[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: Fig. 6]
In pa.s.sing it is of interest to note how promptly the preceding results were turned to good account practically. In well-managed distilleries, the custom of aerating the wort and the juices to render them more adapted to fermentation, has been introduced.
The mola.s.ses mixed with water, is permitted to run in thin threads through the air at the moment when the yeast is added.
Manufactories have been erected in which the manufacture of yeast is almost exclusively carried on. The saccharine worts, after the addition of yeast, are left to themselves, in contact with air, in shallow vats of large superficial area, realizing thus on an immense scale the conditions of the experiments which we undertook in 1861, and which we have already described in determining the rapid and easy multiplication of yeast in contact with air.
The next experiment was to determine the volume of oxygen absorbed by a known quant.i.ty of yeast, the yeast living in contact with air, and under such conditions that the absorption of air was comparatively easy and abundant.
[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: Fig. 7]
With this object we repeated the experiment that we performed with the large-bottomed flask (Fig. 4), employing a vessel shaped like Fig. B (Fig. 7), which is, in point of fact, the flask A with its neck drawn out and closed in a flame, after the introduction of a thin layer of some saccharine juice impregnated with a trace of pure yeast. The following are the data and results of an experiment of this kind.
We employed 60 cc. (about 2 fluid ounces) of yeast-water, sweetened with two percent. of sugar and impregnated with a trace of yeast. After having subjected our vessel to a temperature of 25 degrees C. (77 degrees F.) in an oven for fifteen hours, the drawn-out point was brought under an inverted jar filled with mercury and the point broken off. A portion of the gas escaped and was collected in the jar. For 25 cc. of this gas we found, after absorption by potash 20.6, and after absorption by pyrogallic acid, 17.3. Taking into account the volume which remained free in the flask, which held 315 cc., there was a total absorption of 14.5 cc. (0.83 cub. in.) of oxygen. [Footnote: It may be useful for the non-scientific reader to put it thus: that the 25 cc. which escaped, being a fair sample of the whole gas in the flask, and containing (1) 25-20.6=4.4 cc., absorbed by potash and therefore due to carbonic acid, and (2) 20.6-17.3=3.3 cc., absorbed by pyrogallate, and therefore due to oxygen, and the remaining 17.3 cc. being nitrogen, the whole gas in the flask, which has a capacity of 312 cc., will contain oxygen in the above portion and therefore its amount may be determined provided we know the total gas in the flask before opening. On the other hand we know that air normally contains approximately, 1-5 its volume of oxygen, the rest being nitrogen, so that, by ascertaining the diminution of the proportion in the flask, we can find how many cubic centimeters have been absorbed by the yeast. The author, however, has not given all the data necessary for accurate calculation.--D.C.R.] The weight of the yeast, in a state of dryness, was 0.035 gramme.
It follows that in the production of 35 milligrammes (0.524 grain) of yeast there was an absorption of 14 or 15 cc. (about 7/8 cub. in.) of oxygen, even supposing that the yeast was formed entirely under the influence of that gas: this is equivalent to not less than 414 cc. for 1 gramme of yeast (or about 33 cubic inches for every 20 grains). [Footnote: This number is probably too small; it is scarcely possible that the increase of weight in the yeast, even under the exceptional conditions of the experiment described, was not to some extent at least due to oxidation apart from free oxygen, inasmuch as some of the cells were covered by others. The increased weight of the yeast is always due to the action of two distant modes of vital energy-- activity, namely, in presence and activity in absence of air. We might endeavor to shorten the duration of the experiment still further, in which case we would still more a.s.similate the life of the yeast to that of ordinary moulds.]
Such is the large volume of oxygen necessary for the development of one gramme of yeast when the plant can a.s.similate this gas after the manner of an ordinary fungus.
Let us now return to the first experiment described in the paragraph on page 292 in which a flask of three litres capacity was filled with fermentable liquid, which, when caused to ferment, yielded 2.25 grammes of yeast, under circ.u.mstances where it could not obtain a greater supply of free oxygen than 16.5 cc.
