Antoine Bechamp : The Blood and its Third Anatomical Element

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**Antoine** **Bechamp**

**Microzymes**

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![Antoine
          Bechamp](antoinebechamp.jpg)

  


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***The Blood** **and its** **Third****Anatomical** **Element***

**by**

**Antoine** **Bechamp**



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**CONTENTS**

[**DEDICATION**](#DEDICATION)

**[TRANSLATOR'S
PREFACE](#TRANSLATORS_PREFACE)**

[**POST
SCRIPTUM**](#POST_SCRIPTUM)

[**AUTHOR'S
PREFACE, Part 1**](#AUTHORS_PREFACE_Part_1) [**AUTHOR'S PREFACE, Part 2**](#AUTHORS_PREFACE) [**PRELIMINARY**](#PRELIMINARY) [**AVANT-PROPOS**](#AVANT-PROPOS) [**INTRODUCTORY AND
HISTORICAL**](#INTRODUCTORY_AND_HISTORICAL)  **[CHAPTER 1](#CHAPTER_1.) : OF THE NATURE OF
FIBRIN ISOLATED FROM THE CLOT OR OBTAINED BY WHIPPING THE
BLOOD. THE BLOOD FIBRIN. FIBRINOUS MICRO-ZYMAS. FIBRIN AND
OXYGENATED WATER. THE FERMENT OF FIBRIN.** **[CHAPTER 2](#CHAPTER_II.) : ON THE ACTUAL
SPECIFIC INDIVIDUALITY OF THE ALBUMINOID PROXIMATE PRINCIPLES.
THE ALBUMINOIDS. THE PHENOMENON OF COAGULATION. THE
ALBUMINOIDS OF THE FIBRIN. THE ALBUMINOIDS OF THE SERUM.
HAEMOGLOBIN. HAEMOGLOBIN AND OXYGENATED WATER.** **[CHAPTER 3](#CHAPTER_III) : OF THE STATE OF
THE FIBRIN IN THE BLOOD AT THE MOMENT OF VENESECTION AND OF
THE MOLECULAR GRANULATIONS. THE FIBRIN WITHOUT MICROZYMAS. THE
HAEMATIC MICROZYMIAN MOLECULAR GRANULATIONS.** **[CHAPTER 4](#CHAPTER_IV) : THE REAL STRUCTURE
OF THE RED BLOOD GLOBULE: THE MICROZYMAS OF THE BLOOD
GLOBULES: THE BLOOD GLOBULES IN GENERAL.** **[CHAPTER 5](#CHAPTER_V) :  OF THE REAL
NATURE OF THE BLOOD AT THE MOMENT OF A GENERAL BLEEDING. 
THE LIVING PARTS OF THE BLOOD.  PROTOPLASM.  THE
UNCHANGEABLE CHARACTER OF MIXTURES OF PROXIMATE
PRINCIPLES.  THE VITELLIN MICROZYMAS AND THE BLOOD
GLOBULES.  THE VASCULAR SYSTEM.  THE BLOOD A FLOWING
TISSUE.** **[CHAPTER 6](#CHAPTER_VI) : OF THE REAL
CHEMICAL, ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL MEANING OF THE
COAGULATION OF THE SHED BLOOD; COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD; THE
BLOOD OF THE HORSE; THE SERUM OF THE BLOOD; COAGULATION OF
BLOOD DILUTED WITH WATER; SECOND PHASE OF THE SPONTANEOUS
ALTERATION OF THE BLOOD; THE BLOOD IN CALCINED AIR; EXPERIMENT
PROVING OXYGEN HAS NO SHARE IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GLOBULES
IN THE DEFIBRINATED BLOOD; SPONTANEOUS ALTERATION OF FLESH;
SPONTANEOUS ALTERATION OF MILK; COAGULATION OF MILK;
FERMENTATION OF THE EGG; SPONTANEOUS DESTRUCTION OF THE
CELLULE OF YEAST; SPONTANEOUS DESTRUCTION OF TISSUES;
SPONTANEOUS ALTERATION OF THE BLOOD.**

**[CHAPTER 7](#CHAPTER_7)
:  JUSTIFICATION OF THE DOCTRINE THAT THE BLOOD IS A
FLOWING TISSUE AND, AS SUCH, SPONTANEOUSLY ALTERABLE. M.
PASTEUR AND THE GERMS OF THE AIR.  CH. ROBIN AND THE
ALTERATION OF THE BLOOD. MICROZYMAS AND SPORES OF
SCHIZOMYCETES; MICROZYMAS AND MICROCOCCUS; THE MICROZYMAS AND
THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM; COMPARISON OF THE MICROZYMAS OF THE
BLOOD, OF THE MICROZYMAS OF THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM AND OF THE
MICROZYMAS OF OTHER TISSUES.  AUTONOMY OF THE MICROZYMAS.** **[CHAPTER 8](#CHAPTER_8) : THE MICROZYMAS AND
THAT WHICH IS STYLED BACTERIOLOGY; THE MICROZYMAS, LIVING
BEINGS BELONGING TO AN UNSUSPECTED ORDER OF THEIR OWN; OVULAR
AND VITELLIN MICROZYMAS; MICROZYMAS AND MOLECULAR
GRANULATIONS; GEOLOGICAL MICROZYMAS; MICROZYMAS OF THE EARTH
AND OF THE WATERS; MICROZYMAS AND BACTERIA; BIOLOGICAL
CHARACTERS OF THE MICROZYMAS; MICROZYMAS AND THEIR PERENNITY;
THE ORGANA-IZED END OF ALL ORGANIZATION; OVULAR AND VITELLIN
MICROA-ZYMAS; MICROZYMAS AND PATHOLOGY; MICROZYMAS AND
COA-ORDINATION; PHAGOCYTOSIS; MICROZYMAS AND ANTHRAX;
MIA-CROZYMAS AND DISEASE; MICROZYMAS AND MICROBES; MICROA-ZYMAS
AND THE INDIVIDUAL COEFFICIENT; MICROZYMAS, LIFE AND DEATH;
MICROZYMAS AND HEALTH; MICROZYMAS AND REA-CEPTIVITY;
MICROZYMAS, BLOOD AND  PROTOPLASM; CONCLUSIONS.**

**[AUTHOR'S
POSTFACE](#AUTHORS_POSTFACE)**

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**DEDICATION.**

To Doctor A. Tripier.

My dear friend:a I dedicate this book
to you, the manuscript of which you have heard read to you, as
evidence of the affection with which I respond to the friendship
wherewith you honour me; as an expression of my gratitude for
having placed me in a condition still to guide my pen by
applying to me your great science of electricity; and also
because you have been the first physician who, while microbiatry
was in full cry, distinguished the microzyma from that still so
improperly called the microbe.

A. Bechamp

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**TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.**

On the 16th October, 1816, at Bassing, in the department of
Bas-Rhein, (France, since ceded to Germany), was born a child by
whose name the nineteenth century will come to be known, as are
the centuries of Copernicus, of Galileo and of Newton by their
several names. Antoine Bechamp, the babe of 1816, died on the
15th April, 1908, fourteen days after he was first visited by an
aged American physician between whom and himself a
correspondence had passed for several years on the subject of
the researches and wonderful discoveries of Professor Bechamp
and his collaborators. The American physician made his visit to
Paris for the purpose of becoming personally acquainted with
Professor Bechamp, who, as his family stated, had looked forward
with eager anticipation to such a visit.

The translator had long previously submitted to the professor
an extensive summary of his physiological and biological
discoveries, and by him it was revised and approved.

This was intended to be introduced as a special chapter in an
extensive work on inoculations and their relations to pathology,
upon which the translator of this work had been engaged, almost
exclusively, for some fourteen years.

But in the lengthy and nearly daily interviews between
Professor Bechamp and myself, which, as just shown, closely
preceded the former's death, I suggested that instead of such
summary it would be better to place before the English speaking
peoples an exact translation into their language of some, at
least, of the more important discoveries of Professor Bechamp,
especially as, in my opinion, it would not be easy to carry out
among them that "conspiracy of silence" by means of which the
discoveries of Bechamp had been buried in favour of distorted
plagiarisms of his labours which had been productive of
abortions, such as the Microbian or Germ Theory of disease, "the
greatest scientific silliness of the age," as it has been
correctly styled by the Professor.

To this suggestion Professor Bechamp gave hearty assent, and
told me to proceed exactly as I might think best for the
promulgation of the great truths of biology, physiology, and of
pathology, discovered by him, and authorized me freely to
publish either summaries or translations into English, as I
might deem most advisable.

In pursuance of this authorisation, the present volume is
published, and is intended to introduce to peoples of the
English tongue the last of the great discoveries of Professor
Bechamp.

The subject of the work is described by its title, but it is
well to remind the medical and to inform the lay public, that
the problem of the coagulation of the blood, so beautifully
solved in this volume, has until now been an enigma and
opprobrium to biologists, physiologists and pathologists.

The professor was in his 85th year at the time of the
publication of the work here translated. To the best of the
translator's knowledge it has not yet been plagiarised and is
the only one of the Professor's more important discoveries which
has not been so treated; but at the date of its publication the
arch plagiarist was dead, though his evil work still lives.

One of the discoveries of Bechamp was the formation of urea by
the oxidation of albuminoid matters.1 The fact, novel at the
time, was hotly disputed, but is now definitely settled in
accordance with Bechamp's view; his memoir described in detail
the experimental demonstration of a physiological hypothesis of
the origin of the urea of the organism, which had been supposed
to proceed from the destruction of nitrogenous matters.

1. Annales Physiques et Chimiques, 3d., Vol XLVIII p348 (1856)
C.R. Vol XLIII p348

By a long series of exact experiments he demonstrated clearly
the specificity of the albuminoid matters and he fractionized
into numerous defined species albuminoid matters described
theretofore as constituting a single definite compound.

He introduced new yet simple processes of experimentation of
great value, which enabled him to publish a list of definite
compounds and to isolate a series of soluble ferments to which
he gave the name of zymases. To obscure his discoveries, the
name of diastases has often been given to these ferments, but
that of zymas must be restored. He also showed the importance of
these soluble products (the zymases) which are secreted by
living organisms.

He was thus led to the study of fermentations. Contrary to the
then generally received chemical theory, he demonstrated that
the alcoholic fermentation of beer-yeast was of the same order
as the phenomena which characterize the regular performance of
an act of animal life - digestion.

In 1856 he showed that moulds1 transformed cane sugar into
invert sugar (glucose) in the same manner as does the inverting
ferment secreted by beer yeast. The development of these moulds
is aided by certain salts, impeded by others, but without moulds
there is no transformation. He showed that a sugar solution
treated with precipitated calcic carbonate does not undergo
inversion when care is taken to prevent the access to it of
external germs, whose presence in the air was originally
demonstrated by him.2

If to such a solution the calcareous rock of Mendon or Sens be
added instead of pure calcic carbonate, moulds appear and the
inversion takes place.3

1. Annales de physique et de Chimie,
3d S., Vol. LIV, p. 28 (1858).  
2. Repertoire de Chimie pure, Vol. I. p. 69 (1859).  
3. Role de la craic dans les fermentations, Bull. Soc. chim.,
Vol. VI. p. 484 (1866).

These moulds, under the microscope, are seen to be formed by a
collection of molecular granulations which Bechamp named
microzymas. Not found in pure calcic carbonate, they are found
in geological calcareous strata, and Bechamp established that
they were living beings capable of inverting sugar, and some of
them to make it ferment. He also showed that these granulations
under certain conditions evolved into bacteria.

To enable these discoveries to be appropriated by another, the
name microbe was later applied to them, and this term is better
known than that of microzyma; but the latter name must be
restored, and the word microbe must be erased from the language
of science into which it has introduced an overwhelming
confusion. It is also an etymological solecism.a

Bechamp denied spontaneous generation, while Pasteur continued
to believe it. Later he, too, denied spontaneous generation, but
he did not understand his own experiments, and they are of no
value against the arguments of the sponteparist Pouchet, which
could be answered only by the microzymian theory. So, too,
Pasteur never understood either the process of digestion nor
that of fermentation, both of which processes were explained by
Bechamp, and by a curious imbroglio (was it intentional?) both
of these discoveries have been ascribed to Pasteur. That Lister
did, as he said, most probably derive his knowledge of
antisepsis (which Bechamp had discovered) from Pasteur, is
rendered probable by the following peculiar facts. In the
earlier antiseptic operations of Lister the patients died in
great numbers, so that it came to be a gruesome sort of medical
joke to say that "the operation was successful, but the patient
died." But Lister was a surgeon of great skill and observation,
and he gradually reduced his employment of antiseptic material
to the necessary and not too large dose, when his "operations
were successful and his patients lived."

[a. The Greeks used the term macrobe to signify persons whose
lives were of long duration. By analogy, microbe would be
appropriate to persons whose lives are of short duration.
Bechamp proved that his microzymas were of immense longevity;
hence to them the term macrobe might have been applicable,
though that of microzyma, meaning small ferment, is not less so.
So, contrasting the life term,awhile the microzymas might be
termed macrobes, men would be microbes. aTrans.]

Had he learned his technique from the discoverer of antisepsis,
Bechamp, he would have saved his earlier patients; but deriving
it at second hand from a savant (?) who did not understand the
principle he was plagiarizing,1 Lister had to acquire his
subsequent knowledge of the proper technique through his
practice, i.e., at the cost of his earlier patients.

Bechamp carried further the aphorism of Virchow - Omnis cellula
e cellula - which the state of microscopical art and science at
that time had not enabled the latter to achieve. Not the cellule
but the microzyma must, thanks to Bechamp's discoveries, be
to-day regarded as the unit of life, for the cellules are
themselves transient and are built up by the microzymas, which,
physiologically, are imperishable, as he has clearly
demonstrated.

Bechamp studied the diseases of the silk worm then (1866)
ravaging the Southern provinces of France and soon discovered
that there were two of them - one, the pebrine, which is due to
a parasite;2 the other, the flacherie, which is constitutional.
A month later, Pasteur in a report to the Academy of his first
silkworm campaign, denied the parasite, saying of Bechamp's
observation, "that is an error." Yet in his second report, he
adopted it, as though it were his own discovery!

The foregoing is but a very imperfect list of the labors and
discoveries of Bechamp, of which the work now translated was the
crowning glory.

*1. See "Louis Pasteur, Ses
plagiats chimiel-physiologiques et Medicaux"*  *2. C. R.Vol. LXII. p. 1341.*

The present work describes the latest of all the admirable
biological discoveries of the Professor Bechamp. It is proposed
to follow it up with a translation of The Theory of the
Microzymas and the Microbian System now in course of
translation; and The Microzymas, the translation whereof is
completed. Other works will, it is hoped, follow, viz.: The
Great Medical Problems, the first part of which is ready for the
printer, Vinous Fermentation, translation complete; New
Researches upon the Albuminoids, also complete, etc., etc.

The study of these and of the other discoveries of Professor
Bechamp will produce a new departure and a sound basis for the
sciences of biology, of physiology and of pathology, today
floating in chaotic uncertainty and confusion; and will, it is
hoped, bring the medical profession back to the right path of
investigation and of practice from which it has suffered itself
to be led astray into the microbian theory of disease, which, as
before mentioned, was declared by Bechamp to be the "greatest
scientific silliness of the age."

Ainsi Soit-il!

Montague R. Leverson London, 1911

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**POST SCR****I****PTUM**

The translator is greatly indebted
to Dr. Harlyn Hitchcock, Chas. M. Higgins, Esq., and Major Thos.
Boudren, for aid rendered, in various ways, in the work of
getting out this book.

He must specially thank Dr.
Hitchcock, to whose learning, great and kindly given labor, and
skill in proofA-reading, he is indebted for the discovery of many
press errors the translator's failing eyesight caused him to
overlook.

---

**AUTHOR'S** **PREFACE**

This book is the last work by a man who should today be
regarded as one of the founders of modern medicine and biology
and who deserves a place as one of the giants of the history of
science. History, however, is written by the winners; the career
of Antoine Bechamp, and the manner in which both he and his work
have been written out of history, bear witness to the truth of
this statement.

During his long and distinguished career as an academic and a
researcher in 19th century France, Antoine Bechamp was widely
known as both a teacher and an innovator. His work was widely
documented in scientific circles, and few made as much use of
this fact as the now famous Louis Pasteur, who set about
plagiarising and distorting Bechamp's ideas and discoveries, and
in doing so gained for himself an undeserved and unwarranted
place in the history of medical science.

There have been several excellent books written (mainly in the
early decades of this century), which explain in detail the
plagiarisms and accompanying injustices which Pasteur and others
inflicted on Bechamp.

This present text, The Third Element of the Blood, is the
injured party's own exposition of his position and his defence
of it. It is a reworked translation of the last major work
written by Professor Bechamp, and as such it describes the
culmination of his life's work, and shows clearly the importance
that his work should have with regard to contemporary medicine
and science.

This book contains, in great detail, the elements of the
Microzymian theory of the organization of living organisms and
organic materials. It has immediate and far reaching relevance
to the fields of immunology, bacteriology, and cellular biology,
and it shows that more than 100 years ago, the germ, or
microbian, theory of disease was demonstrated by Bechamp and
those who worked with him to be without foundation.

The reader should be aware when reading The Third Element of
the Blood that in formulating his microzymian theory of
biological organisation, Bechamp in no way sought to establish
it as the last word on the subjects of disease, its
transmission, general physiology, or indeed the organisation of
living matter itself. The Professor worked until a few weeks
before his death; even if he were working now, he would no doubt
still regard his work as unfinished.

It is no accident but rather a vindication of the truth of
Bechamp's theories that many researchers over the course of the
twentieth century have arrived at hypotheses and conclusions in
various disciplines that concur with the microzymian model.

In the United States during the 1920s and 30s, Royal Rife's
microscope revealed processes of life which would have made a
great deal of sense to Bechamp. The medical establishment,
however, was confounded by the implications of Rife's
discoveries, especially so when he began curing diseases,
including cancer, with electromagnetic frequencies. Rife and his
discoveries were soon consigned to that special anonymity which
is reserved for those who threaten the interests of a system
which supports itself by maintaining a high level of sickness
amongst humanity, and keeping health at a safe and lucrative
distance.

To maintain the profits of the drug companies and the authority
of the medical establishment, no price is too great, and by the
time Rife died, his work was all but forgotten.

Another process, this time a more recent one called CanCell, is
experiencing the same fate at the same hands. Using techniques
which are very much a refinement and development of Rife's use
of frequencies, Ed Sopcak has developed a process which has been
tested and vindicated by the American FDA, who are now doing
their best to bury it. Again, the danger of this technology
seems to be that it works, against Aids and cancer as well as
other diseases, and it is simple and cheap. For years, Sopcak
has given CanCell away without charge to anyone who asked for
it. Today he can no longer do so because of a groundless court
injunction.

Many of the "alternative" ideas of medicine and biology that
are currently under attack in various parts of the world would
have no argument with the views of Bechamp. And if science had
granted to Bechamp the position in history and the influence
upon scientific thought that it instead allowed to fall into the
hands of the charlatan and opportunist Louis Pasteur, modern
science would in turn have no argument with those ideas which
today are being suppressed at every turn, whether by law,
propaganda, discrimination, or, as in the latest development,
armed raids, confiscation of equipment, and the jailing of
researchers and health practicioners.

One such unfortunate is Basil Wainright, an American
responsible for a process known as polyatomic apheresis, an
advanced form of oxygen therapy which has proven itself to be
effective enough against Aids and cancer for it to be worth
banning. At the time of writing, he has spent three years in
prison without being charged with any offence, his medications
for Parkinson's disease have been tampered with, and clinics
using polyatomic apheresis have been raided and closed.

Similar stories could be told concerning many other products
and practices, including Essiac and other herbal therapies,
which should have been greeted with open arms, but have instead
been marginalised by the establishment.

Among the many characteristics that these processes and
theories have in common is the fact that the Germ Theory, that
great and fallacious iconoclasm that Pasteur and his legions
have cursed modern medical thinking with, plays no part in them.
There is no hunt for the responsible bug, no expensive and
complicated treatment for the sole cause of a disease.

The Germ Theory is convenient because it provides what every
simplistic view of a problem seeks before all else: a culprit,
an invisible hare for the hounds to chase in their costly
research labs, universities, hospitals, and drug factories. The
fact that the hare can never be caught is the perfect guarantee
that their race will never finish, their demands for funding
will never cease, and their ability to generate profits for the
drug and chemical corporations will continue to grow.

There is no single cause of disease. The ancients thought this,
Bechamp proved it and was written out of history for his
trouble, and now the same thing is being done to those whose
work, consciously or otherwise, carries on from where Bechamp's
left off. The relevance of his work to the dilemmas that beset
modern medical science remains as yet unrealised.

This book is being republished with the intention of being one
small element in the movement that will correct that situation.

The original English edition of 1912, translated from the
French by Dr M. Leverson, has until now been available only as a
facsimile reproduction.

This new edition has been reset, in a new layout that it is
hoped will make the content much more accessible. Wherever it
has been possible without altering the intent of the author,
archaic or ambiguous use of English has been brought up to date.

Please note that even though the text is from a published book,
there is \*no\* copyright attached to it. Feel free to use and
distribute it in any way you see fit - in fact, the further and
wider the better.

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**AUTHOR'S PREFACE, Part 1**

*There is nothing but what ought to be. -
Galileo*

*Nothing is created, nothing is lost. -
Lavoisier*

*Nothing is the prey of death: all things are
the prey of life. - The Author*

The historian of the founders of modern astronomy lately
related that Cleanthus, a philosopher, three centuries before
our era, wished to prosecute Aristarchus for blasphemy, for
having believed that the earth moved, and dared to say the sun
was the immovable center of the universe; that two thousand
years later, human reason having remained stationary, the wish
of Cleanthus was realized; Galileo having been accused of
blasphemy and impiety for having, like Copernicus and following
Aristarchus, maintained the same truth; "a tribunal dreaded by
all, condemned his writings and forced him to a recantation
which his conscience denied."

The following is the judgement of the historian upon this
event: "Never perhaps has the generous detestation of the public
conscience for intolerance shone forth more strongly than around
the name of Galileo.

"The narrative of his misfortunes, exaggerated like a holy
legend, has affirmed, while avenging him, the triumph of the
truths for which he suffered; the scandal of his condemnation
will forever vex in their pride those who would oppose force to
reason; and the righteous severity of opinion will preserve its
inconvenient remembrance as an eternal reproach thrown in their
teeth to confound them".

"The righteous severity of the judgement which preserves the
inconvenient memory" of the sufferings of Galileo, it is well to
mention, is that of the scholarly and learned members of
Academies whereof the author forms part. It is agreed; yes,
intolerance is odious and hateful, the situation of Galileo was
particularly horrible. He was forced to go to church and
pronounce with a loud voice the abjuration dictated to him: "I,
Galileo, in the seventieth year of my age, on my knees before
your Eminences, having before my eyes the holy gospels, which I
touch with my own hands, I abjure, I curse, I detest the error
and the heresy of the movement of the earth."  There is no
more atrocious torture than this brutal violence against the
conscience of a man. It is the greatest abuse of force and pride
when we know that it was the priests of Jesus Christ who
perpetrated it.

The theologians of the holy office were not competent to judge
the astronomer Galileo, yet they in their ignorance undertook to
proscribe an opinion which differed from their own, as being
erroneous and contrary to the holy Scriptures, which, said the
Popes, "were dictated by the mouth of God himself." In truth
what did they know about it? Assuredly it is distressing to
observe how long "human reason can remain at the same point"
upon a given by experiment alone.

It is interesting to know if the lesson taught by the
condemnation of Galileo has been properly learned, and if three
centuries later "the righteous severity of the judgement against
those who would still resist the power of reason" would be able
to protect those who labor disinterestedly for the triumph of
the truth, if, in short, those who, for the large public, are as
authoritative judges of the value of the discoveries of others,
have become less intolerant, or, at least, more impartial, less
prompt to pronounce against opinions which they do not share,
less anxious to deny facts than to test them. And if the lesson
has not been learned, it is not less interesting to examine if
it is "human reason" which must be held responsible; if it be
not rather "pettifogging" ratiocination, the abuse of reasoning
warped by passion and too often by personal interest which
overcomes private conscience and leads the public astray.

