Morris tribune., 1897-01-06
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION
Fasteur's Interesting Experiments and Dis
cOveries With Microbes.

L
Fasteurs Interesting Experiments and Dis
| coveries With Microbes.
1t was natural that Pasteur should
desire to know how the microbes
which he showed to be the essential
causes of the various lamentations
took their origin. 1t was at that pc
Rod prevalent notion, even among
many eminent naturalists, that such
humble and minute beings original
ed de novo in decomposing organic
substances, the doctrine of sponta-
neous generation, which has been
chased successfully from various po-
sitions which it once occupied among
creatures visible to the naked eye,
having taken it's last refuge where
the objects of study were of such
minuteness that their habits and
history were correspondingly diff
cult to trace. Here again Pasteur at
once saw as if by instinct on which
side the truth lay and perceiving it's
immense Importance he threw him
self with ardor into its demonstra-
ton.
may describe briefly one class of
experiments which he performed
with this object He charged series
of narrow necked glass TASKS with q
decoction of yeast, a liquid peculiar
ly liable to alteration ON exposure to
air. Having boiled the liquid in each
flask to kill any living germs it
might contain he sealed It's neck with
blowpipe during ebullition, after
which, the flask being allowed to
cool, the steam within condensed,
leaving a vacuum above the liquid.
If, then, the neck of the flask were
broken in any locality, the air at
that particular place would rush in
to fill the vacuum, carrying with it
any living microbes that might be
floating In it.
The neck of the flask having been
again sealed, any germs so intro
duced would in due time manifest
their presence by developing in the
clear liquid. When any of such Sc
ries of TASKS were opened and reseal-
ed in an uninhabited room, or under
the trees of a forest, multitudes of mi
mute living forms made their appear
ance in them, but if this was done in
a cellar, long unused, where the sus-
pended organisms, like other dust,
might be expected to have fallen to
the ground, the decoction remained
perfectly clear and unaltered. The
oxygen and other gaseous constitu-
ents of the atmosphere were thus
shown to be incapable of inducing
any organic development in yeast
water.
Such is a sample of the many we'll
devised experiments by which he
carried to most minds the conviction
that, as he expressed it. La genera
ton spontanee est une chimere,
and that the humblest and most
minute living organisms can only
originate by parentage from beings
like themselves Pasteur pointed
out the enormous Importance of
these humble organisms in the econ
omy of nature. It is by their agency
that the dead bodies of plants and
animals are resolved into simpler
compounds fitted for assimilation by
new living forms. Without their aid
the world would be, as Pasteur ex-
pressed it, encombre de cadavres.
They are essential not only to our
well being, but to our very exist
ence. Similar microbes must have
discharged the same necessary func-
ton by removing refuse and provid-
ing food for generations of plants
and animals during the past periods
of the worlds history, and it is in
teresting to think that organisms as
simple as can well be conceived to
have existed when life disappeared
upon our globe have in all probabil-
ity propagated the same lowly but
most useful offspring during the
ages of geological time. Joseph
Lister