(about one cubic inch). According to what we have just stated, if this 2.25 grammes (34 grains) of yeast had not been able to live without oxygen, in other words, if the original cells had been unable to multiply otherwise than by absorbing free oxygen, the amount of that gas required could not have been less than 2.25 X 4l4 cc., that is, 931.5 cc. (56.85 cubic inches). The greater part of the 2.25 grammes, therefore, had evidently been produced as the growth of an anaerobian plant.
Ordinary fungi likewise require large quant.i.ties of oxygen for their development, as we may readily prove by cultivating any mould in a closed vessel full of air, and then taking the weight of plant formed and measuring the volume of oxygen absorbed. To do this, we take a flask of the shape shown in Fig. 8, capable of holding about 300 cc. (10 1/2 fluid ounces), and containing a liquid adapted to the life of moulds. We boil this liquid, and seal the drawn-out point after the steam has expelled the air wholly or in part; we then open the flask in a garden or in a room. Should a fungus-spore enter the flask, as will invariably be the case in a certain number of flasks out of several used in the experiment, except under special circ.u.mstances, it will develop there and gradually absorb all the oxygen contained in the air of the flask. Measuring the volume of this air, and weighing, after drying, the amount of plant formed, we find that for a certain quant.i.ty of oxygen absorbed we have a certain weight of mycelium, or of mycelium together with its organs of fructification. In an experiment of this kind, in which the plant was weighed a year after its development, we found for 0.008 gramme (0.123 gram) of MYCELIUM, dried at 100 degrees C. (212 degrees F.), an absorption that amounted to not less than 43 cc.
(2.5 cubic inches) of oxygen at 25 degrees. These numbers, however, must vary sensibly with the nature of the mould employed, and also with the greater or less activity of its development, because the phenomena is complicated by the presence of accessory oxidations, such as we find in the case of mycoderma vini and aceti, to which cause the large absorption of oxygen in our last experiment may doubtless be attributed. [Footnote: In these experiments, in which the moulds remain for a long time in contact with a saccharine wort out of contact with oxygen--the oxygen being promptly absorbed by the vital action of the plant (see our Memoire sur les Generations dites Spontanees, p. 54.
note)--there is no doubt that an appreciable quant.i.ty of alcohol is formed because the plant does not immediately lose vital activity after the absorption of oxygen.
A 300 cc. (10-oz.) flask, containing 100 cc. of must, after the air in it had been expelled by boiling, was open and immediately re-closed on August 15th, 1873. A fungoid growth--a unique one, of greenish-grey colour--developed from spontaneous impregnation, and decolourized the liquid, which originally was of a yellowish- brown. Some large crystals, sparkling like diamonds, of neutral tartrate of lime, were precipitated, about a year afterwards, long after the death of the plant, we examined this liquid. It contained 0.3 gramme (4.6 grains) of alcohol, and 0.053 gramme (0.8 grain) of vegetable matter, dried at 100 degrees C. (212 degrees F.). We ascertained that the spores of the fungus were dead at the moment when the flask was opened. When sown, they did not develop in the least degree.]
The conclusions to be drawn from the whole of the preceding facts can scarcely admit of doubt. As for ourselves, we have no hesitation in finding them the foundation of the true theory of fermentation. In the experiments which we have described, fermentation by yeast, that is to say, by the type of ferments properly so called, is presented to us, in a word, as the direct consequence of the processes of nutrition, a.s.similation and life, when these are carried on without the agency of free oxygen. The heat required in the accomplishment of that work must necessarily have been borrowed from the decomposition of the fermentable matter, that is from the saccharine substance which, like other unstable substances, liberates heat in undergoing decomposition.