The history of a discussion wherein chemistry and physiology
closely united were interested, which agitated the second half
of the century now closing (the 19th), is well adapted to show
that human nature has not changed since the time of Cleanthus,
and that there always exist persons ready to associate
themselves together to contradict or insult the unfortunate
wretch who has devised some new theory, based upon unsuspected
facts, which would compel them to reform their arguments and
abandon their prejudices.

This work upon the blood, which I present at last to the
learned public, is as the crown to a collection of works upon
ferments and fermentation, upon spontaneous generation, upon
albuminoid substances, upon organization, upon physiology and
general pathology which I have pursued without relaxation since
1854, at the same time with other researches of pure chemistry
more or less directly related to them, and it must be added, in
the midst of a thousand difficulties raised up by relentless
opponents from all sides, especially whence I least expected
them.

To solve some very delicate problems I had to create new
methods of research, of physiological, of chemical and
anatomical analysis. Ever since 1857 these researches have been
directed by a precise design to a determined end; the
enunciation of a new doctrine regarding organization and life.
It led to the microzymian theory of the living organisation,
which has led to the discovery of the true nature of blood by
that of its third anatomical element, and, at least, to a
rational, natural explanation of the phenomenon called its
spontaneous coagulation. But the microzymian theory, which is to
biology what the Lavoisierian theory of matter is to chemistry,
and is founded on the discovery of the microzymas, living
organisms of an unsuspected category, has been attacked in its
principle, by denying the very existence of the microzymas.
Since this was so, if the assertion that the microzymian theory
of the living organization gives to biology a base as solid as
does the Lavoisierian theory to chemistry, be deemed imprudent,
well, I choose to commit this imprudence, and to be imprudent to
the end and to struggle against a current of opinion which is
the more violent, as will be seen, the more it is artificial.

It was the boldest of those who deny the fact of the existence
of the microzymas who wrote:

"Whenever it can be done, it is useful to point out the
connection of new facts with earlier facts of the same order.
Nothing is more satisfying to the mind than to be able to follow
a discovery from its origin to its latest development." 1

That is very well and very fine, the more so that the author
took good care not to follow this wise precept; let us ascend
then to the sources.

Two centuries after Galileo we were still in the Aristotlelian
hypothesis regarding matter, but reinforced by the alchemical
hypothesis of transmutation and the Stahlian one of phlogiston.
It was readily conceded that matter could of itself become
living matter, animated, such as it is in plants and animals;
thus it was that spontaneous generation was still generally
admitted. Charles Bonnet himself said that organization was the
most excellent modification of matter; nevertheless that learned
naturalist and philosopher attempted to opposed spontaneous
generation by imagining in turn the hypothesis of encapsulation
and that of pre-existing germs universally diffused, whereof
Spallanzani made use to refute the experiments and conclusions
of the sponteparist Needham, member of the Royal Society of
London. On the other hand, to sustain Needham, Buffon invented
the hypotheses of organic molecules, not less universally
diffused, whose substance, distinct from common matter, called
raw matter, helped to explain the growth of plants and animals,
as well as spontaneous generation.2

*1. L Pasteur, Annales de chimie et de physique, 3d S. Vol.
LVIII, p. 371, note.*  *2. It is wrong to suppose that the word organic, in
organic molecules, had the same meaning as in organic matters
of modem chemists; this is so little the truth that Buffon
admitted organic molecules to explain the crystallization of
marine salt or of others, purely mineral*

Fermentations and ferments were very simply explained. Macquer
in 1772, in agreement with the savants, regarded it as certain
that vegetable and animal matters, abstracted from living
organisms, under certain conditions of the presence of water, of
contact, at least momentarily, of the air and of temperature,
become altered of themselves, ferment, becoming putrid in
producing the ferment.

And according to the same principles it was said that water
could transmute itself into earth, the earth into a poplar, and
that the blood begets itself by the transmutation of flesh into
the flowing liquor.

Such in a few words was the condition of science upon these
questions before the advent of Lavoisier. In the Lavoisierian
theory there is no matter other than that of simple bodies,
which are heavy, indestructible by the means at our disposal,
always reappearing the same, not withstanding all the
vicissitudes of their various combinations among themselves and
the changes of states or allotropic modifications they might
undergo. No transmutations and no phlogistication to explain the
phenomena.

In this theory, matter is only mineral, simple bodies being
essentially mineral. There is no living or animal matter, no
matter essentially organic. That which, long after the time of
Lavoisier, chemists have called organic matters are only
innumerable combinations in various proportions which carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen can form, often with other simple
bodies at the same time, sulphur, phosphorus, iron, etc., carbon
being always present, so that what is called organic matter in
modern chemistry is only various combinations of carbon with the
simple bodies mentioned.

In fact, Lavoisier, after his demonstration that water did not
become transmuted into earth, nor earth into plants, asserted
that plants draw their food from the air, as was verified later.
He even asserted that animals obtained the materials for their
nutrition from plants, thus demonstrating that plants effected
the synthesis of the substance without which animals could not
exist. Even respiration was only a common phenomenon of
oxidation. The substance of plants and that of animals being
only combinations of carbon with hydrogen and oxygen, with the
addition of nitrogen for animals, it is very interesting to
recall shortly what Lavoisier thought of the putrefaction of
these substances and of fermentation.

Like everybody he knew that the juice of grapes and that of
apples enters into fermentation of itself to produce wine or
cider, and he wrote the following equation:

grape = must = carbonic acid + alcohol.

To demonstrate this, he reduced the experiment to the
employment of sugar, which he called a vegetable oxide, of water
and of a ferment. The following is his account of the
experiment:

"To ferment sugar it must first be dissolved in about four
parts of water. But water and sugar, no matter what proportions
be employed, will not ferment alone, and equilibrium will
persist between the principles (the simple bodies) of this
combination if it be not broken by some means.

A little yeast is sufficient to produce this effect and to give
the first movement to the fermentation; it then continues of
itself to the end. The effects of vinous fermentation reduced
themselves to separating the sugar into two portions, to
oxygenize the one at the expense of the other to produce
carbonic acid of it; to deoxygenize the other in favour of the
former to make alcohol of it; so that if it were possible to
recombine the alcohol and carbonic acid, the sugar would be
reformed."

It is thus clear that Lavoisier instead of the equation
regarding the must might have written thus:

sugar = carbonic acid + alcohol.

Lavoisier intended to give elsewhere an account of the effects
of yeast and of ferments in general, which he was prevented from
doing. But it can be seen from his Treatise upon Elementary
Chemistry, published in 1788, that he had established that yeast
is a quarternary nitrogenized body, and that which remained of
it at the end of the fermentation contained less nitrogen, and
that besides the alcohol a little acetic acid was formed.
Lavoisier also found that after distillation there remained a
fixed residue representing about 4% of the sugar. We shall see
later the importance of these remarks.

It might thereafter have been anticipated that Lavoisier should
explain the phenomena of the putrid fermentation of vegetable
and animal substances "as operating by virtue of very
complicated affinities" between the constituted principles of
these substances (the simple bodies), which in this operation
cease to be in equilibrium so as to be constituted into other
compounds.

Bichat, who died in 1802, at the age of 31, had been much
struck by the results of the labors of Lavoisier. He could not
accept a living matter constituted of pure chemical compounds
whereof the simple elements are the constituent principles. He
imagined, then, that the only living things in a living being
are the organs composed of the tissues, whereof he distinguished
twenty-one as elementary anatomical elements, as the elementary
bodies are chemical elements. Such was the first influence of
the Lavoisierian theory upon physiological anatomy; it was thus
that in 1806 in the third edition of his "Philosophie Chimique"
Fourcroy said:

"Only the tissue of living plants, only their vegetating
organs, can form the matters extracted from them, and no
instrument of art can imitate the compositions which are
prepared in the organized machines of plants."

What marvellous and novel language! It is true that, a chemist
rallying to the new theory, Fourcroy, like Bichat, was a
physician.

Let us bear in mind that Bichat had been led by the
Lavoisierian theory of matter to lay down a new principle of
physiology. As Galileo had laid down the metaphysical principle:
"nothing is but what ought to be," Dumas drew from the chapter
of fermentation of Lavoisier's treatise the following principle,
which is also a necessary one: "nothing is created, nothing is
lost."

We have above rapidly sketched the state of the relations of
chemistry and physiology as well as the state of the subject of
fermentations at the beginning of the nineteenth century; we
will now see what they were at the commencement of the second
half of that century (say), about 1856.

The chemists, thanks to direct analytical methods which were
more and more perfected, isolated a great number of incomplex
compounds, acids, alkaloids, neutral or having divers functions,
from vegetable and animal substances, which incomplex compounds
were more and more exactly specified under the name of proximate
principles of plants and of animals, nitrogenized ternaries and
quaternaries.

Among the nitrogenized proximate principles a number of them
were distinguished as soluble or insoluble, also
uncrystallizable, such as the albumin of the white of egg and of
the serum of blood, caseum (later called casein) of milk, the
fibrin of the blood and that of the muscles, the gelatine of the
bones, the gluten of wheat, the albumin of the juices of plants,
etc. In process of time, the similarity of their composition and
of certain of their common properties with the albumin of the
white of egg led to these matters being formed into the groups
of the albuminoid matters. Lavoisier knew these albuminoid
matters only in so far as they were nitrogenized animal matters.

Now after the discovery of gluten, of vegetable albumen,
nitrogenized quaternaries like beer yeast, it was admitted that
they were the ferment of vinous fermentation; then generalizing
it came to be thought that albumin, the albuminoids in general,
became or were directly the ferment; while the ternary proximate
principles, such as cane sugar, grape sugar, milk sugar, the
other sugars, amylaceous matter, inulin, gum, mannite, etc.,
were called fermentescible matter.

Matters had reached this point when about 1836, Cagniard de
Latour, resuming the study of beer yeast1 and of its
multiplication during the fermentation which produces beer,
regarded it as organized and living, decomposing the sugar into
alcohol and carbonic acid by an effect of its vegetation.

1. A study already made by
Desmazieres, who regarded the globule of beer-yeast as an
infusoria under the name of Mycoderma cerevisiae, but which
Turpin called a plant under the generic name of Toruta and
Kutzing under that of Cryptococcus.

That was a conception as original as that of Bichat. In effect
it is not because of his having regarded beer yeast as organized
and its multiplication during fermentation as a multiplication
by vegetation, that the conception of Cagniard de Latour is
original; it is because he admitted that the fermentation of the
sugar operated by an effect of this vegetation, that is to say,
owing to a physiological act. That was an absolutely new point
of view; beer yeast, the only isolated ferment known, ceased to
be regarded as a precipitate of albuminoid matter which had
become insoluble, and was henceforth looked upon as a living
being! Yeast ceased to be regarded as the reagent that Lavoisier
had admitted as able to disturb the equilibrium of the simple
bodies which constituted sugar.

Also, soon after wards, Turpin, the botanist, interpreted the
effect of the vegetation of Cagniard by saying that the globule
of yeast was a cellule which decomposed sugar in nourishing
itself. Dumas went further and asserted that the ferments, the
yeast, behaved as do animals who feed, and that, for the orderly
maintenance of the life of the yeast, there was needed, as for
animals, besides sugar, nitrogenized albuminoid matter.

In Germany, Schwann pronounce for the opinion of Cagniard de
Latour while broadening the question; he supposed that no animal
or vegetable substance altered of itself and that every
phenomenon of fermentation presupposed a living ferment. To
prove this he experimented as Spallanzani had done - improving
upon his method, in order to demonstrate that the infusoria or
ferments had their origin in the germs of the air. The
experiments of Schwann were confirmed by several others.

But the conception of Cagniard de Latour did not prevail, nor
especially the interpretation of Turpin and of Dumas. It was not
denied that infusoria or moulds existed in the mixtures in a
state of alteration, but it was denied that they were the agents
of the fermentation; this would begin of itself and the altered
matter was regarded as evidence in favor either of spontaneous
generation or of the production of these living products by the
germs of the air.

The discovery of diastase and of synapse, soluble and
nitrogenized quaternaries like yeast, was held to legitimize the
refusal to consider yeast as acting because it was organized and
living. Now these substances being reagents of rare power for
transforming certain fermentescible matters in aqueous solution,
the transformations were called fermentation, and these reagents
were called ferments; and it was said, you see that it is not
because they are organized and living that the ferments act to
effect the phenomena of fermentation. Then the opponents of the
doctrine of Cagniard de Latour and of Schwann, with regard to
fermentations and the relations of chemistry to physiology,
triumphed so completely that opinions reverted to the point
maintained in 1788. The principle of Bichat's doctrine was lost
to view; not only was it admitted that vegetable and animal
matters altered of themselves under the conditions specified by
Macquer, but also the proximate principles extracted from them,
even cane sugar, the aque ous solution whereof Lavoisier had
declared to be unalterable. In short, the old hypothesis of
germs of the air, which Schwann had revived, was completely lost
to view.

Nothing is better fitted to convince one that the human soul
during the second half of the 19th century has remained the same
as it was in the times of Galileo and of the inquisition, than
to reflect upon the sequel of the history I have just sketched
out.a  I will now describe the fundamental experiment, the
results whereof have completely changed the aspect of science
with regard to the relations of chemistry and physiology with
fermentation, such as they were still imagined to be at the end
of the year 1857, after the theory of Cagniard de Latour in
relation to yeast had been rejected.

*[a. The translator bespeaks a
painstaking attention by men of science, by philosophers and
by philanthropists to the rest of this narrative; and to
keep in mind the constant boastings by literateurs, by the
press, and by men held as most eminent in science of our
superiority over our fathers. Can that superiority be proved
to exist elsewhere than in the arts of murder, and what
pertains thereto?a Trans.]*

In 1854 it was conceded that cane sugar dissolved in water
altered of itself and became transformed into what is called
invert sugar, because the solution which deviated the plane of
polarization to the right deviated it to the left after the
alteration. The inverted sugar was also called grape sugar. The
phenomenon of this alteration was called inversion.

With reference to other researches I resolved to verify the
fact, and in the month of May, 1854, I left to themselves in a
closed flask, in the presence of a small volume of air, at
ordinary temperature, in a diffused light, some aqueous
solutions of pure cane sugar. After several months I found that
the sugar solutions in pure distilled water were partly
inverted. At the beginning of 1855 I published the observation
as a verification of the admitted fact, but I mentioned at the
same time the presence of a mould in the inverting liquor. It is
not an unusual thing to see moulds appear in aqueous solutions
of the most diverse substances. That was why, in the then state
of science and of the contradictory assertions regarding the
experiments of Schwann, I would not assert anything beyond the
fact. I noted merely that in the solutions to which I had added
chloride of calcium, or chloride of zinc, the inversion had not
taken place and no mould had appeared. To find an explanation of
these differences I mad various experiments, commencing in 1855
and continued them to the month of December, 1857.

Among these experiments, all accordant with one another, I
select two, because, reducing the problem to its simplest
expression, they leave no room for doubt concerning the
legitimacy of the conclusions I deduced from them.

The first conclusion was that: the solution of cane sugar in
distilled water remains indefinitely unchanged when, having been
boiled, it is preserved in an absolutely full closed vase.

The second was: The same solution, whether boiled or not, left
in a closed vessel in the presence of a limited volume of air
permits the appearance of colorless moulds, generally
myceliennated, and the solution becomes completely inverted in
the course of time, while the liquor reddens litmus paper, that
is to say, becomes acid. To prove that the volume of air left in
the closed flask has nothing to do with the inversion it
suffices to add beforehand a small quantity of creosotea or a
trace of sublimate of mercury to ensure that the liquid shall
not become acid, or mouldy, and that the sugar will remain
unchanged.

*[a. Here is the discovery and
source of all that is true in the theory and practice of
antisepsis; but it has been carried to absurd extremes by
the dominant faction in medicine.aTrans.)*

These two experiments demonstrated to me clearly that the
presence of the air was essential for the inversion to take
place and for the moulds to be born, and at the same time that
the volume of air left present could not operate the inversion.

It was then necessarily the developed moulds which were the
agents of the phenomena observed. But myceliennated moulds are
true microscopic plants, and consequently organized and living.
I proved that they were nitrogenized and that, introduced into
creosoted sugar water, they inverted the cane sugar much more
rapidly than during their development. Nevertheless these moulds
being insoluble, I asked myself how they do it? And I supposed
that it was by an agent analogous to diastase and also thanks to
the acid formed; but I have since demonstrated that it was
indeed chiefly by means of a soluble ferment which they contain
and which they secrete. And the presence of this soluble
ferment, and consequently of an albuminoid matter, explained to
me how, being nitrogenized, the moulds, when heated with caustic
potash, set free an abundance of ammonia.

But these moulds being nitrogenized could not be born of the
cane sugar, which I have proven to be exempt from nitrogen. Now
besides this sugar there was nothing present but distilled
water, the mineral substance of the glass, and no other nitrogen
than that of the air left in the closed flask; now (thanks to a
little creosote or mercuric chloride) the experiment itself
showed that these materials could not unite of themselves, by
synthesis, to produce the substance of the moulds. Nothing then
remained to explain the birth of the organized productions than
the old hypothesis of germs; pretended germs, which allowed me
no rest until I had discovered their origin and nature.

While waiting to specify them, I admitted that under the
conditions of the experiment "germs brought by the air found in
the sugared solution a favorable medium for their development1;
a development during which the new organism, making use of the
materials present, effects the synthesis of the nitrogenized and
non-nitrogenized materials of its substance.

*1. Annales de chimie et de
physique, 3d S., Vol. LIV, p. 28 (1858).*

Under the conditions of the experiment such as I have reported,
where there are no other mineral matters than those of the
glass, the crop of organized production is necessarily very
small, and the inversion as well as the transformations which
follow it are very slow.

The addition of certain salts or of creosote hinders the
inversion by preventing the development of the germs, either by
rendering the medium sterile or by acting directly upon the
former.

But the addition of certain other purely mineral salts, even of
arsenious acid, had the effect of increasing the harvest and of
singularly hastening the inversion and the other phenomena of
fermentation which follow it, for if the reaction is prolonged,
the acid of which I have spoken above is found to be acetic
acid, with, in certain cases, lactic acid, and alcohol in all
cases; but to determine the production of this last the mould
must be allowed to act for several years.

It was thus that I was able to establish that the study made in
1857 was really a phenomenon of fermentation, for the
manifestation whereof it had not been necessary to employ
albuminoid matter, but which, on the contrary, was produced from
these matters.

In its simplicity, the experiment was of the same order, for
physiological chemistry, as had been the observation of Galileo
with regard to the lamp, hung by a long cord, which oscillated
slowly before the altar of the cathedral of Pisa. From that
oscillation it was learned that it always beat the same measure,
that the duration of the oscillation is independent of its
amplitude and Huyghens discovered the law of the pendulum's
oscillation by connecting it with the galleon principle of
falling bodies. The consequences which have sprung from the
above experiment have not been less fruitful; some day doubtless
there will come a genius like to that of Huyghens to extend them
and increase their fruitfulness; Meanwhile the following are
some which I have been able to deduce from it, either in 1857 or
subsequently while continuing to experiment. The chief and
essential facts of the memoir of 1857 are the following:

Cane sugar, a proximate principle, in watery solution, is
naturally unalterable, even in contact with a limited volume of
air, when the solution has been previously creosoted.

The solution of cane sugar in contact with a like limited
volume of air permits the appearance of moulds and the sugar is
altered, first of all becoming inverted.

If the solution has first had creosote added to it, moulds do
not appear and the sugar is not altered.

The fact that moulds develop in sugared water, in contact with
a small limited quantity of air, forms the verification of the
hypothesis of atmospheric germs; in no other way can that fact
be explained.

Developed moulds invert the cane sugar, even when the solution
has first been creosoted; that is to say, the creosote which
hinders the moulds from being born does not prevent them when
born, from acting. Moulds being insoluble by reason of their
being organized, effect the inversion by means of an agent
analogous to diastase; that is to say, by means of a soluble
ferment.

The totality of the phenomena of the non-spontaneous alteration
of cane sugar and of the production of an acid and of alcohol,
prove it to be a fermentation both of moulds and of ferments.1

1. I have called by the name of
moulds the totality of the productions which have appeared in
different experiments which I have diversified; thus, although
generally these moulds remained in the state of colorless
mycelium, even in solutions to which arsenious acid and
certain salts had been added, in others the completely
developed mould was green or gray and rarely red. In some
experiments there were actual cellules, different both from
yeast globules and from the ferment of the lees of wine.
Generally, at the beginning of the experiment, there was a
slight deposit before the appearance of the mycelian tubes; in
some cases, the inversions were effected by the "isolated
little bodies," little bodies which I had not known how to
classify, but which I held to be organized and living because,
like the mycelian moulds, they effected the inversion of the
sugar even in a creosoted solution.

And these facts, studied more attentively, showed clearly,
contrary to what had before been believed, that albuminoid
matter was not necessary for the birth of these ferments; then
that the soluble ferments were not the products of the
alteration of some albuminoid matter, since the mould produced
at once the albuminoid matter and the soluble ferment in virtue
of its physiological functions of development and nutrition.

Thence it resulted that the soluble ferment was allied to the
insoluble by the relation of product to producer; the soluble
ferment being unable to exist without the figured ferment, which
is necessarily insoluble.

Further, as the soluble ferment and the albuminoid matter,
being nitrogenized, could only be formed by obtaining the
nitrogen from the limited volume of air left in the flasks, it
was at the same time demonstrated that the free nitrogen of the
air could help directly in the synthesis of the nitrogenized
substance of plants; which up to that time had been a disputed
question.

Thenceforward it became evident that since the synthesis of the
materials of the substance of moulds, of ferments, is
necessarily produced by intussusception within the organism of
these moulds, it must necessarily be that all the products of
fermentation are there produced and that they are secreted
therein as was secreted the soluble ferment which inverted the
cane sugar; hence I became assured that that which is called
fermentation is, in reality, the phenomenon of nutrition
assimilation, dissimulation, and excretion of the products
dissimulated.

Without doubt these views were in conformity with the
conceptions of Canard de Latour, even to those of Schwann and to
the more precise view of Turpin and especially of Dumas; but in
complete disagreement with those of their opponents, Liebig and
his followers, some of whom denied that yeast was living, and
held it to be nitrogenous matter in a state of decomposition,
others that it acted in so far as it was nourished, by an action
of extalyic contact, an occult cause, that it effected the
decomposition of sugar in the same manner as platinum that of
oxygenated water.

We must then demonstrate that that which was true of the moulds
was so in the same sense as in the case of beer yeast and of the
ferment of the lees of wine; that is to say, that the cellules
of these ferments invert cane sugar under the same conditions,
in spite of the creosote, and before any other phenomenon of
transformation is produced; it is found, in effect, that the
yeast contains the soluble ferment which inverts, as the mould
also contains it.

Nevertheless the opponents of the conception of Cagniard de
Latour and of Schwann could always object that if the creosote
prevents the cane sugar from being altered, it would not be the
same in the case of a mixture containing albuminoid matter; that
consequently, if in the mixture of sugared water and of beer
yeast, the cane sugar was inverted, it was because beer yeast,
an albuminoid substance, continued to be altered in spite of the
creosote.

I replied by demonstrating that under the same conditions as
the cane sugar all the true proximate principles, including
therein soluble and insoluble albuminoids, even the most complex
mixtures of proximate principles, remained unchanged, nothing
organized appearing in them; provided that in the cases wherein
cane sugar is present, the inverting soluble ferment does not
exist among these proximate principles, because creosote does
not prevent double ferments from reacting.

Two contemporary experiments of that fact greatly impressed me.

