean volume of air has no difusiye power upon
rays of light; consequently, if the atmosphere
was entirely free from impurities we should be
involved in darkness. This condition of the at
mosphere awakened his suspicious that the ex-
periments alleged to prove spontaneous generation
possible were not reliable, and he therefore in
stituted a series in his own laboratory, the results
of which he recently laid before the Royal Society.
He states that he boiled a large number of
organic infusions SO as to destroy any bacteria or
germs existing in them, placed them in tubes ex-
posed to air which had been deprived of the float
ing particles, the presence of which produced the
scattering effect upon a beam of transmitted light,
and the result was that not in a single instant did
life appear, or the phenomena of putrefaetion
occur. On the other hand, tubes containing sim
liar infusions, exposed under like conditions, as
to time and temperature, to ordinary air, fell
into active putrefaction and developed an abund-
ance of life. Results of this nature, if reliable,
of course at once deprived DIR. Bastian and others
of all ground to stand upon, and stamped them
as empires. DIR. Bastian states in his book,
% Evolution and the Origin of Life" that " we
now know that boiled i~nfusions exposed to air
filtered or calcined, or shut off altogether from
contact with air, are more or less proved to
S,rarm with bacteria and vibriones in q few days"
Tyndall boldly attacks the doctor, and asks con-
temptuously, Who are the we that possess
this knowledge ?" DIR. Bastian replies in Nature
by naming an array of distinguished scientists
who advocate the doctrine of spontaneous gene
ration, which would appal any less confident
experimenter than Tyndall, and so the contest
goes on.
Bastian claims that Tyndall's experiments are
unreliable, from the circumstance that he did
not conduct them with due regard to the temper
allure at which the infusions were to be main
tanned. He urges that instead of keeping them
a temperature of only 60 or 70o F., as did
he should have tried 500 or 80 f.
This matter of temperature he claims IS OF I'M
mense Importance to the success of the expert
ments. He goes on to say that. looking to the
very striking manner in which Professor Tyndall
has deviated from the requisite experimental con-
ditions in regard TO temperature, it is impossible
to have full confidence that he prepared the in
fusions in the manner prescribed. As regards
the hundred and thirty-nine instances in which
Tyndall failed to obtain the results indicated by
him as being obtainable, Bastian says that - if so
grave q question were not concerned, all this
would be truly Iaughable, and, as it seems to him,
far more like burlesque than the sober pursuit of
Tyndall replies to this in the Times,
md says that the - temperature hypothesis of
DR.. Bastian will not answer, as he prepared his
with scrupulous regard to his prescrip-
lions, and the temperature was maintained for
weeks at from 500 to 90o F., and nevertheless
hey remained perfectly sterile throughout. 1t
s, however, apparent from the admissions made
" Professor Tyndall that he did not fully comply
With Bastian' S conditions, and so the question
'emains an unsettled one.
The matter is one of grave Importance, and it