Fermentation by means of yeast appears, therefore, to be essentially connected with the property possessed by this minute cellular plant of performing its respiratory functions, somehow or other, with oxygen existing combined in sugar. Its fermentative power--which power must not be confounded with the fermentative activity or the intensity of decomposition in a given time--varies considerably between two limits, fixed by the greatest and least possible access to free oxygen which the plant has in the process of nutrition. If we supply it with a sufficient quant.i.ty of free oxygen for the necessities of its life, nutrition, and respiratory combustions, in other words, if we cause it to live after the manner of a mould, properly so called, it ceases to be a ferment, that is, the ratio between the weight of the plant developed and that of the sugar decomposed, which forms its princ.i.p.al food, is similar in amount to that in the case of fungi. [Footnote: We find in M. Raulin"s note that "the minimum ratio between the weight of sugar and the weight of organized matter, that is, the weight of fungoid growth which it helps to form, may be expressed as 10/3.2=3.1." JULES RAULIN, Etudes chimiques sur la vegetation. Recherches sur le developpement d"une mucedinee dans un milieu artificiel, p. 192, Paris, 1870. We have seen in the case of yeast that this ratio may be as low as [Proofers note: unreadable symbol]] On the other hand, if we deprive the yeast of air entirely, or cause it to develop in a saccharine medium deprived of free oxygen, it will multiply just as if air were present, although with less activity, and under these circ.u.mstances its fermentative character will be most marked; under these circ.u.mstances, moreover, we shall find the greatest disproportion, all other conditions being the same, between the weight of yeast formed and the weight of sugar decomposed. Lastly, if free oxygen occurs in varying quant.i.ties, the ferment-power of the yeast may pa.s.s through all the degrees comprehended between the two extreme limits of which we have just spoken. It seems to us that we could not have a better proof of the direct relation that fermentation bears to life, carried on in the absence of free oxygen, or with a quant.i.ty of that gas insufficient for all the acts of nutrition and a.s.similation.
Another equally striking proof of the truth of this theory is the fact previously demonstrated that the ordinary moulds a.s.sume the character of a ferment when compelled to live without air, or with quant.i.ties of air too scant to permit of their organs having around them as much of that element as is necessary for their life as aerobian plants. Ferments, therefore, only possess in a higher degree a character which belongs to many common moulds, if not to all, and which they share, probably, more or less, with all living cells, namely the power of living either an aerobian or anaerobian life, according to the conditions under which they are placed.
It may be readily understood how, in their state of aerobian life, the alcoholic ferments have failed to attract attention.
These ferments are only cultivated out of contract with air, at the bottom of liquids which soon become saturated with carbonic acid gas. Air is only present in the earlier developments of their germs, and without attracting the attention of the operator, whilst in their state of anaerobian growth their life and action are of prolonged duration. We must have recourse to special experimental apparatus to enable us to demonstrate the mode of life of alcoholic ferments under the influence of free oxygen; it is their state of existence apart from air, in the depths of liquids, that attracts all our attention. The results of their action are, however, marvellous, if we regard the products resulting from them, in the important industries of which they are the life and soul. In the case of ordinary moulds, the opposite holds good. What we want to use special experimental apparatus for with them, is to enable us to demonstrate the possibility of their continuing to live for a time out of contact with air, and all our attention, in their case, is attracted by the facility with which they develop under the influence of oxygen. Thus the decomposition of saccharine liquids, which is the consequence of the life of fungi without air, is scarcely perceptible, and so is of no practical importance. Their aerial life, on the other hand, in which they respire and accomplish their process of oxidation under the influence of free oxygen is a normal phenomenon, and one of prolonged duration which cannot fail to strike the least thoughtful of observers. We are convinced that a day will come when moulds will be utilised in certain industrial operations, on account of their power in destroying organic matter. The conversion of alcohol into vinegar in the process of acetification and the production of gallic acid by the action of fungi on wet gall nuts, are already connected with this kind of phenomena. [Footnote: We shall show, some day, that the processes of oxidation due to growth of fungi cause, in certain decompositions, liberation of ammonia to a considerable extent, and that by regulating their action we might cause them to extract the nitrogen from a host of organic debris, as also, by checking the production of such organisms, we might considerably increase the proportion of nitrates in the artificial nitrogenous substances. By cultivating the various moulds on the surface of damp bread in a current of air we have obtained an abundance of ammonia, derived from the decomposition of the alb.u.minoids effected by the fungoid life. The decomposition of asparagus and several other animal or vegetable substances has similar results.] On this last subject, the important work of M. Van Tieghem (Annales Scientifiques de l"Ecole Normale, Vol. vi.) may be consulted.