The first relates to milk. Everybody except Dumas regarded milk
as an emulsion, as a pure mixture of proximate principles. Now,
it is known that, like blood, it alters and clots after it is
drawn, of itself, as Macquer said in the last century (the
18th). This furnished an opportunity to verify the fact of the
unchangeableness of mixtures of proximate principles when
creosoted. The milk of a cow was then creosoted while being
drawn, by receiving it into vessels washed with boiling
creosoted water divided into three portions; one of which was
left with a limited volume of air present; a second was left
without any, and in the third the air was expelled by a current
of carbonic acid gas. To my very great surprise, the milk
altered, became sour and clotted, almost as quickly as if no
creosote had been added. At last, which surprised me most of
all, shortly after the coagulation was completed, there was a
crowd of bacteria in every part of the clot.

The second relates to the chalk which chemists employed, as
calcic carbonate, in their experiments even upon fermentation,
and which, like them, I employed to preserve the neutrality of
the media. Now, one day, some starch made of potato facula had
some chalk added to it to prevent it turning sour and was left
in an oven at 4 to 45 degrees C.(= 104 to 113 degrees F.). I
expected to find the starch with the same consistency as before;
on the contrary, it was liquefied. "The germs of the air," said
I. I repeated the experiment, creosoting the boiling starch and
added some of the same chalk; again liquification! Much
astonished I repeated the experiment, replacing the chalk with
pure artificial calcic carbonate; this time the creosoted starch
was not liquified, and I preserved it in this state for ten
years.

These two experiments, in their simplicity, were of the same
order, equally fundamental as that of the inversion of sugar by
moulds, but they embarrassed me much more. It was not until
after other researches and after having varied and controlled
them that I placed them before the learned societies of
Montpellier (1863) and informed Dumas of them in a letter which
he thought fit to publish,1 wherein I stated that some of the
calcareous earthy and milk contained living beings already
developed.

*1. Letter to Dumas, Annales de
chimie et de physique, 3d S.. Vol. VI, p. 248 (1865).*

And here are three other experiments, not less fundamental,
which verify the first three:

(1).  I had ascertained that in the fermentation of cane
sugar by moulds born of atmospheric germs, in a watery solution
of sugar, acetic acid is produced; why is it not also produced
in fermentation by beer yeast? And I shall prove that there is,
in fact, produced at the same time only a very small quantity of
acids homologous to acetic acid.

(2).  Beer yeast inverting cane sugar as do moulds, I
tried to isolate from the yeast the soluble ferment it produces,
as one can readily obtain as much beer yeast as may be required.
I will say here how I proceeded to isolate it directly. Brewery
yeast, pure, washed and drained, was treated with powdered cane
sugar in suitable quantity; the mixture of the two bodies became
liquefied and the sugar was entirely dissolved, so that the
product of the liquefaction being thrown upon a filter, if the
operation is performed on a sufficiently large quantity, permits
the flowing off of an abundant limpid liquid before any
indication of fermentation is manifested. The filtered liquid,
being treated with alcohol, furnishes (as does an infusion of
sprouted barley to precipitate its diastase) a rather
considerable white precipitate, whereof the part soluble in
water is the required soluble ferment. There could be no further
doubt, this soluble ferment forms part of the very substance of
the content of the cellule of the yeast. I gave it the name
first of zymas, and later that of zythozymas.

(3).  The cellule of yeast, being a living organism,
ought, being insoluble, to possess a vital resistance and should
permit only such things to issue from its being as were
disassimilated in it. Now, in effect, pure yeast, subjected to a
methodical washing with distilled water, yields to it at first
scarcely anything, only a trace of zythozymas and phosphoric
acid. But there comes a time when it yields enormously, then
less and less, until it has lost nearly 92% of its substance,
preserving its form with its tegument distended with water.

This observation suggested the making upon yeast the famous
experiment of Chossat upon starving dogs. To compel the yeast to
dwell in pure water would be to deprive it of nourishment; to
submit it to a regimen of starvation would force it to devour
itself. Pure yeast, steeped in creosoted distilled water,
absolutely protected from air, disengages pure carbonic acid for
a long time, producing alcohol, acetic acid, etc.; and at the
same time other compounds which it does not make when nourished
upon sugar. It exhausts itself thus enormously, remains whole a
long time, its tegument preserving its form and, having
eliminated its content almost wholly, inverts cane sugar to the
end. I thus demonstrated that notwithstanding the creosote, the
yeast alters of itself, as does the milk.

The spontaneous alteration of milk and that of yeast seemed to
me indisputable proof that neither milk nor yeast was a mixture
of proximate principles, but that both of them contain,
inherently, the living organised agent which is the cause of
their spontaneous alteration, or that consequently, if the chalk
liquefies fecula starch, it is because it contains that which
can produce the necessary soluble ferment.

It was the experiment of starving the yeast which enabled me to
complete the demonstration that the phenomenon called the
fermentation of cane sugar by yeast was the digestion of the
sugar by the zymas, the absorption of the digested (invert)
sugar by the cellule, the decomposition of this sugar in the
cellule being the result of the complex phenomenon of
assimilation, followed necessarily by disassimilation and of
elimination; the products eliminated being carbonic acid,
alcohol, acetic acid, etc., the same as with man the products of
disassimilation, urea, etc., come from man and reunite in part
in urine.

While I was thus experimenting to develop the consequences of
the memoir of 1857 and discovered the zythozymas in the yeast, I
also discovered anthozymas in flowers, morozymas in the white
mulberry, the nefrozymas of the kidneys in the urine as a
product of the function of the kidneys, in order to demonstrate
that as the moulds form and secrete their soluble ferment,
plants and animals form theirs in their organs, and I shall
demonstrate besides that the leukocytes of pus even produce a
zymas in the pus.

The phenomenon called fermentation is then the phenomenon of
nutrition, which is being accomplished in the ferment, in the
cellule of the yeast, in the same manner as the phenomenon of
nutrition is accomplished in the animal, and following the same
mechanism by the same means; this was the fundamental idea of my
memoir "Upon fermentations by organized ferments" which dates
from 1864.1

*1. CR Vol LVIII p601 (4 April 1864)*

I will revert later, with details, to this work, which also is
fundamental. I mention it now only as a verification of the
conception of Dumas of which mention has before been made; it
was in that work that for the first time the word zymas is
employed to designate the soluble ferment which yeast contains
performed, distinguishing the soluble ferments as agents of a
different order from the figured ferments and effecting
transformations also of a different order.

For the history one should read, in the Jahresbericht of
Heinrich Will for 1864, how this was regarded as new in Germany
and was favourably appreciated.

It is difficult, however, to realize the resistance which was
offered from many sources to the demonstration that the
phenomenon of fermentation is a phenomenon of nutrition
accomplishing itself in the ferment. It was simple because,
although M.Virchow had held that the cellules were living in a
living organism, the conception of Bichat was more and more
regarded as unacceptable and the hypothesis of the cellularists
as unfounded.

Alfred Estor, who was interested in my researches, in giving an
account of them in 1865, expressed himself as follows:

"It is easy to perceive the tendencies of M. Bechamp; each
cellule lives like a globule of yeast; each cellule should
modify by use the materials of nutrition which surround it, and
the general history of the phenomena of nutrition teaches us
that these modifications are due to ferments. We know what
emotion has welcomed the admirable works of Virchow upon
cellular pathology; in the remarkable researches of the
Montpellier professor there is to be found nothing less than the
foundations of a cellular physiology." 1

*1. Montpellier, Le messager du Midi (1865)*

Seven years had passed since the publication of the memoir upon
the inversion of cane sugar by moulds, when Estor delivered this
judgement and when I wrote to J.B.Dumas the letter upon living
agents which, in the milk, effect its spontaneous alteration and
which, in the chalk, effect the liquefaction and fermentation of
fecula starch. The year following I first named the microzymas
in the Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Sciences to designate
the ferments of the chalk.

It has been know since the time of Leuwenhoeck (17th century)
that human saliva is peopled with a great number of microscopic
organisms long since recognized as vibrioniens, but which in a
cleanly kept mouth I have found to be chiefly microzymas. I
supposed that, even as the "little bodies" inverted cane sugar
in the experiments of 1857, these microzymas might be those
which produced the salivary diastase of Miathe in the saliva. I
interested Estor and Camille Saintpiere in this question, and in
1867 we addressed a note to the Academy, having this title: "On
the role of the microscopic organisms of the mouth in digestion
in general, and particularly in the formation of the salivary
diastase." The note was sent for examination to a commission
composed of Louget and Robin, who made no report, and the note
was mentioned in the Compte Rendu in the following terms:

"The conclusion of this work is that it is not by an alteration
that the parotidian saliva becomes able to digest fecula, but by
means of a zymas which the organisms of Leuwenhoeck secrete
there, while nourishing themselves upon its materials." 1

*1. CR Vol LXIV p696 (1867)*

We demonstrated two facts equally essential, viz., that the
buccal microzymas of man liquify and saccharify the starch of
fecula with rare energy; that the parotidian saliva of the dog
or horse can also liquify starch, but does not saccharify it,
while such as has stayed upon the buccal organisms soon becomes
as saccharifying as human saliva.

The short note inserted by the commissioners shows that they
had no idea of a zymas produced as function of a cellule, of a
vibrionien, or of a microzyma, nor even of an organ. Here is an
indisputable proof thereof: the pancreas was known and it was
called an intestinal salivary gland. Now Bernard and Berthelot,
studying the pancreatic juice and isolating from it the soluble
substance called pancreatin, never thought for a moment to
compare it to the salivary diastase, although possessing, to the
same degree, the power of saccharifying the starch of fecula;
that is that Bernard, contrary to the opinion of Longet and of
Mialhe, held the salivary diastase, according to the ideas of
Liebig, to be an animal matter in a condition of alteration,
etc.

The microzymas being discovered, the general demonstration was
made that the soluble ferments were substances produced by a
living organism, mould, yeast, geological microzyma, diverse
flowers, a fruit, the kidneys, and the buccal microzymas. But
these were only the preliminaries of the researches, whereof the
totality have, since 1867, enabled the microzymian theory of the
living organism to be formulated.

After our joint experiment upon the buccal microzymas, I showed
Estor an experiment in which a piece of muscle placed in fecula
starch, after having liquefied it and commenced to make it
ferment, caused bacteria to appear in it as they appeared in
soured and clotted milk. He then became my collaborator in
proving that which was true of milk and meat was also true for
all the parts of an animal. There has resulted from this, thanks
to other collaborations and other researches subsequent to 1870,
"the microzymian theory of the living organism, the construction
whereof is completed by the present work."

The new theory rests upon a collection of fundamental and new
facts which may by ranged under the following heads:

1. The verification of the old hypothesis of atmospheric germs
and of the ideas of Cagniard de Latour and of Schwann regarding
the nature of beer yeast.

Proof that the ferments are not the fruits of spontaneous
generation.

Demonstration that the soluble ferments or zymas are not the
products of some change of an albuminoid matter, but the
physiological products of a living organism; in short, that the
relation of a mould, of beer yeast or of a cellule and of a
microzyma with the zymases, is that of producer to a product.

2. The distinguishing of organic matters reduced to the
condition of definite proximate principles (that is to say, of
the organic matter of the chemists, which is not living) from
natural organic matters, such as they exist in animals and
plants; that is to say, of the organic matter of physiologists
and of anatomists which is reputed living or as having lived.
The proximate principles are naturally unalterable, do not
ferment even when (being creosoted) they are left in contact
with a limited quantity of ordinary air, in water at a
physiological temperature. On the other hand, natural organic
matters, under the like conditions or absolutely protected from
atmospheric germs, invariably alter and ferment.

3. Demonstration that natural organic matters are spontaneously
alterable, because they necessarily and inherently contain the
agents of their spontaneous alteration, viz.: productions
similar to those which I called "little bodies" in certain
experiments upon sugared water, and "the living beings already
developed," in the letter of 1865 to Dumas, and to which I gave
the name of microzymas the following year, as being the smallest
of ferments, often so small that they could only be seen under
the strongest enlargements of the immersion objectives of
Nachet, but which I had discovered to be the most powerful of
ferments.

What does this similitude of form and of function mean? What
was there in common between a microzyma proceeding from a germ
of the air, a microzyma of the chalk, a microzyma of the milk
and those of natural organic matters? Ever since 1870 all my
efforts have been directed to its discovery. My joint researches
with Estor, later those of Baltus, upon the source of pus; those
of J. Bechamp upon the microzymas of the same animal at its
various ages and my own, especially those upon milk, upon eggs
and upon the blood, have led me to consider the microzymas not
only as being living ferments producers of zymases, like the
moulds born in sugared water, but as belonging to a category of
unsuspected living beings without analogy, whose origin is the
same. In fact:

On the one hand, all these researches showed me these
microzymas functioning like anatomical elements endowed with
physiological and chemical activity in all the organs and humors
of living organisms in a perfect state of health, preserved
there morphologically alike and functionally different, ab ovo
et semine, in all the tissues and cellules of the diverse
anatomical systems, down to the anatomical element which I have
called microzymian molecular granulation. And especially they
showed me that the cellule is not the simple vital unit that
Virchow believed, because the cellule itself has microzymas as
anatomical elements.

On the other hand, the experiment showed me that in parts
subtracted from the living animal, the microzymas being no
longer in their normal conditions of existence, produced therein
chemical alterations, called fermentations, which inevitably led
to tissue disorganizations, to the destruction of the cellules
and to the setting free of their microzymas, which then,
changing in form and function, could become vibrioniens by
evolution,which they did whenever the conditions for this
evolution were realized.

And, in the third place, I established that the vibrios, the
bacteria which the anatomical microzymian elements had become,
destroyed themselves, and that, with the aid of the oxygen of
the air, under the conditions which I had realized, they were at
last reduced to microzymas while the matters of the alteration,
being oxidized, were transformed into water, carbonic acid,
nitrogen, etc.; that is to say, restored to the mineral
condition, so that of the natural organic matters and of their
tissues and cellules there remained only the microzymas. And
these microzymas, proceeding from the bacteria which the
anatomical element microzymas had become, were identical,
morphologically and functionally, with those of the chalk, of
the calcareous rocks, of the alluviums, of the waters, of arable
or cultivated earths, or the dusts of the streets and of the
air. From these experiments I argued that the microzymas of the
chalk, etc., were the microzymas of the bacteria which the
anatomical element microzymas of the living beings of the
geological epochs had become!

We then have to consider:

1. The microzymas in their function as anatomical elements in
the living and healthy organism; there they are the
physiological and chemical agents of the transformations which
take place during the process of nutrition.

2. Microzymas in natural organic matter abstracted from the
living animal, or in the cadaver; they are there the agents of
the changes which are ascertained to take place there, whether
or not they undergo the vibrionien evolution; changes which go
on to the destruction of the tissues and of the cellules.

3. The microzymas of the bacteria which result from this
evolution, which are essentially ferments productive of lactic
acid, acetic acid, alcohol, etc., with sugar and fecula starch;
these microzymas are also producers of zymases and capable of
again undergoing vibrionien evolution.

Whence, the microzymas being the anatomical elements of the
organized being from its first lineaments in the ovule which
will become the egg, I am able to assert that the microzyma is
at the commencement of all organization. And the microzymas of
the destroyed bacteria being also living, it follows that these
microzymas are the living end of all organization. The
microzymas are surely then living beings of a special category
without analogue.

But that is not all. Estor and I demonstrated that in a
condition of disease the microzymas which have become morbid
determine in the organism special changes, dependent upon the
nature of the anatomical system, which lead alike to the
disorganization of the tissues, to the destruction of the
cellules and to their vibrionien evolution during life.

So that the microzymas, living agents of all organization, are
also the agents of disease and death under the influences which
nosologists specify; finally they are the agents of total
destruction when the oxygen of the air intervenes. Like the
indestructible atom or element in the Lavoisierian theory of
matter, the microzymas, too, are physiologically imperishable.

From the experimental fact that the microzymas of the chalk and
dusts of the air are only microzymas from bacteria which
proceeded from the vibrionien evolution of the anatomical
element microzymas, it follows, that that which I have called
germs in my verification of the old hypothesis of germs of the
air, are not pre-existenta in the air, in the earth and in the
waters, but are the living remains of organisms which have
disappeared and been destroyed.

*[The "experimental fact"
referred to in the text (the very highest form of all
evidence which can be supplied by science) cuts away the
entire fabric of the Microbian theory of disease from its
very foundation. Never having been other than a baseless
guess on the part of Pasteur and of his followers, it was
fittingly designated by the master as "the greatest
scientific silliness of the age." It and the other
"experimental facts" learnedly elaborated by Professor
Bechamp and his collaborators make patent the absurdity of
all pretended prophylactics against disease save one, and
casts all rational minds back to the one sure and only
protection a sound hygiene!* *We are mocked by quarantines, vaccines,
inoculations and other devices for "conveying" the products
of labor into the pockets of official doctors.  We are
gulled by them to the full extent of our willingness to
beguiled. The opponents of a truly rational medicine are
many and powerful, as evidenced by the suppression for more
than a generation of Bechamp's admirable discoveries beneath
a "conspiracy of silence," and these opponents of the art of
healing are entrenched in nearly all medical schools, in
richly endowed Research Institutes, in expensive
manufactories of animal poisons for poisoning men and
animals (under the ignorant belief that they are benefitting
us), and in all medical officialdom!aTrans.]*

The facts of the microzymian theory have legitimatized the
genial conception of Bichat, that the only thing living in an
organism is what he regarded as elementary tissues. Later, among
cellularists, Virchow, following Gaudichaut, held that the
cellule was the simple anatomical element from which proceeded
the whole of a living being; but it is in vain that he contended
that it is the vital unit, living per se, because every cellule,
even that of beer yeast, is transitory, destroying itself
spontaneously.

It is the microzyma which enables us to specify precisely
wherein a tissue, a cellule is living; living per se - that is
to say, autonomically, it is in truth the simple vital unit.

But the conception had none the less as a consequence the
assertion that, in disease, it is the elementary tissues or the
cellules which are affected. Now tissue and cellular physiology
being established in accordance with the prevision of Estor, it
should result therefrom that tissue and cellular pathology are
in reality microzymian pathology. In disease the cellules have
been seen to change, be altered and destroyed, and these facts
have been noted. But if the cellule were the vital unit living
per se it would know neither destruction nor death, but only
change. If then the cellule can be destroyed and die, while the
microzyma can only change, it is because the microzyma is really
living per se, and physiologically imperishable even in its own
evolutions, for, physiologically, nothing is the prey of death;
on the contrary, experience daily proves, that everything is the
prey of life, that is to say, of what can be nourished and can
consume.

From the beginning of our researches Estor and I have
established the presence of microzymas in the vaccine matter, in
syphilitic pus as in ordinary pus, and I have shown in pus (even
laudable) the presence of a zymas. In diseases there is then a
morbid evolution of some anatomical element which corresponds to
a vicious functioning and to the vibrionien evolution. It is
thus that in anthrax the morbid microzymas of the blood become
the bacteria of Davaine, and the blood globules experience such
remarkable changes. but even as the microzymas may become
morbid, they may cease to be so; for instance, there is a
leading observation of Davaine upon the non-transmissibility of
anthrax even by inoculation; if the animal be in process of
putrefaction its blood can no longer communicate anthrax.

From this observation of Davaine I draw the conclusion that
normal air never contains morbid microzymas, what used to be
called germs of diseases and now microbes; maintaining in accord
with the old medical aphorism that diseases are born of us and
in us, that no one has ever been able to communicate a
characteristic disease of the nosological class, anthrax,
smallpox, typhoid fever, cholera, plague, tuberculosis,
hydrophobia, syphilis, etc., by taking the germ in the air, but
necessarily from a patient, at some particular moment. And
within the limit of my own studies upon the silkworms I
distinguished with care the parasitic diseases whereof the agent
came from outside, such as the muscardine and the pebine, from
constitutional diseases, such as the flacherie, which is
microzymian.

I give in the postscript of this work the communication which I
made to the Academy of Medicine the 3rd May, 1870, upon Les
Microzymas, la Pathologie et la therapeutique. It will help to
establish a date and will show that the theory was then nearly
complete. It was not inserted in the Bulletin of the Academy,
but an able physician, who gave an account of it in the Union
Medicale of Paris, remarked that had it come from Germany it
would have been received with acclamation. But there was not at
that time any question about the medical doctrines of Pasteur
and I did not then have to defend the microzymas against the
denials of that savant; it was otherwise some years later.

The foregoing exposition shows clearly the connection of the
new facts of the microzymian theory with certain earlier facts
of the same kind, ascending to Bichat and Macquer, who, in
agreement with the science anterior to Lavoisier, recognised the
spontaneous alterability of natural organic matters; and at
length Spallanzane, who, to explain certain apparitions of
organized beings ascribed to spontaneous generation, invoked the
germs of the air. It has enabled me further to follow the
connection of the successive discoveries of special facts which,
since 1854, the commencement of these researches, have resulted
in the discovery of the microzymas and to the demonstration that
the blood is a flowing tissue.

It is important to remark that the microzymian theory is in no
way the product of a system or of a conception a priori, nor is
it the consequence of a desire to demonstrate that the
conception of Bichat and the cellular theory are conformable to
nature. In fact, it has had for a point of departure the
solution of a problem of pure chemistry and the necessity for
discovering the role of the moulds in the inversion of a
solution of cane sugar exposed to the air. Then, from induction
to induction, applying unceasingly the method of Lavoisier, from
the attentive study of the properties of the lowest organism I
ascended to the highest summits of physiological chemistry and
of pathology to discover wherein vital organization consists.

But so fertile is a theory founded upon the nature of things,
at the base whereof there is no gratuitous hypothesis, that
after it had led me to discover the source of the zymases, the
physiological theory of fermentations, the nature of what were
called the germs of the air, it enabled me to understand what
was true in the genial conceptions of Bichat, of Dumas, in the
cellular pathology of Virchow and what profound truths there are
in the aphorisms of the old physicians.

The microzymian theory of the living organism is true because
it agrees at the same time with these conceptions and with the
three aphorisms which I have chosen as the epigraph to this
first part of my preface.

... nothing is but what ought to be.

... nothing is created; nothing is lost.

... nothing is the prey of death; all things are the prey of
life.

---

**AUTHOR'S PREFACE, Part 2**

"The greatest disorder of the intellect is to believe things
because one wishes that they were so." L. Pasteur

To understand how man's intelligence, arrested at the same
stage that it was in the days of Aristarchus, could come to
proscribe the microzymian theory of the living organization as
it had proscribed the theory of the movement of the earth, it is
necessary to know something of the prejudices with which man's
intelligence in these latter days has been imbued.

The Lavoisierian theory of matter suggested to Bichat the idea
that in organized beings, life is not connected merely with
chemical compounds,A?but also with anatomical elements personally
and autonomically living. This caused Fourcroy to say that
plants are organized machines which formed the matters extracted
from them, matters which Chevreul will call definite proximate
principles, and which no instrument of art is able to imitate.
Gerhardt in 1849 said of them that they are the work of the
vital force. It was in vain that Bethelot, therein recalling
Lavoisier, will think to prove that the proximate principles are
chemical compounds such as those whose synthesis he effected;
all the legitimate consequences of the conception of Bichat were
disregarded, even the notion that the cellule is personally
living, and it was maintained that:

"The proximate principles of plants and animals are bodies,
definite or not, generally very complex, gaseous, liquid, or
solid, constituting organized substance by reciprocal solution,
viz.: the humours, and by special combination, the anatomical
elements."

"Reciprocal solution" and "special combination"; vague
expressions used to conceal a preconceived system, thanks to
which it was only necessary to consider the proximate principles
in a living organism as purely chemical matter. The autonomous
nature of the anatomical elements in the tissues being thus set
aside, it was declared that the protoplasm of the botanist Hugo
Mohl was living, organized matter (although not morphologically
determined, that is to say, not structured), whence the entire
organism would proceed. It was thus that a liquid, in which all
the proximate principles were supposed to be in a state of
perfect solution, such as was called plasma in the blood, was
called organized, living, and could die.