The possibility of living without oxygen, in the case of ordinary moulds, is connected with certain morphological modifications which are more marked in proportion as this faculty is itself more developed. These changes in the vegetative forms are scarcely perceptible, in the case of penicillium and mycoderma vini, but they are very evident in the case of aspergillus, consisting of a marked tendency on the part of the submerged mycelial filaments to increase in diameter, and to develop cross part.i.tions at short intervals, so that they sometimes bear a resemblance to chains of conidia. In mucor, again, they are very marked, the inflated filaments which, closely interwoven, present chains of cells, which fall off and bud, gradually producing a ma.s.s of cells. If we consider the matter carefully, we shall see that yeast presents the same characteristics. * * * *
It is a great presumption in favor of the truth of theoretical ideas when the results of experiments undertaken on the strength of those ideas are confirmed by various facts more recently added to science, and when those ideas force themselves more and more on our minds, in spite of a prima facie improbability. This is exactly the character of those ideas which we have just expounded. We p.r.o.nounced them in 1861, and not only have they remained unshaken since, but they have served to foreshadow new facts, so that it is much easier to defend them in the present day than it was to do so fifteen years ago. We first called attention to them in various notes, which we read before the Chemical Society of Paris, notably at its meetings of April 12th and June 28th, 1861, and in papers in the Comtes rendus de l"Academie des Sciences. It may be of some interest to quote here, in its entirety, our communication of June 28th, 1861, ent.i.tled, "Influences of Oxygen on the Development of Yeast and on Alcoholic Fermentation," which we extract from the Bulletin de la Societe Chimique de Paris:--
"M. Pasteur gives the result of his researches on the fermentation of sugar and the development of yeast-cells, according as that fermentation takes place apart from the influence of free oxygen or in contact with that gas. His experiments, however, have nothing in common with those of Gay- Lussac, which were performed with the juice of grapes crushed under conditions where they would not be affected by air, and then brought into contact with oxygen.
"Yeast, when perfectly developed, is able to bud and grow in a saccharine and alb.u.minous liquid, in the complete absence of oxygen or air. In this case but little yeast is formed, and a comparatively large quant.i.ty of sugar disappears--sixty or eighty parts for one of yeast formed. Under these conditions fermentation is very sluggish.
"If the experiment is made in contact with the air, and with a great surface of liquid, fermentation is rapid. For the same quant.i.ty of sugar decomposed much more yeast is formed. The air with which the liquid is in contact is absorbed by the yeast. The yeast develops very actively, but its fermentative character tends to disappear under these conditions; we find, in fact, that for one part of yeast formed, not more than from four to ten parts of sugar are transformed. The fermentative character of this yeast nevertheless, continues, and produces even increased effects, if it is made to act on sugar apart from the influence of free oxygen.
"It seems, therefore, natural to admit that when yeast functions as a ferment by living apart from the influence of air, it derives oxygen from the sugar, and that this is the origin of its fermentative character.
"M. Pasteur explains the fact of the immense activity at the commencement of fermentations by the influence of the oxygen of the air held in solution in the liquids, at the time when the action commences. The author has found, moreover, that the yeast of beer sown in an alb.u.minous liquid, such as yeast-water, still multiplies, even when there is not a trace of sugar in the liquid, provided always that atmospheric oxygen is present in large quant.i.ties. When deprived of air, under these conditions, yeast does not germinate at all. The same experiments may be repeated with alb.u.minous liquid, mixed with a solution of non- fermentable sugar, such as ordinary crystallized milk-sugar. The results are precisely the same.