This was going back beyond the hypothesis of organic molecules
of Buffon to the old hypothesis of matter living by its nature
and to that of an organization which would be only the most
excellent modification of matter such as it was imagined to be
in the epoch of phlogiston.

That is where science stood in 1857; seeing in animal membranes
and tissues only nitrogenised matter. Let us consider the
consequences of this mode of view.

In 1839, Fremy found that certain animal membranes could
produce lacticA?acid with the sugar of milk, which Scheele had
discovered in the whey of soured and clotted milk. Thereupon
lactic fermentations were produced by treating solutions of the
sugars with all sorts of animal membranes and tissues, with
cream cheese or gluten, and at the same time with chalk used to
saturate the lactic acid as it was produced.

Berthelot resumed these experiments from another point of view,
without neglecting the formation of lactic acid, but extending
it from mannite sugar to allied substances, even to glycerine.
The memoir wherein, in 1857, the author explained the results of
his researches is entitled Sur la Fermentation Alcoholique, for
it happened that in some cases the quantity of alcohol formed
was greater than that of the lactic acid and other products
which accompany them. But whatever name may be given to the
phenomenon, lactic or alcoholic fermentation, that which
resulted from the experiments of Berthelot was that:

"The cause of fermentation seems to reside in its chemical
nature, that is to say, in the composition and not in the form
of the nitrogenous bodies (cream cheese, yolk of egg, muscle,
pancreas, liver, kidney, spleen, testicle, bladder, small and
large intestines, lung, brain, hairy skin, blood, dried fibrin,
dried yeast, gluten, gelatine) fit to play the part of a
ferment, and in the successive changes which their composition
undergoes."

On the whole, he was of opinion that: "The sugared body and the
nitrogenised body are decomposed at the same time, exerting upon
one another a reciprocal influence."

In short, it was spontaneous fermentation of materials in
presence (of one another).

As to the chalk employed for calcic carbonate, it was supposed
to be absolutely needed only in certain cases, for example for
the fermentation of mannite; further, the calcic carbonate,
besides maintaining the neutrality of the medium, had for its
role: "to direct in a certain determined sense the decomposition
of the nitrogenised body which provokes the fermentation." So
far as an explanation of the phenomenon went, Berthelot seemed
to relate it to the saccharification of fecula by diastase, the
decomposition of amygdalin by synaptase, called fermentation, or
even the etherification of alcohol by sulphuric acid; in short,
to connect it, as did Mitscherlich and Berzelius, with an action
called catalytic contact.

Berthelot did not fail to have established by Robin, Montagne,
and Dujardin, the disorganization of the tissues and the
development of particular living beings (mucors and vibrios or
bacteria). He does not explain their source, makes no mention of
the molecular granulations, but, he asserts, "this development
is in no way necessary to the success of my experiments."

I have endeavoured to give an idea of the very important work
of Berthelot because it constitutes the greatest effort in
opposition to the opinion of Cagniard de Latour. But from the
same experiments, entirely contrary conclusions ought to be
drawn.

In fact, the following year Pasteur, in a memoir upon lactic
fermentation1 of sugar, under the conditions of Berthelot's
experiment, placed himself on the side of Schwann and asserted
that the development of special living beings was the sole cause
of the fermentations pointed out, but without paying any more
attention to the molecular granulations that Berthelot had done,
he had the merit to distinguish among the particular living
beings that which he named lactic yeast, and which he regarded
as being to lactic fermentation what beer yeast is to the
alcoholic. But of the development of these beings, especially of
the lactic and alcoholic yeasts, what according to him, was the
cause? He had the choice between two hypotheses; that of the
germs of the air with Spallanzani and Schwann, and that of
spontaneous generation; he chose the second, asserting that
these beings were born spontaneously of the albuminoid matter of
the nitrogenised matters. To prove this he made the two
following experiments which are important to remember:

*1. Annales de chimie et de physique 3d S, Vol LII, p. 404*

"The lactic yeast is born spontaneously with as much facility
as beer yeast wherever the conditions are favourable.

Let there be, for example, first, water of sweetened yeast
without addition, and, second, the same with the addition of
chalk.

In the clear solution of the first we have beer yeast and the
alcoholic fermentation; in the solution to which chalk as been
added it is lactic yeast and lactic fermentation which will be
developed. The yeasts are born spontaneously of the albuminoid
matter furnished by the soluble part of the yeast; the beer
yeast because the water of the yeast is acid, the lactic yeast
because the chalk makes the yeast neutral."

We can say then that Pasteur and Berthelot have proposed, each
in his own way, the spontaneous alteration of nitrogenised
matter under the conditions specified by Macquer, but while this
alteration resulted in the spontaneous generation of the
ferments according to Pasteur, Berthelot did not express his
views upon the origin of the living beings developed.

As to the manner in which the lactic yeast acted, how did
Pasteur understand it? Cagniard de Latour had said that the
fermentation of the sugar was an effect of the vegetation of the
yeast; Pasteur said of the lactic yeast that "its chemical
action is correlative of its development and of its
organization", which, though in other words, is the same thing
and may be classed as an explanation by catalytic contact.

I have insisted thus strongly upon this earlier work of Pasteur
upon fermentations for two reasons:

First, to firmly establish how vain had been the efforts of
Schwann to establish the idea that there can be no spontaneous
alteration of organic matters by fermentation without the
presence of special living beings, and that in conformity with
the hypothesis of the germs, these living beings were not the
product of spontaneous generation.

Secondly, to show how in 1858 Pasteur, having remained a
sponteparist with regard to these living beings and as to beer
yeast and lactic yeast, held that these organic matters were
spontaneously alterable. We shall see how some years later
Pasteur will discover all of a sudden that ferments are never
born spontaneously, but always from these atmospheric germs
which he had neglected; he will even discover that albuminoid
matter is not necessary for it. He will next pretend to
demonstrate that without these germs all organic matter, without
exception, even an entire cadaver, will remain unchanged
indefinitely. First it will be useful to know certain parts and
certain conclusions of his memoir upon the alcoholic
fermentation of cane sugar by beer yeast in the year 1860. 1

*1. Annales de chimie et de physique 3d S, Vol LVIII p323*

From this work it is first to be remembered that Pasteur in it
again asserts the spontaneous generation of beer yeast and then
the fact, absolutely new, that glycerine is among the products
of fermentation, the same as in wine of vinous fermentation. He
also discovered in it succinic acid, which had been long before
discovered in it by Schmidt.

With regard to the chemical action of the cellule of beer
yeast, it is equally correlative with its development and
organization. He was, in fact, so certain that the yeast took no
other part in the phenomenon that he laboured hard to prove that
all the products of fermentation came from the sugar, which
would be a physiological heresy if fermentation is a phenomenon
of nutrition which is accomplished within the ferment.

It is thus that upon the interesting question of whether the
cane sugarA?ferments directly, or if it is first inverted (as was
the opinion of Dubrunfaut in agreement with the remark of Dumas,
who had shown that for the equation of fermentation the
concurrence of water with the cane sugar is necessary), Pasteur
pronounced for direct fermentation, asserting that the inversion
was consecutive to the formation of succinic acid.

Nevertheless he knew that I had demonstrated the inversion of
the sugar by organized productions which are born in sugared
water exposed to the air. None the less he wrote the following,
which is typical: "I do not think that there is any special
power in the globules of yeast to transform cane sugar into
grape sugar."1

*1. Loc. cit., p. 357. In relation to this, an observation is
necessary. Some persons, no: well informed, ascribed to
M.Berthelot the discovery of the property of beer-yeast to
invert cane-sugar. That savant had nothing to do with it. The
following is the truth thereon. In 1840, Mitscherlich
discovered that the clear liquor obtained by leaving
beer-yeast to drain upon a filter possesses the property of
convening cane sugar into uncrystallizable sugar, whereas the
globules of the ferment well washed with pure water are
entirely deprived of this property. (Annual report of
Berzelius, 3d year, p. 278, French Edition, 1843.) And
Berzelius added: 'The formation of the uncryslallizable sugar
is not due to the globules of the ferment, but to a soluble
matter in the water with which they are mixed." Now, in 1860,
M. Berthelot had simply confirmed the fact and isolated the
soluble matter, whereof Berzelius spoke, but had not
demonstrated that there was a special property of
transformation of the cane sugar in the globules. That is what
I demonstrated after having discovered that the moulds born in
the sugared water without albuminoid maner, possess
individually the inverting power, and that it was which was
needed to prove that the soluble ferment was not a product of
the change. See "Les Microzymas." pp. 45-47. and 'Memoir sur
les Maderes albuminoides," p. 352, for the complete history of
the zythozymas.*

He knew also that Berthelot had supposed that the reduction of
the sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid was to be compared to
the reduction of amygdaline by synaptase. He knew that Dumas had
clearly stated that yeast, like an animal, could not be
nourished only upon sugar; that for its normal life an
appropriate albuminoid matter was needed. If he did nothing to
elucidate these important questions it was because he was
obsessed with the preconception that there is nothing in common
between the organization and life of a cellule of yeast and that
of an animal cellule. This was because he regarded it as certain
that the ferments are living beings apart by destination, and
that fermentations are individual phenomena. He asserted that a
special ferment corresponds to each fermentation.

This state of mind and a remark suggested to Pasteur an
experiment which Dr. E. Roux, wonderstruck,! will entitle an
"experiment a la Pasteur."

This memorable experiment had for its object the
multiplication, that is to say, the vegetation with
reproduction, of beer yeast in a sugared medium without the
addition of some appropriate albuminoid matter. The remark which
made him attempt it was as follows:

Pasteur had been greatly impressed by the results of my
experiments regarding the inversion of cane sugar by the various
productions which are developed in its aqueous solution, and
especially by the act that the addition of certain
non-ammoniacal mineral salts had the effect of increasing the
harvest of these productions while causing them to vary. Now the
nitrogen necessary for the synthesis of the albuminoid matters
of these moulds could only have been that of the air left in the
flasks in contact with these sweetened liquors.

Pasteur repeated the experiments and was convinced not only
that true ferments of many species were developed without the
employment of albuminoid matters, but that these ferments had
formed these matters by synthesis. Then he who had asserted that
the ferments were spontaneously born from the albuminoid matters
of the sugared media had to amend his former opinion.

Assuredly, no more than I, could Pasteur have seen the beer
yeast appear under the conditions in which the experiments had
been reduced to their simplest expression, in order to make more
strikingly plain the evidence that there could be no question
there of spontaneous generation.

He thought he would succeed better by adding to a solution of
candied sugar the right tartrate of ammonia and for mineral
salts the ashes of the yeast itself; he succeeded no better,
then he added to the same mixture a lot of yeast, in the hope
that the tartrate of ammonia and the sugar would form by
copulation an albuminoid matter which would help the
multiplication of the globules of yeast. There are two versions
of the results of the experiments.

One, that of Roux, more or less agreeing with or imitated from
an earlier one of Pasteur, is the following: "Pasteur," he said,
"had seen carbonic acid set free, the yeast augmented ... he
observed that all the sugar had disappeared, transferred into
alcohol, carbonic acid, etc." 1.

The other, by Pasteur,2 is very different from that. There was
set free, in fact, carbonic acid, but in microscopic globules;
some sugar had disappeared, but out of ten grams, 5.5 grams had
not fermented: there was some alcohol, but only a very small
quantity, sensible but not sufficient to weigh, etc. What then
had become of the sugar that had disappeared? It had become
lactic acid, which had furnished "an abundant crystallisation of
lactate of lime"; in short, the fermentation instead of being
alcoholic had been lactic!

*1.Revue Rose Vol X fourth S., p834 (1898)* *2. Annales de chemie et de physique 3d S., Vol.
LVIII  pp383 to 392 (1860)*

Now for the explanation of the facts according to the
microzymian theory:

Pasteur, having continued to neglect the hypothesis of germs,
found that the situation of the beer yeast being
extra-physiological, its globules had proliferated at the
expense of the reserve of their content, so that the time soon
arrived when these were exhausted, the new after the old, while
infusoria and lactic yeast overspread the liquor. "The infusoria
disappeared and the lactic yeast multiplied," said Pasteur.
About a month later, the lactic yeast continuing to increase,
the ferments were collected and weighed.

Pasteur gave his results as being "of the most rigorous
exactness." I, however, assert that under the conditions of his
experiment, the quantity of yeast collected must have been less
than that of the yeast sown. Now, reflecting upon what he
thought was an increase of the yeast and this production of
lactic yeast, he has given this experiment "as illuminating with
a new day the phenomena of fermentation."

This declaration is applicable to my experiments of the memoir
of 1857, which are really demonstrative and which Pasteur has
attempted to ascribe to himself while imitating after repeating
them. In fact it was a plagiarism to the detriment of science. 1

To complete the exposition of the state of the question in
1860, here is an experiment of Berthelot in the sense of mine.
The author made a solution of gelatine, of glucose and of
bicarbonate of potash, saturated it with carbonic acid, filtered
it while warm in a still which he filled completely and left to
itself. At the end of a greater or less time (some weeks) gas
was set free and a good deal of alcohol was formed. At the same
time a slight, insoluble deposit was formed "composed of an
enormous number of molecular granulations, much smaller than
beer yeast and very different in appearance." 2.

*1. Dr. E. Roux, evidently for
the purpose of causing people to believe in the priority of
Pasteur in this matter, has stated that the experiment was
made in 1856, anterior to the publication of my memoir;
while it really was of the 10th December, 1858, several
months subsequent to the publication of the memoir, wherein
M. Pasteur asserted that the ferments were the results of
spontaneous generation from albuminoid matters ("prennent
spontanement naissance des matieres albuminodies), posterior
by a year to the deposit of my memoir with the Academy of
Sciences, published by extracts in the first Compte Rendu of
1858, and in extenso in the Annales de chimie et dephysique
in September of the same year.  It was in the same
spirit, that before that time. M. E. Roux had the audacity
to write that "the medical work of Pasteur began with the
study of fermentations" (Agenda du chimiste for 1896); this
was an absolute untruth, for seven years later M. Pasteur
had not yet attained to an elementary understanding about
them; M. Roux either did not go to the original documents or
he was anxious to contribute to the legend which attributes
to M. Pasteur the discovery of the facts of the microzymian
theory. The only suitable expression is, that the legend is
a falsehood."*

*[a. FA further "illumination" is
thrown upon this subject, so discreditable to science and
its professed masters during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, in "Les grands problemes medicaux,"
Paris, 1905, pp. 12.13, the statements wherein can be
verified by anyone possessed of a moderate knowledge of
physiological chemistry, who will take the trouble to read,
and to study, Section III of Pasteur's memoir to be found in
the Annales de chimie et dephysique, 3d Series, Vol. LVIII,
p. 381, and sub. On such study being made, the experiment
there pretended to have been made will be seen to be A FAKE,
purely and simply a a fake! a Trans.]*

*2. Chimie organique fondee sur
la synthese, Vol. II, p. 625 (1860).*

Berthelot did not ascribe any role to these molecular
granulations, and believing that he had performed the experiment
"protected from contact with air", he asserted, as in 1857, that
the presence of calcic carbonate (the chalk) or of any alkaline
bicarbonate directs the decomposition of the nitrogenised body
(in this instance, the gelatine) in a certain manner which sets
up the fermentation by regulating the steps of the phenomena. In
short, Berthelot had not yet distinguished between the
calcareous rocks (the chalk) and pure calcic carbonate, exactly
like Pasteur in this matter, and did not yet believe that
atmospheric germs had anything to do with the appearance of the
molecular granulations. In short, he naturally believed that the
lactic yeast of Pasteur was also constituted of molecular
granulations, and that there was nothing to show that it was
organized and living; as was the opinion of Pasteur, who, in
1858, stated that he had argued "on the hypothesis that the new
yeast was organized and living."

This, then, was the state of knowledge in 1860, and even much
later. It was not known, although it already stood out from the
facts of my memoir of 1857, and which the microzymian theory has
since confirmed, that that which characterizes the fact of a
living organization is not essentially, as the naturalists of
the schools still believe, the establishment of the existence of
some organ or structure, nor is it the presence of movement more
or less spontaneous or voluntary in any living being whatever,
or such as a microzyma, molecular granulation or lactic yeast,
or such as a vibrionien. Rather, living organization is
characterized by the property of producing and secreting
zymases, each according to its nature or species; and the
production of the chemico-physiological phenomena of
transformation called fermentation, which are acts of nutrition,
that is to say, of digestion, followed by absorption,
assimilation, disassimilation, and so forth, and finally, the
ability to reproduce itself if all conditions dependent upon
nutrition are fulfilled.

This is what Pasteur could not understand when he alleged in
1860 that the fermentation of cane sugar by beer yeast was
correlative to the multiplication of the yeast, which is as
great a physiological heresy as to imagine that an animal could
be nourished upon sugar alone.

But soon after, Pasteur, who had not yet explicitly invoked the
germs in explanation of the alterations of organic matters and
the productionA?of the alterations of organic matters and the
production of ferments, would explain by them what he had before
explained by spontaneous generation; in short, he held my
verification of the hypothesis to be so rigorously correct that
in 1862 he published a memoir against spontaneous generation,
wherein the alteration of all organic matters was explained as
Schwann had done, by applying his method as improved by Claude
Bernard.

That was his second plagiarism.

His experiments in the memoir of 1852 had been made with the
organic substances treated, cooked, for the purpose of killing
the germs which the air might have deposited upon them. In 1863
he repeated them upon blood and flesh, not cooked, for the
purpose of proving that they did not contain germs capable of
becoming vibrios, and that, without atmospheric germs, they
would be unalterable. Not being able to heat flesh in the same
manner as blood, he applied my method, substituting alcohol in
the place of creosote.

That was a third plagiarism. But he could not see the
vibrioniens which, in spite of the antiseptic agent, were
developed in the depths of the flesh, and e concluded that
neither the blood nor muscle became putrid because the germs of
the air were absent from them. And he regarded as proven that
there was nothing living in the blood or in the flesh, and that
all animal matters, without the germs of the air, would remain
indefinitely unchanged.

While Pasteur thus experimented, I continued to develop the
consequences of my memoir of 1857. I demonstrated especially
that not only were the atmospheric germs unnecessary for vinous
fermentation, but that they were injurious, and that the grape
carried normally, upon itself, the cellules of the ferments of
the lees; not only the germs but the fully developed ferment.
This was in 1864.

At last, in 1865, I announced to Dumas the fact of the
existence in the milk, and in the chalk, of the agent which is
the cause of the spontaneous alteration of the former and of
that which enables the second to act as lactic ferment, agents
to which in the following year I gave the name of microzymas.

Pasteur, who had been named a member of the commission upon my
memoir upon the ferment of the chalk, said not a word, and I
continued with Estor the study of the microzymas of the higher
organisms up to applications to pathology, as may be seen in the
postface. This was in 1870.

In 1872 Pasteur attempted his boldest plagiarism; he discovered
all of a sudden, eight years after my discovery thereof (I will
state elsewhereA?on what occasion), that the ferment of vinous
fermentation exists naturally upon the grape. In this connection
he discovered also that plant and animal matters contain
normally the things which cause them to alter spontaneously;
that their cellules, without the atmospheric germs, are
ferments. In other words, he repudiated his experiments and
conclusions of 1862. He announced that his "new discoveries"
would mark an epoch in general physiology; and he asserted that
he had thrown a great light upon the phenomena of fermentation
and "had opened a new path to physiology and medical pathology."

*[a. When a memoir is presented
to the Academy which seems to be of more than usual
importance, a commission is named composed of members
reputed skilled in like studies to examine and report upon
the memoir. It was of such a commission on the memoir of
Bechamp upon the chalk ferments whereof M. Pasteur was
appointed a member.aTrans.]*

This was too much: up till that time I had treated the man with
consideration; but now he must be properly exposed.

First I, then Estor and I together, protested energetically.
Our protests were inserted literally by Dumas and by Elie de
Beaumont; the complete text can be read in the Comptes Rendus,
Vol. LXXV, pp1284, 1519, 1523 and 1831. Pasteur replied by a
subterfuge, to which we replied as follows: "We request the
Academy to permit us to record that the observations inserted in
the names of M. Bechamp and of ourselves remain unanswered.".

Pasteur said no more, and abandoning "the new road" he
pretended to have opened (a road which we showed we had not only
opened but had sturdily traversed) he retraced his steps. Then,
while since 1858 he had not disputed the meaning of any of the
results, of any of the acts upon which the microzymian theory
rests, results and facts which he knew to be exact and the
discovery whereof he tried to ascribe to himself; then, I say,
it was that he undertook in 1876 to explain them all by the
atmospheric germs as he had "explained" them, in 1862, by
spontaneous generation.

He first evoked his experiment upon the blood in 1863, and,
doubtless because Estor and I, after the discovery of the
microzymas of the fibrin, had not thought it worth criticizing,
he qualified it as famous(!), using it to deny even the
existence of the microzymas. He then canvassed for approvers to
maintain that uncooked milk, like the blood, is unalterable when
preserved from contact with the natural air; that without
atmospheric germs there would be neither fermentation nor
disease, because there would be neither ferments nor microbes;
for Pasteur, in spite of the inaccuracy of the etymology, had
adopted this word with which to designate the micro-organisms.

In short, Pasteur, who understood what he was about in this
matter, ended by causing belief that things were as he wished
they were, which as he himself has said, "is the greatest
derangement of the mind."

The strangest part of the business is that it was believed, and
that the was able to make the Academies his accomplices1.

*1. The following is typical in
this respect. M. Pasteur had treated M. Fremy shamefully,
because he had maintained that cream cheese produced lactic
fermentation of itself. I said to him: "But show then to the
Academy the microzymas of the milk and of the cream, which are
the lactic ferment of M. Pasteur and you will confound him."
"Ah," said he, "I should never dare to pronounce the word
microzyma at the Academy." To such an extent indeed had M.
Pasteur cunningly manoeuvred!*

It is true that he had at the same time organized the
conspiracy of silence around the works related to the
microzymian theory - so thoroughly, that one day, after a
discussion during which I had attacked the principles of the
microbian doctrines and had defended the microzymian theory,
Cornil maintained that the discoveries of Pasteur had been
verified in every country and that I was alone against all the
would; to which I replied:

"It is not because everybody thinks so that it is true. I have
demonstrated in an already old communication that the
protoplasmic system, false in its principles, is false also in
its consequences. It is so likewise with the microbian
doctrines. For the dignity of science and of human reason it is
time that they were abandoned!"

The discussion did not rest there. I will narrate the rest,
which is most instructive, in The History of the Microbian
Doctrines, to show the sort of respect which Pasteur had for
truth.

It is true we have not been treated as was Galileo by the
Inquisition, but Estor, painfully afflicted, wrote me this,
which constitutes a grave witness against the spirit of these
times:

"We can publish letters from members of the Institute begging
us in the name of our personal interest to proceed no further in
the road opened (by us) ... but let them be convinced that
energetic protestsa will be directed wherever one may hope to
find associated science and honesty."

That honourable and conscientious savant died of grief!

*1. Bulletin de I'academie de
medecine, 2d S., Vol. XV, p. 679 (1386).*

*[a,. The translation of this
work, and its publication, is one of the first of those
protests which the noble Estor foretold. It is hoped that it
will mark the turning point of the followers of science from
the wisdom of the "philosophers of Lilliput," in which so
many of them have been wallowing,aand, what is worse,
training up students of biology, physiology, pathology and
medicine in mistaking follies for wisdom! a [Trans.]*

The microzymian theory has experienced in our days, as was the
case formerly, the fate of all new truths which go counter to
the habits, the passions, and the interests of those in power.

It is because man's reason, that is to say, that part of it
which has become vacillating, without ballast, hypocritical and
pharasaical, has remained the same as it was in the days of
Aristarchus, of Socrates, of Galileo. It is that part of mankind
which allows the plagiarist to calumniate and to vilify the
victim whose work he has plagiarised.