"Yeast formed thus in the absence of sugar does not change its nature; it is still capable of causing sugar to ferment, if brought to bear upon that substance apart from air. It must be remarked, however, that the development of yeast is effected with great difficulty when it has not a fermentable substance for its food. In short, the yeast of beer acts in exactly the same manner as an ordinary plant, and the a.n.a.logy would be complete if ordinary plants had such an affinity for oxygen as permitted them to breathe by appropriating this element from unstable compounds, in which case, according to M. Pasteur, they would appear as ferments for those substances.
"M. Pasteur declares that he hopes to be able to realize this result, that is to say, to discover the conditions under which certain inferior plants may live apart from air in the presence of sugar, causing that substance to ferment as the yeast of beer would do."
This summary and the preconceived views that it set forth have lost nothing of their exactness; on the contrary, time has strengthened them. The surmises of the last two paragraphs have received valuable confirmation from recent observations made by Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy, as well as by ourselves, an account of which we must put before our readers. It is necessary, however, before touching upon this curious feature in connection with fermentations to insist on the accuracy of a pa.s.sage in the preceding summary; the statement, namely, that yeast could multiply in an alb.u.minous liquid, in which it found a non- fermentable sugar, milk-sugar, for example. The following is an experiment on this point:--On August 15th, 1875, we sowed a trace of yeast in 150 cc. (rather more than 5 fluid ounces) of yeast-- water, containing 2 1/2 per cent, of milk-sugar. The solution was prepared in one of our double-necked flasks, with the necessary precautions to secure the absence of germs, and the yeast sown was itself perfectly pure. Three months afterwards, November 15th, 1875, we examined the liquid for alcohol; it contained only the smallest trace; as for the yeast (which had sensibly developed), collected and dried on a filter paper, it weighed 0.050 gramme (0.76 grain). In this case we have the yeast multiplying without giving rise to the least fermentation, like a fungoid growth, absorbing oxygen, and evolving carbonic acid, and there is no doubt that the cessation of its development in this experiment was due to the progressive deprivation of oxygen that occurred. As soon as the gaseous mixture in the flask consisted entirely of carbonic acid and nitrogen, the vitality of the yeast was dependent on, and in proportion to, the quant.i.ty of air which entered the flask in consequence of variations of temperature.
The question now arose, was this yeast, which had developed wholly as an ordinary fungus, still capable of manifesting the character of a ferment? To settle this point we had taken the precaution on August 15th, 1875, of preparing another flask, exactly similar to the preceding one in every respect, and which gave results identical with those described. We decanted this November 15th, pouring some wort on the deposit of the plant, which remained in the flask. In less than five hours from the time we placed it in the oven, the plant started fermentation in the wort, as we could see by the bubbles of gas rising to form patches on the surface of the liquid. We may add that yeast in the medium which we have been discussing will not develop at all without air.
The importance of these results can escape no one; they prove clearly that the fermentative character is not an invariable phenomenon of yeast-life, they show that yeast is a plant which does not differ from ordinary plants, and which manifests its fermentative power solely in consequence of particular conditions under which it is compelled to live. It may carry on its life as a ferment or not, and after having lived without manifesting the slightest symptom of fermentative character, it is quite ready to manifest that character when brought under suitable conditions.
The fermentative property, therefore, is not a power peculiar to cells of a special nature. It is not a permanent character of a particular structure, like, for instance, the property of acidity or alkalinity. It is a peculiarity dependent on external circ.u.mstances and on the nutritive conditions of the organism.