---

**PRELIMINARY**

Every year since 1860 at the
University of Montpellier, at the commencement of the course
on medical chemistry of the Faculty of Medicine, the assistant
wrote on the bulletin board an announcement of the fundamental
principles of the instruction which would be given by Prof. A.
Bechamp. This announcement is prefixed to "Les Microzymas"
(pages XXXVII-XXXVIII) demonstrating that already in 1860
Bechamp's views on the subjects mentioned were settled, and
nothing has since occurred to show them to be erronA-eous.

"There is only one chemistry.
Matter is endowed only with chemical and physical activity.

"There is no matter essentially
organic, all matter is mineral.

"That which is called organic
matter is only mineral matter with carbon as a necessary
constituent

"Organic matter, chemically
definite, is profoundly distinct from organized matter.

"The chemist can, by synthesis,
form organic matter, he is powerless to organize it; he cannot
create a single cellule.

"The faculty of organizing matter
resides, primordially, in pre-existing living organisms.

"It is in the various mechanisms of
the organism of organized beings wherein are accomplished the
changes of organic matter, whether organized or not; and these
changes are effected according to the ordinary laws of
chemistry.

"From the chemical point of view,
plants are essentially apparatus of synthesis, animals
apparatus of analysis."

---

**AVANT-PROPOS**

The object of this work is the
solution of a problem of the first order; it is to show what is
the real nature of the blood, and what is the character of its
organization it has, besides, a secondary purpose; viz, the
solution of a problem long ago stated, but never solved, as to
the cause of its coagulation, correctly regarded as spontaneous,
after it has issued from the blood-vessels. The conclusion
arrived at is, that the blood is a flowing tissue, as such,
spontaneously alterable in like manner as are all other tissues
withdrawn from the animal, coagulation of the blood being only
the first phase of its spontaneous change.

It would be too tedious to give even
a summary of what had been written upon the blood before the
discovery of Harvey and that of the blood globules; I will
merely observe here that both before as well as after these
memorable disA-coveries the blood has been almost exclusively
called a liquid by those physiologists who specially studied it.
This will apA-pear abundantly from the historical introduction,
especially with regard to the attempts at explanation of the
phenomena styled its spontaneous coagulation.

---

**INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL**

The explanation of the fact of the coagulation of the blood,
rightly regarded as spontaneous, has been sought for by
physiologists, by physicians and by chemists, but without
satisfactory result. The detailed history of the attempts at
explanation would only demonstrate the uselessness of the
preconceived hypotheses and systems on which they rest. Among
all these hypotheses, only one deserves attention, precisely the
one which the latest investigators have neglected to consider or
to verify. The history of the conception of this hypothesis is
of great interest.

From time immemorial, it was known that shed blood soon becomes
a concrete mass, red, of a consistency more or less soft and
called a clot; the phenomenon was otherwise compared to the
coagulation of a homogeneous liquid.

It was not until the 18th century that Haller (in the
supplement to the article "Blood," in the Encyclopaedia of
Diderot), after correcting some errors of Leuwenhoeck concerning
blood globules, asserted absolutely that they were essential
elements of the blood, existing only in the red part, and, said
he, "perhaps also in milk."

But he recognised that "the figure of the blood globules is
constant and that they are not merely a collection of fatty
grains ... but circumscribed, bounded and solid."

Haller also first placed the spontaneous coagulation of the
blood on its true ground (tracing the theory back to Aristotle):

"An element of the blood, generally so regarded by the
ancients, especially by Aristotle, are the fibres which the
scholiasts regarded as the foundation of the coagulable matter
of the blood; these fibres have been seen in the clot-cake which
the blood, left to itself, never fails to form, and which seems
to be really a sort of network made of small membranes, which
can be separated from the fluid part and can then be plainly
seen."

But Haller did not admit that the fibres were really an element
of the blood. He said:

"If the authors wish us to understand that these fibres are in
the blood as are the globules, they are certainly in error."

In support of his view he cited Borelli, the mathematician, who
had been the first to refuse to admit "the fibres among the
elements of the blood, as also Boerhave and other great men who
have followed him," adding further:

"If the authors wish to say that under certain circumstances
fibres and flakes are born in the blood, he did not object
thereto, "but observed that these fibres and flakes seemed to
have their birth rather in the lymph than in the red particles
of the blood. In short, according to Haller, the blood contained
nothing solid and figured but the globules in a liquid called
lymph, adding that he had recommended as a good way of rendering
the globules visible the addition of certain salts to the blood
which increased the fluidity and the colour; "nitre being of all
salts that which gives the best colour to the blood."

Haller,who derived the fibres of the clot from the lymph of the
blood, was the precursor of the savants, who, like him, saw in
the blood only globules in suspension in a liquid where
everything else was supposed to be in a state of perfect
solution.

The circumstances of the formation of the clot, its shape
depending on that of the vessel in which it was formed, its
progressive contraction and expulsion of the yellow serosity,
thence called the serum, were all observed with attentive
curiosity. The blood having finished its contraction, the
washings in water which dissolved its colouring matter furnished
the white matter which was called the fibrous portion of the
blood, and, after the reform of chemical nomenclature, fibrin.
The fibrin was finally isolated from the blood by whipping,
before it coagulated. The great German physiologist, J. Muller,
believed with Haller: he wrote:

"By liquor of the blood (liquor, lympha sanguinis) we mean the
colourless liquid, such as exists before coagulation, in which
the blood globules swim . . . it contains all that is really
dissolved in the blood. At the moment of coagulation, the liquor
separates itself from the fibrin which had before been
dissolved"; and from his microscopic observations upon frog's
blood, he thought that his researches "proved that besides the
albumen, the fibrin was dissolved in the liquor of the blood."

H.H. Schultze gave the name of plasma to the lymph of Haller,
which Muller had called liquor saunguinis.

The conclusion of J. Muller was the more circumspect, seeing
that it was a refutation or contradiction of another mode of
considering it, already published. W. Hewson had expressed two
views, one of which had agreed with that of Muller; the other
was original. According to the former, the fibrin exists in the
blood in a state of solution; according to the other, it exists
in it in suspension in a state of fine granulations; he further
admitted that the globules did not contain fibrin.

Milne-Edwards accepted the second opinion of Hew son,
maintaining that the fibrin did not exist in solution in the
blood, but in a finely divided state as a solid, under the form
of fine granulations, which after the blood has been shed and
left at rest, united together in the form of the fibres of the
clot, or by whipping, to form fibrin.

Dumas, who, with Prevost of Geneva, had first admitted the
globular origin of the fibrin to explain coagulation, afterwards
accepted, to a certain extent, the opinion of Milne-Edwards.

It is important to explain the point of view of such a genius.
He said:

"None of the properties of fibrin give us the means of
explaining the state in which it exists in the blood. It has not
been possible to bring back the fibrin to this condition by any
known process. In fact, the blood contains the fibrin, both
liquid and spontaneously coagulable ... Everything leads to the
belief that this fibrin of the blood is not in solution in it,
but that it exists there in a finely divided state, which it
maintains so long as the liquid is in motion, but which, in the
liquid at rest, stops all of a sudden as a consequence of the
disposition of the fibrin particles to unite in a fibrous and
membranous network."

Later he modified this view as follows:

"The blood contains a quantity of spontaneously coagulable
fibrin in suspension, or in a state so closely approaching
solution, that it seems to be really dissolved in it; it is
found there in a peculiar flowing state, analogous to that
presented by starch mixed with water in the aqueous solution of
starch."

But neither of the views of Hewson, nor that of Milne- Edwards,
nor that of the illustrious Dumas regarding the individual state
of the fibrin in the blood, which, as will be seen, were the
nearest to the truth, received much consideration, and were soon
lost to view. Physiologists reverted more and more to the view
of Haller adopted by J. Muller and by Schultze. The word
"plasma" prevailed over lymph, and it was held that everything
except the globules were in a state of complete solution in the
blood. They came at last to believe that the blood did not
contain fibrin even in a state of solution.

In short, the fibrin which was called the "corps de delit" of
the coagulation of the blood was imagined in turn to be the same
substance as albumen; and it was further imagined that:

- the albumen of the blood was none other than the fibrin
combined with the alkali of the blood, only the part not so
combined being coagulable;

- that the plasma contained plasmine, which, when out of the
vessels, transformed itself by spontaneous decomposition into
concrete fibrin and into dissolved fibrin, called also
metalbumen;

- that the fibrin does not exist either in the blood or in the
plasma;

but that they contain, in solution, substances called
fibrinogen and fibrinoplastin, respectively, which, outside of
the vessels, under the influence of a ferment, produced the
fibrin with an elimination of alkali, etc.

Chemists agreeing with Thenard came to look upon fibrin as an
isolated animal matter, that is to say, a "proximate principle,"
according to the definition of Chevreul. Glenard, who paid a
great deal of attention to the phenomenon of the coagulation of
the blood and its causes, wrote upon the subject of fibrin, as
follows: "Science has not yet been able to establish the
constitution of fibrin, of the "corps de delit" of coagulation;
it is not known whether it be derived from albumen, or should be
regarded as one of its stages; and the formula of this substance
varies with each chemist; it is not known whether it is
superfluous (recrementitious) matter, or a product of excretion,
a nutriment or an organic waste.

It is, therefore, a legitimate conclusion that after a century
of hypothesis on hypothesis, we have gotten back to the point
where Haller had left the question. Having neglected the
conception of Milne-Edwards and of Dumas, as well as some
researches which seemed to be approximately a verification
thereof, it is not a matter for surprise that scientists who
understand neither the real nature of fibrin nor its origin, had
recourse to occult causes for the explanation of the phenomenon
of coagulation.

The celebrated English Surgeon, Hunter, thought that:

"blood coagulated by virtue of an impression, that is to say,
that its fluidity being inopportune or no longer necessary in
its state of rest after issuing from the vessels, it coagulates
in reply to the indispensable customs of solidity"; also he said
that "the blood possesses in itself the force, by virtue whereof
it acts in conformity with the stimulus of necessity, a
necessity which is derived from the position in which it finds
itself."

And Hunter wrote in the time of Haller.

Long after, Henle, having said that the cause of the
coagulation of the blood directly after circulation ceased was
unknown, added:

"Coagulation is often regarded as the last act of life, as the
death of the blood."

This point of view, which was not that of Henle, has been
lately revived and fitted into the system signified by the word
plasma. In short, the following propositions can be collected
from a work full of interesting observations on the coagulation
of the blood:

"The blood is endowed with a life of its own."

"Coagulation is a synonym for the death of the blood ."

"By the fact of spontaneous coagulation, the plasma loses its
chief property, that of living, and from the state of an
organised humor becomes an inert aggregate of proximate
principles."

"Coagulation then is the disorganisation of the plasma."

"It is the fact of this organisation which struggles for some
minutes against the fatal influence upon the shed blood of
contact with foreign bodies."

Right here, before going further, will be the place to seek for
the substance beneath the mask of words.

It is true that the author of the above propositions did not,
like Hunter, invoke "an impression" or `the indispensable
customs of solidity" nor "the stimulus of necessity" to explain
the phenomenon of the spontaneous coagulation of the blood, but
has he escaped the shoals of  "occult causes ?"

It is true that blood as it issues from a living body is alive.
But is it not an "explanation" by the occult causes to say that
the blood coagulates because it dies?

But if the chief property of the plasma, an organised humor, is
to live, is not the struggle of its organisation against the
fatal influence of contact, the loss of its life, also an
"explanation" by occult causes?

Also the plasma being an aqueous liquid, in which the materials
composing it cannot be other than proximate principles, are by
the hypothesis and by definition in a state of perfect solution,
is it not an explanation by occult causes to say that the cause
of its spontaneous coagulation is its disorganisation, etc.?

And what is the value of explanations by occult causes? Here is
the answer given to this question by Newton: "To say that each
species of things is endowed with a specific occult quality, by
means whereof it has a certain power of action, and can produce
sensible effects, is to say nothing at all."

Nevertheless, if in 1875 the author (M. Glenard) was reduced to
the extremity of seeking an explanation of the phenomenon in
considerations outside of anatomy, physiology and chemistry, it
was because the then state of science did not offer anything
more satisfactory. There are to be found in the transactions of
the Academy of Sciences of the same year, attempts at
explanation which compared the so called coagulation of milk to
that of the blood.

Still later, M. Frey, returning to the methods of Muller and of
Haller, said:

"Studied from the anatomical point of view the blood offers for
our consideration a transparent colourless liquid, the plasma or
liquor sanguinis, wherein float two kinds of cellular elements,
the coloured cellules or red globules and the colourless
cellules or lymphatic globules."

And as regards the fibrin, he says:

"It is not known under what form it exists in the liquids of
the organism before coagulation, and it is generally supposed to
be a derivative of albumen."

That amounts to saying that the red globules and the leukocytes
are the only figured elements of the blood, and that the plasma
holds the materials composing it in perfect solution, as Muller
thought he had demonstrated for his liquor sanguinis, these
materials being reducible from the organic point of view to
albumen.

Further, Frey so thoroughly believed this that he said:

"The rapid nutritive exchanges which are produced in the
nutrient liquid of the organism hinder the formation of fibrin
during life."

All of which amounts to saying that at the moment of shedding
the blood does not contain fibrin.

And here it may be observed that neither Haller nor Muller had
any prejudices on the subject of the innate nature of the lymph
or liquor of the blood. On the other hand, when plasma is made a
synonym for "liquor sanguinis" the question is prejudged, for
the synonym plasma is attached to a particular conception of
organisation and of life, in conformity to the system which
asserts that: "Life is a special form of the activity of
matter," a system which differs greatly from the doctrines of
Bichat, according to which life is not attached directly to
matter, but to anatomical elements limited as to their form and
structure. On this I shall insist further in explaining
anatomically and physiologically the spontaneous coagulation of
the blood.

But several years before GLenard and Frey wrote, Bechamp and
Estor had demonstrated that the blood contains, besides the two
species of globules, a third figured element, clearly determined
in form and properties, by means whereof the phenomenon of
coagulation could be explained without any recourse to occult
causes.

In his thesis Glenard referred to our researches in these
words:

"For reasons which we shall not fail to develop in a later
work, we suppress a chapter having for title,`Theory of Bechamp
and Estor on the Microzymas.' "

I do not know whether Glenard has anywhere developed his
reasons for suppressing the above entitled chapter from his
thesis. For my part I had the great sorrow of not being able to
continue and complete with Estor the work we had commenced
together. A separation which occurred in 1876, and then the so
premature death of Estor, deprived me of my eminent collaborator
and devoted friend; I had to pursue alone the complete solution
of the problem. My latest researches have been carried on in the
laboratory which M. Friedel provided me with at the Sorbonne.

The partial results of my researches have been described in
notes which have appeared in various magazines; the last, in
1895, was in the form of a communication to the Congress of the
French Association for the Advancement of Science held at
Bordeaux; but several portions, and that especially which is the
crown and keystone of the work, remained unpublished until the
appearance of the present work.

The discovery of the third figured element of the blood was not
made during the investigation of the phenomenon of the
spontaneous coagulation of the blood; but Estor and I applied it
according to the ideas then prevailing to the production of
fibrin after phlebotomy, to explain the formation of the clot.
When I resumed my study of fibrin from the point of view of
blood-coagulation, I had already solved the problem of the
coagulation of milk in a sense very different from received
ideas, and this was long before the publication of the thesis of
Glenard, who said:

"Not only are we ignorant of the first cause of coagulation,
but we do not even know its proximate cause; we do not know
whether this change in the state of the blood is a physical or
chemical phenomenon; whether it is a crystallisation or a
precipitation."

Unless I am much mistaken, that implies that the author doubted
even what Haller, and, later, Muller, Hewson, Milne-Edwards and
Dumas held as certain, viz., that the formation of the clot had
the fibrin for its direct and near cause. As to the assertion
that coagulation is a variation of the state of the blood, etc.;
it proves that its author did not know either the anatomical or
chemical constitution of the blood any more than that of milk.

In our note of 1869, the microzymas of the blood were expressly
mentioned as being the first cause of the production of fibrin
and the proximate cause of coagulation. My new researches
further demonstrated that the presence of the microzymas and
that of the fibrin in the blood are correlative, the one
presupposing the other; it was only necessary to explain this
correlation to verify, while completing the conception of
Milne-Edwards developed by Dumas.

These new researches were allied to others, both older and
newer, regarding the determination of the causes of the changes,
reputed spontaneous, of organic matters, even of proximate
principles in general, and specially of natural vegetable and
animal matters, viz.:

(1).The question of the origin of ferments and the
physiological theory of fermentation.

(2). The resolving in the negative the problem of the supposed
spontaneous generation of ferments.

(3). The origin of urea in the organism during the act of
respiration.

(4).  The chemical constitution of albuminoid matters and
the demonstration of the definite specificity of their chemical
molecules.

(5). The true theory of organisation according to the doctrine
of Bichat.

It is thus seen that the complete solution of the problem
concerning the spontaneous coagulation of the blood necessitated
the previous solution of several other problems very difficult
of solution; they are given here nearly in their chronological
order.

1. The nature of fibrin, isolated from the clot, or obtained by
whipping.

2. The real specific individuality of the albuminoid proximate
principles.

3. The state of the fibrin in the blood at the moment of
shedding.

4. The real structure of the red globules of the blood.

5. The real constitution of the blood at the moment of
shedding.

6. The real chemical and physiological meaning of the
coagulation of shed blood.

These will be the captions of the following chapters.

After the developments which are to follow, it will be possible
to understand that what is called the phenomenon of the
spontaneous coagulation of blood is not at all a coagulation of
the blood itself, but of that of a portion of its third
anatomical element.

It will then clearly appear, that that which is improperly
called a coagulation is only the first phase of a much more
complete alteration of the blood, involving the destruction of
its blood globules and other changes, even that of its red
colouring matter; and further, that this spontaneous alteration
of the blood is but a special case of a very general phenomenon,
that of the spontaneous alterability of all animal matter, solid
or humoral, abstracted from an animal, whether living or dead;
an alterability, physiologically spontaneous, necessary, drawing
with it the destruction even of the cellular anatomical elements
themselves, as the consequence of phenomena of fermentations of
a special kind, whereof the microzymas of these matters are the
principal agents.

---

**CHAPTER 1.**

**OF THE NATURE OF
FIBRIN ISOLATED FROM THE CLOT OR OBTAINED BY WHIPPING THE
BLOOD. THE BLOOD FIBRIN. FIBRINOUS MICRO-ZYMAS. FIBRIN AND
OXYGENATED WATER. THE FERMENT OF FIBRIN.**

Gay-Lussac and Thenard analyzed
fibrin as they had analyzed albumen, caseine and gelatine.
Thenard said that fibrin was an isolated animal matter;
Chevreul said that it was an animal proximate principle and
was greatly surprised, after he had discovered oxygenated
water, to find that fibrin decomposed it and disengaged the
oxygen, as did organic tissues; as, for example, the liver,
etc. He even thought that fibrin was the only proximate
principle of its kind endowed with this property.1

This fact in the history of fibrin
is important; first, because it is the pivot on which turns
the demonstration that this substance, reputed a proximate
principle, is of the same order as the substance of the bodies
which Chevreul called organic bodies; secondly, because,
although neglected by physiologists and chemists, it enabled
me to place beyond doubt the existence of a third anatomical
element of the blood.

I did not set out with the idea of
proving that fibrin is a substance of the same order as the
organic tissues. Like everybody else, I regarded it as a
proximate principle; I had even maintained its specificity
against the chemists who contended that it was only coagulated
albumen.2

Preliminary steps to the discovery
of the real nature of fibrin and of the third anatomical
element of the blood. The ancients regarded it as a positive
fact that all animal or vegeA-table matter was spontaneously
alterable while putrefying or

*1. Thenard, "Traite elementaire
de chimie," Vol. I., p. 528. 6th Ed. 1834.* *2. See Memoir, Essay sur les substances albuminoid.
Theses de la Facuhe de Medecir.e de Strasbourg. 1856.*

fermenting. In the last century
(i.e., the 18th) the chemist, Macquer, established the
conditions for these changes; the presence of water, the
contact of air and a certain amount of heat. Long after, when
in 1837 Cagniard de la Tour regarded beer-yeast as being
organized and living, and fermentation as an effect of
vegetation, Schwann, generalizing the new conception,
endeavoured to show that no organic matter was spontaneously
alterable; that the alteration had for cause the presence of
organized living things, microscopic cryptogams, vibrioniens;
that is to say, ferments, the origin of which, reviving the
old hypothesis of Spallanzanil, he ascribed to the germs of
the air.

But, notwithstanding many important
verifications, the opinion of Schwann did not prevail; the
presence of living products in matter undergoing change was
conceded, but while some maintained that the alteration
preceded the appearance of the organized products, whatever
might be their origin, others, admitting the theory of
Cagniard, insisted that the living things, the ferments, were
the fruit of spontaneous generation.

Schwann's point of view and the
hypothesis of germs of the air were so completely abandoned
that in 1854 it was admitted as a fact that even cane sugar in
watery solution altered spontaneously at the ordinary
temperature of the air, becoming what was called invert sugar,
grape sugar. Was that true? The inversion of cane sugar, the
result of a chemical reaction of reduction by hydration which
was produced, as Biot had observed, under the influence of
strong acids could it be effected by water only, at ordinary
temperature with the aid of lime alone? I wanted to know what
to believe, and I instituted experiments which commenced in
1854 and were continued until 1857. Several consequences of
the greatest importance resulted and, among others, the first
experimental verification of the hypothesis of germs of the
air which Schwann, following Spallanzanil had invoked against
spontaneous generation. In short I demonstrated:

1st. That a watery solution of cane
sugar remains unaltered indefinitely, at ordinary temperature,
under the two following conditions: (A) Absolutely protected
from access of air and (B) in contact with a limited volume of
air, to which have been added certain salts or a suitable
(small) quantity of creosote; as, for instance, one to two
drops per 100 c.c.

2nd. That the same solution, pure,
or with the addition of certain other salts in contact with
the same volume of air, permitted the appearance of
cryptogamic products, moulds, etc., at the same time that the
inversion of the sugar was effected.

3rd. That the moulds are actually
the agents, the ferments of the inversion, by secreting the
necessary zymas or soluble ferment.

4th. That creosote, which hinders
the birth of the moulds, etc., does not prevent developed
moulds from effecting the inversion.

And as it is evident that the water
and sugar of the solution cannot of themselves give birth to
those cryptogamic productions which invert the cane sugar, nor
to anything whatever organized and living, the conclusion is
inevitable that these experiments verified the hypothesis of
the existence of germs in the air.1

*1. Annales de Chimie at de
physique, 3d S. op. Vol. L1V. p. 28. (1858.)*

Cane sugar being a proximate
principle, the experiment constituted also the first
demonstration that organic matters exist which are unalterable
under the conditions specified by Macquer.

To be applicable generally, it was
necessary to prove that what was true for cane sugar was also
true for any proximate principle, even for albumin, supposed
to be so readily alterable that Colin believed it could
spontaneously become an alcoholic ferment.1 But there are
solutions of proximate principles, even of their mixtures,
which contain some albuminoid substance like the solutions of
cane sugar; these solutions, with a very small quantity of
creosote added, are preserved, although in contact with a
limited quantity of air, so that nothing organized makes its
appearance, no fermentA-ation, no putrefaction takes place. But
if among the materials of the mixture there are some which are
directly oxydizable by the oxygen of the air, creosote will
not hinder the oxydation.

1. In 1858, M. Pasteur believed so
little in the existence of germs of ferments in the air, that
he asserted that the lactic ferment and beer-yeast were born
spontaneously of the albuminoid matter of the fermentable
media.

Let us bear in mind this capital
fact which has been experimentally verified in every
imaginable case: the solutions of isolated proximate
principles, or mixtures of them, even albuminoid ones, first
creosoted with a suitable (small) dose, exposed to the contact
of a limited quantity of ordinary air, allow nothing living to
appear, and remain unaltered except in cases where the mixture
contains some directly oxydizable principle. In these kinds of
experiments the creosote acts either by rendering the medium
sterile for the germs or directly upon them, so as to prevent
their development.

Organic matters reduced to
proximate principles are unalterable under the conditions
specified by Macquer, when the influence of the germs of the
air is prevented by creosote; then they are so naturally. But
Macquer did not take into account proximate principles, of
which he had no idea. He really referred only to natural
vegetable and animal matters, that which Thenard calls organic
tissues and Chevreul organic bodies.

But among the animal matters on
which Macquer experimented was milk, which he regarded as an
animal emulsion, and held to be alterable of itself. Much
later, Donne (an expert micrographist) and most chemists
regarded milk as a solution of milk sugar, caseine and of
mineral salts, holding an emulsion of butter in solution.
Everybody then thought that milk was a pure mixture of
proximate principles.a Such a mixture properly creosoted and
in contact with a limited volume of air ought to remain
unaltered indefinitely. But it was found to be otherwise.
Cow's milk sufficiently creosoted at the time of milking,
preserved from contact with air or in contact with only a
limited amount of air, neither sours nor clots in the ordinary
way. The creosote only delays the souring and the consecutive
formation of the clot. But it was found that at the moment the
milk became clotted, even when the phenomenon takes place in
full contact with air, and with or without the addition of
creosote, none of the cryptogamic productions could be found
which Schwann's experiments led one to look for in it.

*[a Evan Landois in his
Physiology (Eng.; trans, by Stirling, 1889), makes this
mistake. He makes no reference to its ferment.a Trans.]*

But the souring and the clot, I do
not speak of the coagulation of the milk, is only the first
phase in the phenomenon of alteration. The second phase, in
spite of the addition of creosote, was characterized by the
constant appearance of vibrios or of bacteria. Milk then does
not act as would a simple mixture of proximate principles.

These experiments and observations,
which date from before 1858, were not published until
1873.1  They had greatly surprised me. Milk then was not
what it had been supposed to be. There exist in it organic
matters alterable, without the aid of germs of the air, and
Macquer was justified in declaring them to be spontaneously
alterable. And since, notwithstanding the creosote the milk
already altered, soured and

*1. C. R., Vol. LXXVI, p.
654.*

clotted, permitted the appearance
of vibrios in its substance, if these vibrios were not the
products of spontaneous generation, to what did they owe their
birth? It was experiments contemporary with those upon the
calcareous rocks which will be studied in the last chapter of
this work, as well as those which led to the discovery of the
new category of living organized productions to which I have
given the name of microzymas, because of their functions as
ferments and of their extreme minuteness.1 It is then the
microzymas of the milk itself which are the agents of its
alteration and which subsequently becomes vibrios by
evolution.

*1. C. R., Vol. LXIII, p. 451
(1866).*

The method which led to these
results, as important as unexpected, the close relation
between the geological ferments and the anatomical and
physiological ferments of present living animals, and which at
the same time answered in the negative the question of the
spontaneous generation of organized ferments, is the same
which has permitted the demonstration of the inherent
unalterability of proximate principles, and to verify the old
hypothesis of germs of the air which had been neglected.
Thanks to it, it has been possible to explain anatomically and
physiologically the phenomena of coagulation and the other
spontaneous changes of the blood.

This method had its origin in
experiments on the inversion of cane sugar, supposed to be
spontaneous, and in those relating to the changes which
occurred in milk, which made conspicuous the principle
obtained by experiment, that creosote absolutely prevents the
alteration of immediate principles by preventing the
development of all living organized products, even in contact
with a limited quantity of ordinary air, while the same doses
under the same condiA-tions did not prevent change in natural
animal matters, tissues and humors, even permitting them to
give birth to vibrios or to bacteria.

It is important to bear in mind
that the new method (of experiment) enabled us to distinguish
organic matters composed only of proximate principles, from
natural vegetable and animal matters, that is to say, from
organic bodies properly so-called; in short, to distinguish
organic matter in the chemical meaning from that which, like
milk,is organic matter in the anatomical and physiological
meaning; the ferments which change the former, the organic
matters in a chemical sense, that is to say, proximate
principles, have for origin the germs of the air, while the
ferments which change the second, that is to say, the natural
organic matters, are the microzymas of their own substance,
which are inherent in them as anatomical elements.

In fact, the phenomenon of the
birth of the vibrios in the spontaneously altered milk, if
indeed they were the result of the evolution of the microzymas
of the milk, ought not to be an isolated fact, but a
particular case of a general phenomenon, proper to all organic
bodies, so that the fact of the birth of vibrioniens in an
organic body, humor or tissue should be considered as evidence
of the existence of microzymas in this tissue or this humor,
even though the microscope has failed to reveal them.

Experiment has confirmed in every
sense these consequences of the application of the new method
of investigation to the study of the phenomenon of the
spontaneous change of milk. The matter of all the tissues and
humors, of all organic bodies, from the highest to the
lowestaas, for instance, beer-yeast and the mother of
vinegaramay give birth to vibrioniens in like conditions to
those in which they are produced in the milk, or in which such
conditions can be realized, if it be necessary to encourage
otherwise the evoluA-tion of their microzymas. And when the
phenomenon of spontaneous alteration of such matter is
recorded, the matter being protected from germs of the air,
without the appearance of vibrioniens, it may be confidently
affirmed that microzymas were present and were the agents of
the change.

The following is the application of
the method to fibrin, regarded as an organic body:

Demonstration that fibrin is not a
proximate principle, but a false membrane of microzymas. Birth
of bacteria in the fibrin.

The fibrin is produced mechanically
from the blood by whipping the latter; being regarded as an
organic body, it ought like milk to contain microzymas capable
of undergoing vibrionian evolution.

To demonstrate this, M. Estor and I
employed a modification of the method which had been used to
demonstrate the microzymas of the chalk and of muscle flesh.
The modification consisted in preparing a starch of the fecula
of potatoes, to boil it for a long time, to creosote it while
boiling and to introduce into it the solid substance to be
studied at the moment it was extracted from the creosoted
water, into which it had been immersed to protect it from the
influence of germs of the air. The experiment was as follows:
Fibrin was obtained by whipping under the following
conditions; at the moment of the venesection creosote was
added to the blood, and at the same time it was whipped with a
bundle of metallic wires which had just been washed in boiling
creoA-soted water; then the fibrin was washed in creosoted
water. Into 100 grammes of creosoted starch 15 grammes of
freshly prepared humid fibrin were introduced and the flask
sealed and placed in the oven heated to from 30A deg to 40A deg C. (=
86A deg a104A deg F.). The starch, exactly as happened with muscle
tissue, became liquefied by degrees, and after a time the
presence of bacteria in the mixture was evident; but it was
observed that the liquifaction of the starch generally
preceded the appearance of the bacteria.

The foregoing is a general view of
the phenomena, but differences were observed in its
manifestations, according to the species and age of the animal
as well as the source of the blood. Generally the fibrin of
young animals disintegrates in fluid starch, while the
bacteria develop. The duration of the liquifaction of the
starch is also variable.

It is known that boiled milk clots,
which means that the microzymas are not killed at the
temperature of boiling; on the other hand, to prevent the
chalk from liquifying starch,a I was obliged to heat it
(moist) to more than 200A deg C. (=392A deg F.). The microzymas of the
fibrin resist up to 100A deg C. (= 212A deg F.). The fibrin was boiled
for several minutes in distilled water before it was placed in
the starch. In this case the liquifaction is still further
delayed and even ceases to be produced if the boiling of the
fibrin is too prolonged; but the bacteria appear none the
less; and these bacteria present always the same morphological
characters.

*[a For explanation of the action
of the microzymas of the calcareous rocks see "Role de la
craie dans les fermentations," Bull. Soc. Ch., Vol. VI, p.
484 (1866); also "Les Microzymas," third conference; also
post-chapter VIII of this work.aTrans.)*

To complete the demonstration it
should be added, and M. Estor was witness of the fact, that
fibrin, exactly as was the case with the mother of vinegar (a
sort of vegetable membrane of visible microzymas), and under
like conditions can produce lactic and butyric fermentation, a
fact which will be further considered hereafter.

Such was the experiment and its
complement, whence it was concluded that fibrin, like milk,
like flesh, like the tissue of liver, etc., contains
microzymas, since, like them, it gives birth to bacteria
without the aid of germs of the air.

Under the conditions of the
experiment these microA-zymas could only have come from the
blood. Efforts were then made to find them in the blood itself
at the moment of the venesection. This was a delicate
investigation and will be reverted to hereafter, as it is
allied to the whole subject of this work.

Fibrin, whether obtained by
whipping or by washing the clot (we will see presently wherein
these two preparations differ), is not a proximate principle,
but constitutes a membrane or fibre composed of microzymas. In
short, it is not organic matter in the chemical meaning, but
an organic body in the anatomical and physiological meaning.
Nevertheless this demonstration that fibrin contains
microzymas is indirect; and one might still contend that the
bacteria has been born spontaneously, in the mixture of fibrin
with starch. In any case it left unsettled the nature of the
substance which, in the false membrane, is like an
intermicrozymian gangue, as also the quantitative relation
between the microzymas and this substance. It was therefore
very desirA-able to obtain these microzymas isolated, as Estor
and I had isolated those of the liver.

The fibrinous microzymas and their
properties compared with those of the fibrin.

The question of the solubility of
fibrin in dilute hydrochloric acid had been long discussed and
it occurred to me that I might there find a means whereby the
microzymas might be isolated, as they ought to be insoluble in
it, as were those of the chalk. On going over the history of
experiments on the fibrin, I found many experiments and
observations relating to fibrin deserving attention which had
been neglected.

Thenard had already described the
action of dilute hydrochloric acid upon the fibrin of the
blood and the formation of hydrochlorates of this substance,
one of which, the gelatinous, was soluble in tepid water.1
Long afterwards, Bouchardat called attention to the fact that
Chevreul had

*1. Thenard, Traiee elementaire
de chimie, Vol. III, p. 430 (1815).*

demonstrated that fibrin always
contained fat and he asked himself if even deprived of fatty
bodies it would be a pure proximate principle? To demonstrate
that that which had been generally admitted was not well
founded, he made the following experiment:

He heated fresh, moist fibrin with
ten times its weight of very dilute hydrochloric acid (1 to
2000) and observed that it swelled up, and by a prolonged
maceration was at last dissolved, but that there always
remained manifest a portion of a product which was not
attacked by an excess of this very dilute acid employed as a
solvent. Bouchardat called the undissolved part epidermose,
and albuminose that which was dissolved.1 It was from this
experiment that Bouchardat justly concluded that the fibrin is
decidedly not a proximate principle.

*1. C.R., Vol. XIV, p. 962
(1842).*

The part of the fibrin that
Bouchardat regarded under the name of epidermose, as one of
the two proximate principles constituting fibrin, was
precisely the microzymas which I proposed to isolate. In
consequence of the viscosity of the hydrochloric solution,
essentially capable of change as Bouchardat had said, and of
the slowness of filtration, he had not determined the quantity
of the epidermose. By employing a less diluted hydrochloric
acid (1 to 3 c.c. of fuming acid per 1000 c.c.) the viscosity
was diminished, and on adding to it 2-3 drops of phenol per
100 c.c. the suspected alteration was absolutely prevented,
and the deposition of the insoluble part could be awaited.
Even then it requires from ten to twelve days to filter a
litre of the liquid. For quantitative experiments it must be
left at rest and the deposit must not be turned out upon the
filter until the filtration of the supernatant liquid is
completed.

The grayish brown mass retained on
the filter was resolved under the microscope into exceedingly
fine molecular granulations, which are the microzymas, and
some shapeless fragments proceeding doubtless from the blood
globules destroyed during the preparation of the fibrin. To
procure these molecular granulations as free as possible from
foreign fragments the mass when removed from the filter is
steeped in hydrochloric acid (1 in 1000), and the liquor,
creosoted or carbolized, is passed through a fine linen mesh
and left to deposit. The deposit is collected on a filter of
very fine mesh, is successively washed with water to remove
every trace of acid, and finally with ether, slightly
alcoholized, to remove the fat. The matter when removed from
the filter is then dried in a dry vacuum, is agglomerated, and
brownish in color.

The moist fibrinous microzymas,
completely drained, are composed (in hundredths) as follows:

       
Organic matter chiefly albuminoid...........  
13.553  
        Mineral
matter........................................   
0.384  
        Water (by
difference)..............................  86.063  
                                                                     
100.000

Like all organized beings, they
contain mineral matter and much fixed water. Their organic
matter is chiefly albuminoid; in fact, dry, it dissolves in
fuming hydrochloric acid, developing when hot a violet color;
and if to the hydrochloric acid water is added a white
precipitate of albuminoid matter is obtained.

The minuteness of these humid
microzymas, swollen with water, is extreme. Under the
microscope they appear to be spherical in form, animated with
the brownian movements, the diameter whereof hardly attains
0.0005 (half a thousandth of a millimeter).

Their quantity is very small. From
some determinations, unavoidably somewhat uncertain, I
estimated that the humid, drained fibrin of the general blood
of an ox yields about one thousandth of its weight of
microzymas dried at 100A deg. Taking this figure of 1/1000 as the
best approximation, and considering that 1,000 grammes of
drained fibrin contain 193 grammes of fibrin dried at 100A deg, it
is evident that the weight of the dried microzymas is 1/193 of
the dry fibrin; in short 100 parts of fibrin dried at 100A deg
contain 0.518 parts of microzymas dried at the same
temperature. This quantity appears to be very small, and one
might think that in the blood it might be neglected, and that
consequently the microzymas take no part in the phenomena
studied. It is not so, for we shall see that they are
anatomical elements and physiological agents of rare energy;
and that if it was interA-esting to weigh them, it is still
more so to count them.

Let us first show that in the
fibrin they are at the same time that which liquifies starch
and from which bacteria are derived, that which decomposes
oxygenated water, and that which determines its apparent
solution in dilute hydrochloric acid.

1. The fibrinous microzymas
liquify starch and then become bacteria.

The microzymas of 60 grammes of
fibrin obtained from the blood of an ox or of a dog, fresh,
still humid, well washed so as to remove every trace of acid,
are sufficient to liquify 50 grammes of potato starch at 45A deg
to 50A deg C. (= 113A deg-122A deg F.). The liquifaction is completed in
16 hours; if the reaction is prolonged, Fehling's reagent is
reduced. Other things equal, the liquifaction is more rapid
with the microzymas of the fibrin of a dog. Finally bacteria
appear, while another fermentation begins and the liquid
becomes acid.

To estimate the influence of the
concentration of the acid in the extraction of the microzymas
the fibrin in another operation was treated with hydrochloric
acid, 3 to 1,000.  The microzymas did not lose any of
their activity.

II. The microzymas of fibrin
decompose oxygenated water.

The humid microzymas, crude, or
with the fat removed by ether, as well as such as have been
dried in a dry vacuum, decompose oxygenated water, setting the
oxygen free, but with much greater energy than the fibrin from
which they had been obtained; showing therein an energy hardly
less than bioxide of manganese. I ascertained that the
microzymas of the fibrin of the blood of all the animals
examined by me acted in like manner.

Later the theory of these facts
will be explained, but to anticipate the objection regarding
the germs of the air I call attention to the four facts
following:

1.    Fibrinous
microzymas which have liquified starch are still able to
decompose oxygenated water;

2.    Fibrinous
microzymas which have exhausted their decomposing action upon
oxygenated water can no longer liquify starch and do not
develop into bacteria.

3.    Fibrinous
microzymas which have been subjected to boiling at 100A deg C. (=
212A deg F.) do not liquify starch and do not decompose oxygenated
water;

4.   
Fibrinous microzymas lose the property of
decomposing oxygenated water with lapse of time.

But fibrinous microzymas washed in
ether, so as to remove their fat, dried in vacuo and protected
from contact with the air in a closed tube, preserve for a
long time the property of decomposing oxygenated water, but
lose by degrees their energy; after ten years they had lost it
altogether, without having appreciably lost weight.

Here was another essential property
of the microzymas which I formulated!

III. Fibrin owes to its living
microzymas the faculty of being dissolved in very dilute
hydrochloric acid.

Bouchardat, following Thenard,
observed that before dissolving in dilute acid fibrin swelled
up in a translucent, colorless gelatinous mass1 and that
solution was effected only after prolonged maceration. The
progress of solution is so slow that Liebig, for a long time,
held that fibrin was insoluble in dilute hydrochloric acid;
and we shall see that it was upon this remark that he founded
the distinction between muscular fibrin (masculine or
syntonine) and blood fibrin. Dumas, on the other hand,
verified the fact of solubility and showed that at the
temperature of 40A deg C. (= 104A deg F.) solution was more rapid.
According to Dumas the phenomenon is a function of time and
temperature. I shall prove that it is at the same time
especially a function of the activity of the microzymas.

1.  It was this gelatinous
mass thai Thenard correctly regarded as a hydrochlorate of
organic matter.

First let us remember that creosote
or phenic acid delays the souring and coagulation of milk as
well as the vibrionian evolution of its microzymas. Phenol
similarly retards the supposed solution of fibrin in very
dilute hydrochloric acid.  The following will demonstrate
the fact:

A mass of 600 grammes of fresh and
humid fibrin of ox's blood is divided into four equal partsaA,
B, C, D, each of 150 grammes, which are treated in flasks of
like capacity in the following manner:}  
    A, 2,000 c.c. of hydrochloric acid, 2 to
1,000;  
    B, the same volume of acid and 40 drops of
phenol;  
    C, the same volume of acid and 60 drops of
phenol;  
    D, 2,000 c.c. of boiling distilled water.
The ebulition is maintained at 100A deg C. for two minutes. Left
to cool and 4 c.c. of fuming hydrochloric acid are added, so
that it was also diluted to 2 to 1,000.

The four flasks were covered and
placed in the same enclosure; temperature kept at 24A deg to 28A deg
C. (= 75.2A deg to 82.4A deg F.).

    In A, B, C the
fibrin swelled into a gelatinous mass. In d the fibrin
remained a dull white, without becoming gelatinous.  
    In A, the gelatinous mass was dissolved in
three days.  
    In B, the solution was effected in four
days.  
    In C, the solution was effected in six
days.  
    In D, the unswollen fibre remained a dull
white; there was no change at the end of a fortnight, though
with free access of air.

The phenomenon at the same
temperature is then a function of time; it must also be so of
the microzymas, since phenic acid retards it the more, the
greater the dose, even as it delayed the coagulation of milk,
and finally boiling for a sufficient time prevented it
entirely, as it had prevented the fibrin and the fibrinous
microzymas from liquifying starch and from decomposing
oxygenated water. The function ascribed to the microzymas will
be made still more clear when it is shown that that which is
called the dissolving of fibrin is really the result of a
reaction of a profound transA-formation undergone by that part
of the fibrin which is in solution. The theory of the
phenomenon will also be exA-plained presently; at present we
will confine ourselves to saying that in the order of the
ideas of these experiments the supposed solution in very
dilute hydrochloric acid is, at bottom, only a mode of
spontaneous alteration of the fibrin under special conditions.
We have now to consider the normal method of its spontaneous
alteration.

IV. Fibrin changes spontaneously
without undergoing fetid putrefaction.

Gay-Lussac had observed that fresh
fibrin, in an open flask, in contact with water which was
renewed from time to time, putrefied and disappeared almost
wholly, leaving only an insignificant insoluble residue. At
the time this observation was made, it was believed that
albuminoid proximate principles, as well as others, were
spontaneously alterable. This was before the experiments of
Schwann regarding the influence of the germs of the air. On
the study of this change being again taken up to determine its
products, among those which are dissolved, there was observed
an albuminoid matter coagulable by heat, which was taken for
albumin, also leucine, valeric acid, butyric acid,
hydro-sulphate of ammonia, etc. In reality, in the experiment
of Gay-Lussac, the alteration was a complex phenomenon, in
which the ferments born of the germs of the air take part, and
which are the agents of the fetid putrefaction. If the
influence of these germs be annulled, the result is different.
A mass of fresh fibrin, prepared with the usual care, was
immediately imA-mersed in distilled water (first carbolized by
3-4 drops per 100 c.c.), so that it was covered with a bed of
liquid. Under these conditions, after five to six weeks, at a
temperature ranging from 15A deg to 25A deg C. (= 59A deg-77A deg F.) the
fibrin had disappeared; in its place were a clear transparent
liquid and a considerable precipitate. No odor except that of
the carbolic acid; no vibrios either in the liquor or in the
precipitate. The alteration then had taken place without any
fetid putrefaction. What was its nature? Later in chapter 11
the nature of these dissolved bodies will be compared with
those of the change of fibrin in dilute hydrochloric acid. Let
us see of what the precipitate consisted.

The molecular granulations of the
change without fetid putrefaction of the fibrin:

In the precipitate, which is
greater than the precipitate of microzymas after the
disappearance of the fibrin in dilute dydrochloric acid, the
microscope shows us a very great number of very small
spherical molecular granulations, much more bulky than the
fibrinous microzymas, and some shapeless remains, probably of
fibrin or of the envelopes of blood globules. To procure these
molecular granulations pure the precipitate, which is thick,
is steeped in water slightly carbolized, then passed through a
close-meshed silk cloth, purified again by levigation,
collected on a filter, to be there again washed with water and
finally with ether slightly charged with alcohol to remove the
fat, and then again with water.

In this condition the molecular
granulations preserve their form; they decompose oxygenated
water, liquify starch and again decompose oxygenated water
after having effected this liquifaction; in short, they
possess the properties of fibrin and of its microzymas, but
they are neither fibrin nor its microzymas.

In fact, these molecular
granulations, the insoluble remains of the disappeared fibrin,
treated with hydrochloric acid (2 in 1,000), dissolve much
more rapidly than the fibrin, leaving undissolved microzymas
identical with, as slender as, and endowed with the same
properties as, those of fresh fibrin.

This last observation is important.
It is a consequence of the fact that fibrin, under the
conditions of the experiment, alters spontaneously without
fetid putrefaction, without vibrios, leaving a residuum of
molecular granulations which contain microzymas identical with
those obtained from fibrin treated with dilute hydrochloric
acid. It is explicable only in one way. As milk, treated with
a sufficient dose of phenic acid, becomes changed otherwise
than milk not so treated or only slightly so, without the
microzymas becomA-ing vibrios, so the microzymas of the fibrin
have transA-formed, in a certain way, the intermicrozymian
substance which is in it, as gangue, without undergoing
vibrionian evolution, but remaining enveloped as in an
atmosphere of albuminoid matter insoluble in water, but easily
soluble in very dilute hydrochloric acid, the microzymas being
set free.

The great importance of taking these
molecular granA-ulations into consideration will be seen when
studying in the third chapter the state of the fibrin in the
blood. Meanwhile, the fact that the fibrin changes spontaneously
in carbolized water, that is to say, without the aid of germs of
the air, is a fresh proof that fibrin is not a proximate
principle.

In the next chapter we shall see what
is the nature of the albuminoid matters of the spontaneous
alteration of fibrin in carbolized water, and compare it with
that of the change which takes place under the influence of
hydrochloric acid.

Meanwhile, such are the proofs, all
agreeing, founded on the new method of investigation, to the
effect that fibrin, like milk, the liver, etc., is neither a
proximate principle nor a compound of such principles, but that
like them it is an organic body, containing special microzymas;
and further that these living microzymas are what, in the
fibrin, liquify starch and can become vibrionien by evolution,
decomposes oxygenated water; determines the change of this
fibrin either in very dilute hydrochloric acid or in carbolized
water.

To complete the history of the
microzymas of the fibrin, we must try to discover by what
mechanism they decompose oxygenated water and liquify starch,
cither isolated or in fibrin; and how it is that they are the
agents which determine the spontaneous alteration of fibrin,
both in very dilute hydrochloric acid and in carbolized water.