II. FERMENTATION IN SACCHARINE FRUITS IMMERSED IN CARBONIC ACID GAS
The theory which we have, step by step, evolved, on the subject of the cause of the chemical phenomena of fermentation, may claim a character of simplicity and generality that is well worthy of attention. Fermentation is no longer one of those isolated and mysterious phenomena which do not admit of explanation. It is the consequence of a peculiar vital process of nutrition which occurs tinder certain conditions, differing from those which characterize the life of all ordinary beings, animal or vegetable, but by which the latter may be affected, more or less, in a way which brings them, to some extent within the cla.s.s of ferments, properly so called. We can even conceive that the fermentative character may belong to every organized form, to every animal or vegetable cell, on the sole condition that the chemico-vital acts of a.s.similation and excretion must be capable of taking place in that cell for a brief period, longer or shorter it may be, without necessity for recourse to supplies of atmospheric oxygen; in other words, the cell must be able to derive its needful heat from the decomposition of some body which yields a surplus of heat in the process.
As a consequence of these conclusions it should be an easy matter to show, in the majority of living beings, the manifestation of the phenomena of fermentation; for there are, probably, none in which all chemical action entirely disappears, upon the sudden cessation of life. One day, when we were expressing these views in our laboratory, in the presence of M. Dumas, who seemed inclined to admit their truth, we added: "We should like to make a wager that if we were to plunge a bunch of grapes into carbonic acid gas, there would be immediately produced alcohol and carbonic acid gas, in consequence of a renewed action starting in the interior cells of the grapes, in such a way that these cells would a.s.sume the functions of yeast cells. We will make the experiment, and when you come to-morrow--it was our good fortune to have M. Dumas working in our laboratory at that time--we will give you an account of the result." Our predictions were realized. We then endeavoured to find, in the presence of M.
Dumas, who a.s.sisted us in our endeavour, cells of yeast in the grapes; but it was quite impossible to discover any. [Footnote: To determine the absence of cells of ferment in fruits that have been immersed in carbonic acid gas, we must first of all carefully raise the pellicle of the fruit, taking care that the subjacent parenchyma does not touch the surface of the pellicle, since the organized corpuscles existing on the exterior of the fruit might introduce an error into our miscroscopical observations. Experiments on grapes have given us an explanation of a fact generally known, the cause of which, however, had hitherto escaped our knowledge. We all know that the taste and aroma of the vintage, that is, of the grapes stripped from the bunches and thrown into tubs, where they get soaked in the juice that issues from the wounded specimens, are very different from the taste and aroma of an uninjured bunch. Now grapes that have been immersed in an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas have exactly the flavour and smell of the vintage; the reason is that, in the vintage tub, the grapes are immediately surrounded by an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas, and undergo, in consequence, the fermentation peculiar to grapes that have been plunged into this gas. These facts deserve to be studied from a practical point of view. It would be interesting, for example, to learn what difference there would be in the quality of two wines, the grapes of which, in the once case, had been perfectly crushed, so as to cause as great a separation of the cells of the parenchyma as possible; in the other case, left, for the most part, whole, as in the case in the ordinary vintage. The first wine would be deprived of those fixed and fragrant principles produced by the fermentation of which we have just spoken, when the grapes are immersed in carbonic acid gas, by such a comparison as that which we suggest we should be able to form a priori judgment on the merits of the new system, which had not been carefully studied, although already widely adopted, of milled, cylindrical crushers, for pressing the vintage.]