Theory of the decomposition of
oxygenated water by fibrin and by the fibrinous microzymas.

I stated at the commencement of this
chapter that Thenard, having discovered that organic tissues
(for example, the liver) decompose oxygenated water, thought
that fibrin decomposed it through being a proximate principle
and was the only substance of this order that did so. But what
is really the nature of the phenomenon of this decomposition?
Thenard said that fibrin and organic tissues "decompose
oxygenated water in the same manner as metals (platinum, for
instance) without giving up any of their principles, without
absorbing the smallest quantity of oxygen, without undergoing
the least visible change." In short, that oxygenated water is
decomposed by fibrin owing to what has since been called "action
through presence," "catalytic action of contact," such as metals
or the bioxide of manganese. Such was the state of science a few
years ago and is so, perhaps, today. It was necessary for a more
exact knowledge of the blood and of organization in general to
fix exactly the meaning of this, both as to fact and as to
principle; the more so that they were advanced by Thenard
himself as a possible explanation of the phenomenon of
fermentation, and were the point of departure of the hypothesis
called actions of presence, of catalytic contact, which have
been the cause that the true theory of fermentation has been so
much misunderstood.

In reality, the decomposition of
oxygenated water by fibrin, with disengagement of oxygen, is the
result not of an action by presence merely, as with the bioxide
of manganese, but of a chemical reaction, as is evident from the
following experiments:

30 grammes of fibrin of fresh
ox-blood, containing 3 gr. 79 of matter dried at 100A deg C., have
successively decomposed three times 60 c.c. of oxygenated water
at 10.5 volumes of oxygen. At the second and third addition, the
disengagement became gradually slower, so that at the third,
after twenty-four hours, no more gas was given off, although the
oxygenA-ated water was not all decomposed. Altogether 1,600 c.c.
of oxygen were set free from 1,890 c.c., which the 180 c.c. of
oxygenated water employed, contained. It is evident that if the
fibrin had given up nothing, if there had not been some
reaction, the successive liquors resulting from the action of
the oxygenated water ought not to contain any organic matter.
But these liquors on being evaporated left a combustible
residue, whose weight,adeducting the ashes,a were 0.16 grammes
dried at 100A deg---i.e., 0.533 for 100 of humid fibrin or 2.76 per
cent, of fibrin dried at 100A deg C.

The fibrinous microzymas also yield
up somewhat of their substance in decomposing oxygenated water.
Six grammes of these microzymas, fresh, humid, containing 0.84
gr. of matter dried at 100A deg, having exhausted their decomposing
action, the evaporated liquors have left as resiA-due, dried at
100A deg, 0 gr. 06 of organic combustible matter, deducting the
ashes; that is to say, 1 for 100 of humid matter-that is, 7.5
per cent, of the weight of the dried microzymas.

Fibrin and its microzymas then do not
decompose oxygenated water in the same manner as do platinum or
the bioxide of manganese, since they both give up part of their
substance which is found transformed in solution in the
oxygenated water. If Thenard thought that fibrin gave up nothing
it was because, on the one hand, he took into account only the
disengaged oxygen, which seemed to him the whole of that which
the oxygenated water could furnish; that which had been absorbed
being very minute, and, on the other hand, that the fibrin
seemed to him not to have undergone any change. But the change
really has been great, since that which remains has no longer
any action on oxygenated water, does not liquify starch and does
not yield bacteria.

These remarks apply to the microzymas
which are recovered, similar morphologically, to what they had
been before being treated, but do not now liquify starch nor
become bacteria by evolution.

It is then a fact, decomposition with
oxygen set free from oxygenated water by fibrin or by its
isolated microzymas, is correlative with a chemical reaction,
with a change in the property of the substance which has
exhausted its decomposing activity. And on comparing, in
hundredths, the quantities (of the products of the reaction)
which are disA-solved, of the fibrin and of the isolated
microzymas, it is found that the latter furnish much more than
the former. They furnish much more, even if we consider only the
quantity of microzymas contained in the fibrin used, viz., o gr.
0335 for 60 grammes of humid fibrin or 5 gr' .79 of that dried
at 100A deg C. In fact, if the dried fibrin yields or contains 2.76,
calculating that which its microzymas would give by comparison
with what is given by the isolated microzymas, it is found to be
4 per cent, instead of 7 per cent., which is that given by these
latter. I do not lay much stress on this differA-ence because it
may be due partly to the difficulties and uncertainties
attendant upon the weighing. But none the less by means of these
comparisons it is clear that the microzymas, whether isolated or
not, give up more than does the fibrin, which tends to show that
the intermicrozymian gangue of the fibrin does not exert any
decomposing action upon oxygenated water, as will be presently
directly demonA-strated. Anyway it is evident that some substance
belonging to the organization of the microzymaaprobably a
proximate principleais yielded and transformed, and that it is
not the entire microzyma which is the agent of the
decomposA-ition, since the greatest part of its mass remains,
preserving its form. But what is this substance? Without being
able to define it exactly we shall see that it is essentially
albuminoid. Whatever it may be, it is important to know that it
only effects the decomposition on certain conditions. For
instance, oxygenated water, which contains a free acid, is not
decomA-posed either by fibrin or by the fibrinous microzymas,
and, reciprocally, the fibrin dissolved by hydrochloric acid
under the same conditions as the experiment of Bouchardat, in
which the acid is very dilute, and containing the microzymas,
decomposes it only when it is neutral. But albuminoid matA-ters
combine with several acids; it is without doubt a
hydro-chlorate, a sulphate, etc., of this substance, whatever it
may be, which is not changed by oxygenated water, and
oxygenA-ated water which is not decomposed by it. In illustration
of this the following very interesting case of the influence of
a special acid is given.

Liebig observed that fibrin steeped
in a very dilute solution of hydrocyanic acid did not decompose
oxygenated water. The observation was true but incomplete, as
the influence of this acid is only temporary. In fact, if the
quantity of oxygenated water is sufficient, the liberation of
oxygen recommences at the end of a time, the longer the greater
the quantity of hydrocyanic acid. The decomposition recommences
because the oxygenated water destroys the hydrocyanic acid by a
phenomenon of oxydation without liberation of oxygen.1

1. C. R.. Vol. XCV, p. 926 (1887). I
have since further studied this subject. Hydrocyanic acid and
oxygenated water react upon each other; at first without the
liberation of gas; an oxamide is formed which crystallizes; at
the same time there is a liberation of heat, which increasing,
the oxydation is accomplished with production of urea and
liberation of oxygen. It is then solely because hydrocyanic acid
and oxygenated water react first of all, that the microzymas of
fibrin are protected, and not as has been supposed, because
hydrocyanic acid acts as a poison upon these microzymas. The
fact that after the destruction of the hydrocyanic acid, the
fibrin again decomposes oxygenated water, proves that what
happens is not a phenomenon of poisoning. This will be further
treated hereafter.

Theory of the liquifaction of fecula
starch by fibrin and by the fibrinous microzymas.

Fibrin and its microzymas are
insoluble in water; on the other hand, Payen demonstrated that
fecula exists in a special condition of hydration and of
swelling, in which it is similarly insoluble.

How then can these insoluble bodies
act upon one another, the one, fecula, dissolving, while the
other, the fibA-rin or the microzyrnas, remain insoluble? The
explanation is the same as before given of the inversion of cane
sugar by moulds, born of the germs of the air in its aqueous
solution, but which are insoluble, as are the microzymas.

I have proved directly that these
moulds, born of other organized ferments, and other microzymas,
produce in themselves and secrete soluble products of an
albuminoid nature, which are of the same order as those called
soluble ferments and which were confused in the same category
with organized insoluble ferments. Having thus established the
anatomical origin of soluble ferments, to mark the union of
dependence between the product and the producer, I gave the name
of zymas to what had been termed soluble ferment.

This established, as the microzymasa
of sprouted barley produce diastase or hordeozymas, as the
pancreas or its microzymas produce pancreazymas, which liquify
and saccharify starch, so the fibrinous microzymas produce the
zymas which effect its liquifaction.

[aFor the purpose of continuing "the
conspiracy of silence" beneath which the marvellous discoveries
of Bechamp have been obscured for so many years, this word and
its congeners are never used in the writings of the chief
conspirators, nor in those of the numerous leaders of the
profession who have been duped by them.aTrans.]

And since every zymas is of the
albuminoid order, as the fibrinous microzymas which have
exhausted their decomA-posing action upon oxygenated water do not
liquify starch, we can say that the substance which in the
fibrinous microzymas is given up and transformed by oxygenated
water, is precisely this zymas, an albuminoid substance which
liquifies the starch of fecula.

Theory of the spontaneous alteration
of fibrin, whether in very dilute hydrochloric acid or in
carbolized water.

The two constitutive parts of fibrin
are equally insoluble in water and in very dilute dydrochloric
acid. As for the liquifaction of starch by them, the same
question arises: how can these two insoluble bodies act upon one
another, the one remaining insoluble, the microzymas; the other,
the albuminoid matter, entering into solution? The answer is the
same. In the same manner that fecula is made soluble and
transformed by the zymas which the microzymas secrete, so the
albuminoid matter is dissolved by this zymas while being
transformed.

The explanation of the phenomenon is
thus very simple. Only in the case in which very dilute
hydrochloric acid interA-venes does the transforming chemical
action of the zymas secreted by the microzymas act upon the
insoluble combination, which the albuminoid matter makes, at
first with the hydrochloric acid; while in the carbolized water
it acts directly on the insoluble albuminoid matter as on the
amylaceous matter of the starch. But the action of the zymas
being exerA-cised on the one hand on the hydrochloric combination
of the albuminoid matter and on the other on this matter itself,
it is not to be wondered at that the soluble products of the
reaction differ in some respects, as will be explained in the
second chapter.

It is now easy to understand why the
previous coction of the fibrin hinders alike its solution in
dilute hydrochloric acid and in carbolized water. It is because
heat at 100A deg kills the microzymas as it destroys the activity of
all zymases, and doubtless because the inter-microzymian
albuminoid matter has undergone the special coagulation which
hinders it from effecting the gelatinous combination with
hydrochloric acid before spoken of.

To sum up: Fibrin is not a proximate
principle. It decomposes oxygenated water correlatively to a
change in the zymas produced by its microzymas, which zymas is
the agent of the liquifaction of starch and of the changes
underA-gone by its albuminoid matter, whether in dilute
hydrochloric acid or in carbolized water, conditions in which
its microA-zymas do not undergo vibrionian evolution. In short,
these microzymas, whether in the fibrin or isolated, are not the
agents of the decomposition of the oxygenated water after the
manner of fermentsathat is to say, physiologically by a
phenomenon of fermentation, but only as producers of the
proximate principle which the oxygenated water changes as it
changes hydrocyanic acid.

To complete a knowledge of fibrin and
of its micro-zymas, I recall the facts that Estor and I, in our
note, described an experiment from which we concluded that "in
the presence of pure calcic carbonate and so long as the
microzymas of the fibrin continued to evolve they behaved, as
regards fibrin, at the same time as alcoholic ferment, and as
acetic, lactic and butyric ferments.1 Among these experiA-ments I
will describe two, because they were conducted on a sufficiently
large scale the better to establish results. The proportions of
the materials employed were as follows:

Fecula of potatoes, 5 parts,
transformed into starch in 85 per cent, of water; pure calcic
carbonate, 1 part; fibrin fresh, moist, newly prepared, 0.13
parts; temperature of the oven 35A deg to 40A deg C. (= 95A deg-104A deg F.).

*1. C. R., Vol. LIX.715-716.*

The two experiments were started on
the 22nd of May. The next day disengagement of gas commenced, a
mixture of carbonic acid and of hydrogen. From the 8th day the
gas was analyzed repeatedly, and was found to be composed as
follows, in hundredths:

|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | June | June | June | June | June | June | August | August |
| 3 | 8 | 18 | 25 | 3 | 17 | 3 | 15 |
| Carbolic acid   Hydrogen | 80   20 | 91     9 | 88   12 | 77   23 | 62   38 | 50   50 | 67   33 | 71   29 |
|  | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |

The gaseous mixture is thus seen to
have varied with the complication of the reaction.

One of the experiments was stopped
on the 10th September for the purpose of making the analysis.
There was still a large amount of fecula not transformed; the
products of the fermentation were as follows:

    Absolute
alcohol............................................................
   21 cent, cubes.  
    Proprionic acid
...................................................................
   12 grammes.  
    Butyric acid
..............................................................................
150      "  
    Chrystallized acetate of soda
.................................................   
650       "  
    Chrystallized lactate of
chalk..................................................   
709       "

The second operation, upon a
greater scale, was continued until the lactate formed had been
transformed; the analysis of the products was made on the 10th
of May of the following year. The experiment then had lasted
nearly a year. There was still some fecula not transformed.
There were found:

    Alcohol mixed
with higher alcohols........................................
   78 c.c.  
    Proprionic
acid.........................................................................80
gr.  
    Butyric acid
............................................................................680
gr.  
    Acids higher than the butyric up to
caprylic .........................    245 gr.  
    Crystallized acetate of
soda....................................................725
gr.

Thus, as in the classical lactic
fermentations, the ferment which produced the lactic acid is
that also which destroys this acid in the lactate of lime. It
is only necessary to observe that the products formed by the
microzymas of the fibrin differ greatly, both in proportion
and in quality, from those of ordinary lactic fermentations,
and especially from those by mother of vinegar. I shall, by
and by, insist further on the fact that the bacteria of the
microzymas which evolve in the first phase have gradually but
completely disappeared in the second, so that at the end there
only remained a few forms closely allied to the microzymas.
But I insist here on the fact that for the two experiments 200
grammes of fresh fibrin were employed containing at the start
at most 0 gr. 2 of microzymas to effect the prodigious
transformations of the fecula. The fibrinous microzymas are
then figured ferments of rare energy.

Such were the preliminaries to the
discovery of the third anatomical element of the blood. For a
complete understanding of the fibrin and the products of its
changes it is necessary to know in what light to regard the
albuminose of Bouchardat, which this savant believed existed
in the supposed solution of fibrin in dilute hydrochloric
acid, and to do this we must have a better knowledge of the
albuminoids.

---

**CHAPTER II.**

**ON THE ACTUAL
SPECIFIC INDIVIDUALITY OF THE ALBUMINOID PROXIMATE
PRINCIPLES. THE ALBUMINOIDS. THE PHENOMENON OF COAGULATION.
THE ALBUMINOIDS OF THE FIBRIN. THE ALBUMINOIDS OF THE SERUM.
HAEMOGLOBIN. HAEMOGLOBIN AND OXYGENATED WATER.**

**The phenomenon of coagulation.**

**The hydrochloric solution of
fibrin, separated from its rnicrozymas, contains a mixture
of albuminoid matters, soluble and insoluble in water.**

To solve the problem of the spontaneous coagulation of the
blood, it is necessary to know not only the three anatomical
elements of this humor, but also the composition of the medium
in the midst whereof they live, because there are to be found
united the conditions of their existence.

Let us admitawhat will be
provenathat, in accordance with the hypothesis of Hewson, of
Milne Edwards and of Dumas, fibrin does not exist dissolved in
the blood, and further that it is connected with what we have
called fibrinous microzymas. We then recognize that the really
liquid part of the blood contains all its components,
including therein the albuminoids, in a state of perfect
solution, as in the serum separated from the clot.

In 1815 it was supposed that the
serum of the blood contained albumin as the only albuminoid
matter, and this was not only identified with the white of an
egg, but with the albumen of the serous fluid of the
pericardium and of the ventricles of the brain, with chyle,
and even with pathological serous fluids: such as that of
dropsy, of blisters, etc.1 And these identifications were
based solely upon a single character, coagulation.

*1. Thenard, Traite de chimie,
Vol. III, p. 432 (1815).*

Even to-day it is contended that
two solutions contain the same albumin when they are
coagulable at about the same temperature. But the phenomenon
of coagulation has been so abused that it has become necessary
to define it accurately.

The phenomenon of coagulation. At
first the term coagulation was applied to the passage of the
blood from a liquid to a solid state, in the same sense that
one said of a liquid which solidified, of a vapor which
condensed into a liquid,athat it coagulated. Fourcroy said of
the white of egg, of the blood serum, etc., that they are
concresciblea by the application of heat because they contain
albumin. But in process of time, to the notion of
coagulability, chemists added that of insolubility; to
coagulate became for the albuminoids the correlative to
becoming insoluble. For instance, when the white of egg forms
into a solid mass in a hard boiled egg, it is said to have
coagulated, to have become at once solidified and insoluble
throughout; but as will be seen presently it is not so with
the blood when that is said to be spontaneously coagulated.

*a. [Obsolete; from the Latin
concrescere, to grow together, hence to solidify.aTrans.]*

When coagulation was thus strictly
defined in a chemical sense, the insolubility of the
coagulated substance was only considered relatively to water
as the solvent; solubility before coagulation was also
relative to water. But we shall see that the idea should be
completed by extending it to other solvents.

In the present state of science,
for instance, the name fibrin is given not only to that which
I have just studied, that of the blood, the general phlebotomy
of adults, but also to that of the arterial or venous blood,
without regard to the region of the vascular system from which
it is taken, without distinction as to age; that of the chyle,
that of the lymph or even of pathological serosities. And this
fibrin was regarded as coagulated albumin without regard to
the special action of fibrin upon oxygenated water, nor, as we
shall see, of its own coagulability.

A rapid review of the history of
albuminoid matters will enable us to understand how, in 1875,
it came to be supposed that fibrin was only a stage in the
transformation or alterations of albumin.

Under the influence of Gay-Lussac
and of Thenard, of Mulder and of Dumas, chemists had admitted
a certain number of nitrogenous matters of animal or vegetable
origin as specific, not only when they were a little
different, but even apparently identical in their centesimal
elementary composition. These matters Dumas called "neutral
nitrogenized matters of the organization," recalling thereby
an old classification of Thenard. At last they were called
albuminoids, comparing them to albumen, or white of egg, taken
for a type, because of certain common properties and of some
resemblances in composition. The notion of specificity
prevailed up to 1840; after that, in spite of Berzelius, the
singular idea of the substantial unity of these substances
seemed to prevail. This is how it came about.

It will be remembered that
Bouchardat gave the name of albuminose to the fibrinous matter
dissolved by very dilute hydrochloric acid. The reason for the
invention of this new word is a curious one. Biot had observed
that the watery solution of the white of egg deviated the
plane of polarization of polarized light to the left;
Bouchardat, having found that the hydrochloric solution of
fibrin also deviated the same plane of polarization to the
left, concluded that "as the soluble principle of fibrin is
identical with the dominant matter of the albumen of the egg,
I propose for this pure substance the name of albuminose."
Then dissolving in very dilute hydrochloric acid various other
analogous substances and observing the same results in
solutions thus obtained, he generalized as follows: "The
fundamental principle found in the fibrin, in the albumen of
egg, in the serum of blood, in the gluten of cereals, in
casein, is always the same; it is albuminose, mixed or
combined sometimes with earthy matters, phosphates of lime and
of magnesia, sometimes with alkaline salts, sometimes with
fatty matters, which mask their essential properties. If this
ephemeral combination be destroyed by a really inappreciable
proportion of acid, the albuminose solution is then found with
identical properties, exactly similar chemical reactions,
similar action on polarA-ized light, always deviating to the
left, the energy whereof, other things equal, is always
proportioned to the weight of the substance dissolved.1

The above amounts to saying that
the albumen of the white of egg, that of serum, the essential
matter of gluten, of casein and of fibrin, are the same
substance, possessing the same rotatory power.

We shall see how, even as to
fibrin, to what extent the observation of Bouchardat was
superficial and how he deceived himself in generalizing it. He
deceived himself so strangely that he did not think for a
moment that he had to do with hydrochloric combinations,
believing that the quantity of hydrochloric acid of his
solvent was inappreciable, etc. The chemists were equally
careless. Ch. Gerhardt adopted Bouchardat's point of view and
extended it.2 In Germany, especially, a legion of chemists
maintained the substantial identity of these matters; P.
Schutzenberger (a native of Holland, domiciled in France)
adopted it. It was because they knew very little about the
chemical constitution of albumen; so little that Ch. Gerhardt
consigned albuminoid matters to a place below asphaltes and
bitumens, and that in the general confusion M. Naquet thought
that albuminoid substances did not belong to the domain of
chemistry, but to that of physiology, as remains of organs.

But in 1856, while I was busied
with the researches which resulted in the discovery of the
microzymas, in a work on the source of urea in the organism,3
by arguments drawn

*1. C. R.. Vol. XIV, pp. 966-967
(1842).* *2. Ch. Gerhardt, "Traite de chimie organique." Vol.
IV, p. 436 (1856).* *3. "Essai sur les substances albuminoides et sur leur
transformation en l'uree." These de la Faculte de medecine
de Strasbourg. (2d S.). No. 376 (1856).*

as much from chemistry as from
physiology, I had maintained the specific plurality of the
albuminoids and demonstrated that these substances, animal and
vegetable alike, produce urea by decomposition following a
phenomenon of oxydation. In this work I succeeded in
expressing the chemical constitution of albumin and of the
albuminoids in general, regarded as proximate principles. I
showed that their molecules were very complex, the most
complex known, inasmuch as formed of numerous non-complex
molecules of the fatty and aromatic series, among which were
amide derivatives, amides and sulphides, in the number whereof
urea was never wanting, so that if the ureides of M. Grimaux
had been known I should have said that albumin is a very
complex ureide. In this work I laid the foundation for the
future researches which led me to the discovery that the
albuminoid matters, even those regarded as proximate
principles, are either mixtures, like the albumin of white of
egg, or organized things, like fibrin and vitellin. The
researches whereby I demonstrated analytically that there are
a great number of natural albumins and albuminoids, reducible
to rigorously defined proximate principles, were made the
subject of examination by a commission of the Academy of
Sciences and of a report by J. B. Dumas.1 It was in the memoir
which is the subject of this report that is to be found the
demonstration of the specific plurality of albuminoid matters,
and that the doctrine of their substantial unity is an error.2

*1. C. R., Vol. XCIV. The members
of the Commission were Milne-Edwards, Peligot, Fremy,
Cahours, Dumas reporter.* *2. "Memoir sur les matirees albuminoides." Recueil des
memoires des savants etangers. Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, 516
pages. Imp. Nat.*

Among other things, I demonstrated
that the classical albumin, the white of egg of the fowl, the
type to which had been referred all those matters which were
identified under the name of albumin, was a mixture of three
proximate principles, irreducible to one another; all three
albuminoids, all three soluble and deviating the plane of
polarization of light to the left, whereof two are coagulable
by heat, the third not coagulable, a veritable zymas. And J.
Bechamp, having analyzed, by the same method, the whites of
eggs of a number of oviparous animals, birds and reptiles,
discovered among them other albumens, other zymases, different
from those of the egg of the fowl; so different and differing
among themselves that he was able to specify the species of a
bird by the albumens of its egg.1

But prejudice and partisanship are
so tenacious that nothing was of any avail. Notwithstanding
the report of Dumas, long afterwards, a learned physiologist
held that fibrin was a proximate principle. He did so in
reliance on the opinion of M. Duclaux proclaiming "the extreme
mutability of albuminoid matters and the folly of the chemical
specifications established in this category of organic
substances,2 and again maintained that fibrin was a proximate
principle.

*1.  J. Bechamp, "Nouvelles
recherches surlesalbumines normales et pathologiqites." I.
B. Bailliere el fils Paris (1887).* *2.  Dastre, C. R-, Vol. XCVIII, p. 959. See on
this subject A. Bechamp's Remarks on the note of M. Dastre
under the title of "Existe-t-il une digestion sans ferments
digestifs des matieres albuminoides?" C. R.. Vol. XCVIII, p.
1157 (1894). M. Dastre saw fibrin disappear, dissolved, in a
solution of fluoride of sodium and concluded that it was a
digestion.*

It is upon such opinions that rests
the assurance that fibrin is a stage in the mutations of
albumin and that the albumen of milk is a consequence of
another change in caseine, as asserted by M. Duclaux. All this
is inaccurate and one may even say absolutely untrue, for pure
albuminoid matters are fixed and are as rigorously definable
and specific as any other proximate principle.