Encouraged by this result, we undertook fresh experiments on grapes, on a melon, on oranges, on plums, and on rhubarb leaves, gathered in the garden of the Ecole Normale, and, in every case, our substance, when immersed in carbonic acid gas, gave rise to the production of alcohol and carbonic acid. We obtained the following surprising results from some prunes de Monsieur:[Footnote: We have sometimes found small quant.i.ties of alcohol in fruits and other vegetable organs, surrounded with ordinary air, but always in small proportion, and in a manner which suggested its accidental character. It is east to understand how, in the thickness of certain fruits, certain parts of those fruits might be deprived of air, under which circ.u.mstances they would have been acting under conditions similar to those under which fruits act when wholly immersed in the carbonic acid gas. Moreover, it would be useful to determine whether alcohol is not a normal product of vegatation.]--On July 21, 1872, we placed twenty-four of these plums under a gla.s.s bell, which we immediately filled with carbonic acid gas. The plums had been gathered on the previous day. By the side of the bell we placed other twenty-four plums, which were left there uncovered. Eight days afterwards, in the course of which time there had been a considerable evolution of carbonic acid from the bell, we withdrew the plums and compared them with those which had been left exposed to the air. The difference was striking, almost incredible. Whilst the plums which had been surrounded with air (the experiments of Berard have long since taught us that, under this latter condition, fruits absorb oxygen from the air and emit carbonic acid gas in almost equal volume) had become very soft and watery and sweet, the plums taken from under the jar had remained very firm and hard, the flesh was by no means watery, but they had lost much sugar. Lastly, when submitted to distillation, after crushing, they yielded 6.5 grammes (99.7 grains) of alcohol, more than 1 per cent, of the total weight of the plums. What better proof than these facts could we have of the existence of a considerable chemical action in the interior of fruit, an action which derives the heat necessary for its manifestation from the decomposition of the sugar present in the cells? Moreover, and this circ.u.mstance is especially worthy of our attention, in all these experiments we found that there was a liberation of heat, of which the fruits and other organs were the seat, as soon as they were plunged in the carbonic acid gas. This heat is so considerable that it may at times be detected by the hand, if the two sides of the bell, one of which is in contact with the objects, are touched alternately. It also makes itself evident in the formation of little drops on those parts of the bell which are less directly exposed to the influence of the heat resulting from the decomposition of the sugar of the cells.
[Footnote: In these studies of plants living immersed in carbonic acid gas, we have come across a fact which corroborated those which we have already given in reference to the facility with which lactic and viscous ferments, and generally speaking, those which we have termed the disease ferments or beer, develop when deprived of air, and which shows, consequently, how very marked their aerobian character is. If we immerse beet-roots or turnips in carbonic acid gas, we produce well-defined fermentations in those roots. Their whole surface readily permits the escape of the highly acid liquids, and they become filled with lactic, viscous, and other ferments, This shows us the great danger which may result from the use of pits, in which the beet-roots are preserved, when the air is not renewed, and that the original oxygen is expelled by the vital processes of fungi or other deoxidizing chemical actions. We nave directed the attention of the manufacturers of beet-root sugar to this point.]
In short, fermentation is a very general phenomenon. It is life without air, or life without free oxygen, or, more generally still, it is the result of a chemical process accomplished on a fermentable substance capable of producing heat by its decomposition, in which process the entire heat used up is derived from a part of the heat that the decomposition of the fermentable substance sets free. The cla.s.s of fermentations properly so called, is, however, restricted by the small number of substances capable of decomposing with the production of heat, and at the same time of serving for the nourishment of lower forms of life, when deprived of the presence and action of air.
This, again, is a consequence of our theory, which is well worthy of notice,
The facts that we have just mentioned in reference to the formation of alcohol and carbonic acid in the substance of ripe fruits, under special conditions, and apart from the action of ferment, are already known to science. They were discovered in 1869 by M. Lechartier, formerly a pupil in the Ecole Normale Superieure, and his coadjutor, M. Bellamy. [Footnote: Lechartier and Bellamy, Comptes rendus de l"Academie des Sciences, vol.
lxix., pp., 366 and 466, 1869.] In 1821, in a very remarkable work, especially when we consider the period when it appeared, Berard demonstrated several important propositions in connection with the maturation of fruits:
I. All fruits, even those that are still green, and likewise even those that are exposed to the sun, absorb oxygen and set free an almost equal volume of carbonic acid gas. This is a condition of their proper ripening.
II. Ripe fruits placed in a limited atmosphere, after having absorbed all the oxygen and set free an almost equal volume of carbonic acid, continue to emit that gas in notable quant.i.ty, even when no bruise is to be seen--"as though by a kind of fermentation," as Berard actually observes--and lose their saccharine particles, a circ.u.mstance which causes the fruits to appear more acid, although the actual weight of their acid may undergo no augmentation whatever.
In this beautiful work, and in all subsequent ones of which the ripening of fruits has been the subject, two facts of great theoretical value have escaped the notice of the authors; these are the two facts which Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy pointed out for the first time, namely, the production of alcohol and the absence of cells of ferments. It is worthy of remark that these two facts, as we have shown above, were actually fore-shadowed in the theory of fermentation that we advocated as far back as 1861, and we are happy to add that Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy, who at first had prudently drawn no theoretical conclusions from their work, now entirely agree with the theory we have advanced.
[Footnote: Those gentlemen express themselves thus: "In a note presented to the Academy in November, 1872, we published certain experiments which showed that carbonic acid and alcohol may be produced in fruits kept in a closed vessel, out of contact with atmospheric oxygen, without our being able to discover alcoholic ferment in the interior of those fruits.
"M. Pasteur, as a logical deduction from the principle which he has established in connection with the theory of fermentation, considers that THE FORMATION OF ALCOHOL MAY BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE FACT THAT THE PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PRECESSES OF LIFE IN THE CELLS OF FRUIT CONTINUE UNDER NEW CONDITIONS, IN A MANNER SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE CELLS OF FERMENT. Experiments, continued during 1872, 1873, and 1874, on different fruits have furnished results all of which seem to us to harmonize with this proposition, and to establish it on a firm basis of proof."--Comptes rendus, t.
lxxix., p. 949, 1874.] Their mode of reasoning is very different from that of the savants with whom we discussed the subject before the Academy, on the occasion when the communication which we addressed to the Academy in October, 1872, attracted attention once more to the remarkable observations of Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy. [Footnote: PASTEUR, Faites nouveaux pour servir a la connaissance de la theorie des fermentations proprement dites.
(Comptes rendus de l"Academie des Sciences, t. lxxv., p. 784.) See in the same volume the discussion that followed; also, PASTEUR, Note sur la production de l"alcool par les fruits, same volume, p. 1054, in which we recount the observations anterior to our own, made by Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy in 1869.] M.
Fremy, in particular, was desirous of finding in these observations a confirmation of his views on the subject of hemi- organism, and a condemnation of ours, notwithstanding the fact that the preceding explanations, and, more particularly our Note of 1861, quoted word for word in the preceding section, furnish the most conclusive evidence in favor of those ideas which we advocate. Indeed, as far back as 1861 we pointed out very clearly that if we could find plants able to live when deprived of air, in the presence of sugar, they would bring about a fermentation of that substance, in the same manner that yeast does. Such is the case with the fungi already studied; such, too, is the case with the fruits employed in the experiments of Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy, and in our own experiments, the results of which not only confirm those obtained by these gentlemen, but even extend them, in so far as we have shown that fruits, when surrounded with carbonic acid gas immediately produce alcohol. When surrounded with air, they live in their aerobian state and we have no fermentation; immersed immediately afterwards in carbonic acid gas, they now a.s.sume their anaerobian state, and at once begin to act upon the sugar in the manner of ferments, and emit heat. As for seeing in these facts anything like a confirmation of the theory of hemi-organism, imagined by M. Fremy, the idea of such a thing is absurd. The following, for instance, is the theory of the fermentation of the vintage, according to M. Fremy.
[Footnote: Comptes rendus, meeting of January 15th, 1872.]
"To speak here of alcoholic fermentation alone," our author says, "I hold that in the production of wine it is the juice of the fruit itself that, in contact with air, produces grains of ferment, by the transformation of the alb.u.minous matter; Pasteur, on the other hand, maintains that the fermentation is produced by germs existing outside of the grapes." [Footnote: As a matter of fact, M. Fremy applies his theory of hemi-organism, not only to the alcoholic fermentation of grape juice, but to all other fermentations. The following pa.s.sage occurs in one of his notes (Comptes rendus de l"Academie, t. lxxv., p. 979, October 28th, 1872):