Independently of the ignorance
which prevailed touching the chemical constitution of the
albuminoids, that which most constributed to perpetuate these
prejudices was that so little was known concerning the faculty
of the albuminoids to form combinations with bases or acids,
that even Dumas had held them to be neutral nitrogenous
matters. It is true that Bouchardat said that they form
combinations with the alkalies and alkaline earths, but said
that such combinations were only ephemeral. Thenard admitted
the formation of combinations with hydrochloric and sulphuric
acids, but no one paid any further attention thereto.
Lieberkuhn regarded the albumen of the white of egg as an
albuminate of soda, but said also that casein was an
albuminate of potash, etc. These kinds of combinations, under
the hypothesis of substantial unity, served to explain the
differences presented by these matters, compared with one
another, as being soluble or insoluble. What is certain is
that, at least in the animal organism, albuminoid matters are
always combined with an alkali or an alkaline earth, and that
further these combinations are complicated by the presence of
phosphatic earths, which they dissolve. And as if to augment
the confusion and force of prejudice, natural coagulations
were admitted, at the same time that the insolubility of
fibrin was sought to be explained by its combinations with
phosphates, it was called coagulated albumen; as to the
soluble albuminoids, to differentiate them they invoked
coagulation by heat; those which coagulated at the same
temperature were regarded as identical; casein was said to be
insoluble by heat, but coagulable by acids, thus confounding a
purely chemical phenomenon of precipitation with a physical
phenomenon, etc.

My researches have solidly
established that from those natural materials which always
constitute mixtures there can be separated by means of
analysis the albuminoids, proximate principles, which when
isolated have an acid reaction and which unite with bases in
as definite proportions as any acid, so that casein produces
with sodium a neutral caseinate, and a bicaseinate, which
reddens litmus paper. I also demonstrated that these
substances can form combinations with hydrochloric acid and
with acetic acid in several proportions. From these various
combinations the albuminoid matter, whether soluble or
insoluble, can always be isolated with its own proper
characters and always with the same rotatory power.

But the natural albuminoid matters,
even when reduced to proximate principles isolated from bases
and other minA-eral matters with which they had been combined
or mixed, are neither crystallizable, volatile nor fusible;
they possess then none of the so-called constant characters
employed by chemists to ascertain at once their purity and
identity. How then can one make sure that the substance
isolated by analysis is always identical with itself? I
employed for a constant the rotatory powers employed for a
like purpose by Bouchardat with the substances studied by him.

The following table gives the
rotatory powers of the chief albuminoid matters on which
Bouchardat experimented and disposes of the theory of the
substantial unity of these matters. In the table the numbers
are relative to the perceptible tint according to Biot.

While of egg of fowl, the whole,
purified:  
    Rotatory power in watery solution 
........................... fa) j = a 43A deg  
First albumen of this white of egg:  
    Rotatory power in water}' solution 
........................... fa} j = a  34A deg  
Second albumen of same:  
    Rotatory power in watery solution 
........................... fa) j = a  53A deg  
Leukozymas of this white of egg:  
    Rotatory power in watery solution 
............................ fa) j = a 79A deg  
Albumin of ox-blood scrum:  
    Rotatory power in watery
solution   ........................... (a) j =
a  61 A deg to a63A deg  
Hemazymas of same:  
    Rotatory power in watery solution 
........................... (a) j = a  57A deg.7  
Caseine:  
    Rotatory power in like solution 
................................. fa) j = a 117A deg  
    Rotatory power in solution in dilute  
        hydrochloric
acid  ................................................
fa) j = a 108A deg.6  
    Rotatory power in ammoniacal
solution   .................. (a) j = a 118A deg  
Lactalbumen of cow's milk:  
    Rotatory power in acetic
solution   ........................... (a) j =
a  66A deg  
Galactozymas of cow's milk:  
    Rotatory power in water,- solution 
........................... (a) j = a  40A deg.6  
Gluten of wheat, the whole:  
    Rotatory power in solution  
        in dilute
hydrochloric acid.................................. (a) j =
a101A deg.4  
A fibrin of gluten:  
    Rotatory power in acetic solution
.............................. (a) j = a102A deg  
Another fibrin of gluten:  
    Rotatory power in acetic solution
.............................. (a) j = a  88A deg  
A glutine:  
    Rotatory power in waters' solution 
........................... (a) j = a109A deg

We will now see how it is with a
solution of blood-fibrin in very dilute hydrochloric acid.

The hydrochloric solution of
fibrin, separated from its rnicrozymas, contains a mixture of
albuminoid matters, soluble and insoluble in water.

The limpid solution, which has been
obtained with or without the addition of phenol, has a decided
acid reaction and is without action on oxygenated water. The
solution is really one of hydrochloric combinations with
albuminoid matters, whereof the greater part is insoluble in
water. In fact, on the addition of dilute ammonia so that the
liquor becomes faintly alkaline, an abundant dead white
flocculent precipitate is produced which, collected on a
filter, well washed with distilled water, with alcohol and
with ether and rapidly dried in a dry vacuum, forms a
pulverulent matter. Was this the whole of the fibrin less its
microzymas? If yes, the fibrin is purely and simply dissolved;
if no, the solution was the result of a reaction. The
alternative will be determined by dosing.

A manipulation of 60 grammes of
fresh fibrin containA-ing 11.5 gr. of matter dried at 100A deg C.
furnished 7.6 gr. of this insoluble matter likewise dried at
100A deg C.; that is to say, only 66 per cent, of the weight of
dry fibrin; consequently 34 per cent, of matter remained in
solution. If the reaction is continued longer before
separating the microzymas, the quantA-ity of matter
precipitated by the ammonia diminishes, while the dissolved
portion increases.

The substance insoluble in
waterathe ammonia precipitatesapossesses further the same
elementary composition as fibrin, but it differs from the
intermicrozymian substance in that it is directly soluble in
very dilute hydroA-chloric acid, as well as in acetic acid and
in ammonia. I have given it the name of fibrinine.

Further the fibrinine does not
decompose oxygenated water and does not liquify fecula starch.

Among the substances which ammonia
does not precipitate is one which alcohol precipitates after
the separation of the fibrinine. This precipitate is a
mixture; one portion is soluble in water, the other does not
redissolve. I have given the name fibrimine. to that portion
which is finally soluble in water.

But the part precipitated by
alcohol is the smaller part of the material which ammonia does
not precipitate; the rest is to be likened, more or less, to
the extractives such as are found in gastric digestion; I add
that the fibrimine possesses the property of liquifying starch
and I regret that I did not think of examining, if it, or some
of the compounds accompanying it, has the property of
decomposing oxygenated water.

However that may be, the following
are the rotatory powers of the hydrochloric solution of the
fibrin as a whole, and of that of fibrinine and fibrimine:

Fibrin (from blood of sheep, cow
and pig):  
    Rolatory power of the hydrochloric solution  
        of the whole of the
fibrin   ...................... (a) j = a 
72.5A deg  
Fibrinine:  
    Rotatory power in hydrochloric
solution   ........ (a)j a  67A deg.4  
Fibrimine:  
    Rotatory power in aqueous solution
.................(a) j = a 80A deg1

A comparison of these various and
different rotatory powers, answering to other properties, not
less different, of the bodies which possess them, is
sufficient to show that the identification made by Bouchardat,
which led him to believe that there was a substantial unity
among albuminoids, had no foundation in the real nature of
things. Nevertheless it

1. To complete these comparisons,
in order to give a better understanding of the specific
individuality of each albuminoid proximate principle, and to
show still further the value of the new method of research,
which, for shortness, I call the antiseptic method. I add the
following:

    We know that
fibrin, left to itself in carbolated water, changes while
dissolving in great pan without becoming fetid, leaving a
residue of microzymas enveloped in an insoluble albuminoid
atmosphere.

    In short, while
spontaneously transforming, fibrin produces some dissolved
materials and others insoluble. The whole of the dissolved
portion, albuminoid and others not volatile, had a rotatory
power (a)j = a 29" to a 30A deg, which proves that under these
conditions the soluble products are different from those
formed in the change on contact with very dilute hydrochloric
acid. Among the dissolved products, which together have the
above rotatory power, were one zymas and several soluble
albuminoids, coagulable by heat and having different rotatory
powers in fact, from those of the hydrochloric solution. (See
"Memoire sur les matieres albuminoides," p. 425.)

    More than ten
years after the report of Dumas and the publication of my
memoir on the albuminoid matters, a learned physiologist, M.
A. Dastre, reached the same conclusions on applying the
antiseptic method to the study of fibrin. He also found, in
effect, that crude fibrin, "in contact with antiseptic salt
solutions (fluoride and chloride of sodium) does not merely
dissolve, but is transformed" into divers substances called
globulines, proteoses, propeptones, peptones, as it does under
the influence of gastric juice. M. Dastre found also that the
spontaneous transformation of fibrin resulted in the formation
of soluble and insoluble products without taking the
microzymas into account, and further he generalized by
applying the same method to crude albuminoid substances
without other distinction, and without specifying the nature
of the products formed, for the words, peptone, pro peptone,
proteose, globulines, are applied to a great number of very
different things.  To show this assertion is well
founded, here are the rotatory powers of the soluble products
of digestion of some albuminoid matters digested by the
gastric juice of the dog:

    Fibrin (ox or
pig)..........................................................................
(a) j = a 64A deg    to a  66A deg  
    Primalbumin of white of egg of fowl 
........................................(a) j = a
42A deg    to a  48A deg  
    Albumin of serum 
.......................................................................(a)
j = a 633.9  
   
Casein.........................................................................................
(a) j = a101A deg    to a112A deg  
    Gluten
.........................................................................................(a)
j =a122.7  
    Glutine
......................................................................................
(a) j = a134A deg toa140A deg.5\*

*\*C. R., Vol. XCVIII, pp. 959
and 1157. "Memoire sur les matieres albuminoides," p. 406.*

was upon this identification and on
the results of elementary analyses made upon mixtures and not
on real proximate principles that was based the opinion which
regarded fibrin as coagulated albumen, or as a stage in
suppoitious changes in the albumen of the white of egg.
Although it has been ascertained that this albumen, coagulated
or not, did not set free oxygenated water, this enormous
difference was disreA-garded, as well as the fact which
followed the incomplete solution of fibrin in dilute
hydrochloric acid, whence it was obvious that fibrin was not a
proximate principle. Hence it is not surprising that for a
long time muscle fibrin was confounded with that of blood, and
that even today the fibrin obtained from blood is regarded as
being the same whatever be the animal or part of the vascular
systems from which it comes, even also the fibrins of chyle,
of the lymph and of pathological serosities. Denis (of
Commercy) had already established that certain fibrins of the
veinous blood were dissolvable in a solution of saltpetre
(nitrate of potash), while others, including fibrins of
arterial blood, did not dissolve in it. Estor and I
demonstrated that the fibrin of the blood of very young
kittens liquified and disappeared in the starch which it had
liquified, while its microzymas evolved. On the other hand, I
found that the fibrin of ox-blood did not dissolve under the
conditions specified by Bouchardat and that it was necessary
to employ hydrochloric acid at 3 in the 1,000. In another
experiment the fibrin of the blood of a young chicken, treated
with hydrochloric acid at a 2 per thousand strength, did not
swell up even after remaining a long time in the oven, and at
the end of several days the acid had dissolved very little of
it, and the liquid hardly produced a precipitate with ammonia.
Nevertheless this fibrin decomposed oxygenated water before
treatment; it decomposed it also after treatment when the acid
had been eliminated by washing with water. In short, to become
convinced that fibrin is a much more variable anatomical
substance than a definite chemical principle, always the same,
it suffices to recall the former observations of Marchal de
Calvi, of Magendie, and of Claude Bernard, as well as those of
J. Birot and of J. Bechamp.1

We must then erase the fibrins from
the list of proximate principles to see in them only what they
really are, viz., microzymian false membranes. The
intermicrozymian matter of these fibrins is not probably the
same in all. However that may be, it is certain that the
intermicrozymian matter of the fibrin common to ox or
sheep-blood is not coagulated albumin; that it is naturally
insoluble, dissolving in very dilute hydrochloric acid only by
a sort of auto-digestion, whereof the microzymas it contains
furnish the zymas; and not only is it not a coagulated
albumen, but it is itself coagulable by heat, becoming
incapable of combining with dilute hydrochloric acid and of
being thereafter dissolved in it.

In his report to the Academy of
Sciences, Dumas did not fail to call the attention of savants
to the fact that fibrin owes its property of decomposing
oxygenated2 water to that part of it which is insoluble in
dilute hydrochloric acid. Shortly after M.M. Paul Bert and P.
Regnard published a memoir upon the action of oxygenated water
upon organic matters3 which raised delicate historical
questions of chemistry and of physiology and of facts which I
could not leave unanswered. This reply was the subject of
several notes.4

*1. See on these subjects "Les
Microzymas," pp. 233-258 and J. Bechamp's "Nouvelles
Recherches sur les albumines Normales et pathologiques," p.
93.*  *2. C. R., Vol. XCIV, p. 1276.*  *3. C. R., Vol. XCIV, p. 1333.*  *4. ib., p. 1601, etc.*

In the communication of M.M. Bert
and Regnard, I had chiefly addressed myself to the following
assertion: "That the blood even defibrinated, acted with great
intensity upon oxygenated water and that this action seemed to
be entirely contained in the serum; and, further, that ossein
very clearly decomposes oxygenated water."

I observed also that the authors
did not distinguish between the expressions organic matters
and animal matters, a which was in conformity with the then
state of science. But I knew what to believe regarding the
fact that defibrinated blood decomposes oxygenated water, and
I had ascertained the nature of the proximate principle which
was its agent.

And first let us place it beyond
doubt that it is not the serum which, in defibrinated blood,
has the greatest share in this decomposition. The fresh yellow
(citron) serum which is first pressed out of the clot
unquestionably sets free oxygen from the oxygenated water,
which might be due to morsels of fibrin remaining in
suspension. But the same serum, filtered several times upon a
filter lined with sulphate of baryta, acts less and less on
the oxygenated water without ever entirely ceasing to do so,
which is very simply explained by the secreA-tion in the serum
of the substance which, in the fibrinous microzymas, effects
the decomposition; but when the serum begins to be red-colored
the action upon oxygenated water is incomparably more
energetic, the explanation whereof is as follows:

The defibrinated blood contains the
red globules, and these contain the red colouring matter and
their own (special) microzymas. Much has been written upon
this red matter which has come to be called haemoglobin; and
which was at first regarded as being a mixture of a colourless
albuminoid matter called globulin and of haematosin. Much has
also been written upon haemoglobin up to maintaining that it
is not an albuminoid because it contains iron. It was J. B.
Dumas who first studied and analyzed the colouring matter of
the blood of the globules as an albuminoid proxA-imate
principle.

I have studied haemoglobin from the
same point of view as other albuminoid matters; admitting that
it exists combined with potash in the globules, I have
succeeded in combining it with the oxide of lead under the
form of haemoglobinate. But the haemoglobinate of lead,
decomposed by carbonic acid, furnishes soluble haemoglobin in
the state of an absolute proximate principle.1

*1. C. R., Vol. LXXVIII, p. 850
(1874), and "Memoire sur les Matieres albuminoides," p. 270.*

The solution of pure haemoglobin is
coagulable by heat and by alcohol; in both cases the coagulum
is absolutely insoluble in water. The solution is of deep red
colour, the alcoholic coagulum is of a brick red.

Haemoglobin, even coagulated by
alcohol, decomposes in the presence of alcoholized ether under
the influence of sulphuric acid, into haematosin and a
colourless albuminoid matter.

That settled, and to be more
precise, and apropos to the communication of M.M. Bert and
Regnard, let us recall that Thenard admitted that the action
of organic tissues upon oxygenated water was of the same order
as that of platinum, etc. Nevertheless he did not fail to
point out that while these metals decompose, "an infinite
quantity" of oxygenated water, it was not the same with
organic tissues and fibrin, some decomposing it for a long
time, others for a shorter period. In the first category he
placed the tissues of the lung, the liver, the spleen and
fibrin newly extracted from the blood; in the second he placed
the nails, the fibro-cartilage of the ribs, the tendons, the
skin; these, said he, "soon entirely ceased to act," and, much
surprised, Thenard sought an explanation of these differences.
We will presently learn that the differences pointed out by
the illustrious observer related to the different nature of
the microzymas of the tissues; meanwhile I will only remark
that the most active organic tissues belong to the vascular
and respiratory systems. But we must not forget that Thenard
took fibrin for an isolated animal matter: that is to say, for
a proximate principle of animal origin. Let us then compare
the action of fibrin in this respect with that of haemoglobin,
which is really an animal proximate principle.

To illustrate: let us take,
suppose, 30 grammes of fresh moist fibrin and 6 grammes of
fresh moist fibrinous microzymas. In 48 hours the 30 grammes
of fibrin will have set free 1,600 c.c. of oxygen from 180
c.c. of water oxygenated to 10.5 volumes of oxygen; that is,
53 c.c. of oxygen per gramme of fresh fibrin or 0.193 grammes
dried at 100A deg C.

In 48 hours the 6 grammes of
fibrinous microzymas will have set free 1,000 c.c. of oxygen
from 160 c.c. of water oxygenated to 10 volumes of
oxygenai.e., 166 c.c. of oxygen per gramme of moist microzymas
or 0.139 gramme, dried at 100A deg C.

Now as to the haemoglobin. In one
experiment 10 c.c. of a solution of this substance, pure,
containing 0.338 gramme of matter and 4 c.c. of water
oxygenated to 10.5 volumes of oxygen, have set free 30 c.c. of
gas in three-quarters of an hour and 34 c.c. in 24 hours.
Further, so soon as the disengagement of the gas began, the
liquor became cloudy, flocculent matter appeared, and at the
end the discoloration was complete.  The phenomenon then
is correlative to a change and an oxydation, for the
oxygenated water being able to set free 42 c.c. of oxygen had
only set free 34 c.c. of it; the oxygenated water is, further,
almost completely decomposed. If one operates with
sufficiently large quantities, heat is developed and carbonic
acid mixed with oxygen is set free. As to the other products
of the discoloration by oxydation of the haemoglobin they are
numerous, and among them albuminoid and other soluble
products, and at the same time an insoluble body containing
iron. Haemoglobin then, a proximate principle, decomposes
oxygenated water, becoming changed in so doing like fibrin and
its microzymas; but at equal weights the haemoglobin produces
a less disengageA-ment of oxygen than they.

That which distinguishes the mode
of being of the haemoglobin is that, even coagulated by
alcohol and then heated to 120A deg C. (= 248A deg F.), it becomes
still more discolored in decomposing oxygenated water, with
disengagement of oxygen, while cooked fibrin becomes inactive.

But the haemoglobin is reducible
into a colorless albuminoid matter and into haematosin; that
is to say, into two new proximate principles. Now the
colorless albuminoid matter of the decomposition, freed from
the sulphuric acid with which it had been combined, does not
set free oxygen from oxygenated water. On the other hand, the
insolA-uble haematosin and oxygenated water react strongly with
disengagement of heat and of oxygen mixed with carbonic acid,
while, absorbing a part of the oxygen, it is entirely
transformed into soluble products. And, what is quite the
opposite of what happens with fibrin and fibrinous microzymas,
free sulphuric acid does not hamper the reaction.

It is evident from this that the
haemoglobin owes lo the ferruginous molecule of haematosin,
which is one of the constituent molecules of its own molecule,
the property of decomposing oxygenated water, destroying
itself by oxydation. And it is thus that certain proximate
principles of the fibrinous microzymas and the oxygenated
water react, causing the decomposition of the latter with
disengagement of oxygen.

Here then are many undisputed
proximate principles which act upon oxygenated water after the
manner of the organic tissues of which Thenard spoke, and
after the manner of fibrin, which is also an organic tissue.
It is useful to conA-nect the facts relative to haemoglobin and
to haematosin with the reciprocal reaction of hydrocyanic acid
and of oxyA-genated water, to show that they are not isolated
facts. Further, Thenard himself observed that oxygenated water
of a certain concentration reacted upon cane sugar with
disengagement of oxygen and of carbonic acid.

In defibrinated blood it is then
especially the haemoglobin of the blood globules which is the
agent of the decomposition of oxygenated water; and if the
lemon-colored serum (always with little intensity) effects
this decomposition, it is because it contains, besides its own
albumen, some proximate principle, zymas or other, which is
able to do so. In fact the albumen of the serum,1 isolated and
pure, is as little endowed with this property as is the white
of egg and the colorless albuminoid of the decomposition of
haemoglobin.

1. The albumen of the serum! The
rotatory power of this albumen has been given in the foregoing
table to distinguish it from the albuminoid substances which
Bouchardat confounded under the name of albuminose. But its
specification is of such importance for an exact knowledge of
the blood that it would have deserved a chapter to itself; but
thanks to what has preceded, this note will suffice.

    First, let us
remember that Denis (of Commercy) (1856) supposed that the
plasmin of the plasma was decomposed, after the bleeding, into
concrete fibrin and dissolved fibrin, afterwards called
metalbumen. So that, according to this hypothesis, the serum
expelled from the clot contains this metalbumen and its own
albumin. Denis thought he could verify this hypothesis by
isolating from the serum its dissolved fibrin or metalbumen in
the following manner: when crystals of a sulphate of magnesia
are added to the serum, this salt is dissolved in it and a
time comes when the serum is so saturated that no more will be
dissolved and a precipitate is formed. It was the substance of
this precipitate, insoluble in a saturated solution of
sulphate of magnesiaabut soluble in water, which was supposed
to be dissolved fibrin. One was the more sure of it because,
under like conditions, the white of egg. common albumen, gives
no precipitate to sulphate of magnesia. Such is the experiment
which led to the admission of plasmine and its reduction which
would give the metalbumen, which would dissolve in the serum
with its own albumen, supposed to be identical with the
albumen of while of eggs. But all this is erroneous. The blood
contains no plasmin and the serum does not contain two
albumins whereof one is metalbumen. In fact, Prof. J. Bechamp,
in his "Albumines normales et pathologiques," p. 31, has
demonstrated that the precipitate determined in the serum by
sulphate of magnesia is the same substance, endowed with the
same rotatory power as the serum albumin mentioned in
table.  Further he proved that certain albumins of the
bird's egg are likewise precipitated by sulphate of magnesia,
as is known to be the case with certain pathological
serosities, but the precipitates thus obtained from these
pathological albuminous liquids, also called metalbumens,
possess different rotatory powers than those of the albumens
of the white of egg of certain birds. Whence the conclusion
that there is not a melalbumine or dissolved fibrine.

Further the specification does not
rest only on the difference in rotatory powers, but on all the
properties taken together. But a direct proof will be given
that there is nothing in the blood resembling the hypothetical
body called plasmin.

This colorless albuminoid of the
decomposition of the haemoglobin, by its rotatory power and
other properties, is absolutely distinct from the albumins and
albuminoids of the table. But the blood globules also contain
microzymas which decompose oxygenated water. In studying them
it is necessary to observe that the organic tissues which
effect this decomposition owe this power especially to their
anatomical elements or to some proximate principle secreted by
them. In other words, the property of decomposing oxygenated
water does not characterize organic tissues or bodies, as was
believed by Thenard.

The study of these albuminoids in
general, and especially of those of the blood, proves that the
nitrogenous inter-microzymian matter of the fibrin is of a
special nature, distinct from all other albuminoid matters,
especially from the type of albumin which may be coagulated,
and that is itself coagulable by heat, becoming thus
absolutely insoluble in very dilute hydrochloric acid.1

But the special study of the fibrin
which revealed the fibrinous microzymas has taught us nothing
with regard tcr the condition of the fibrin in the blood
during life, that is to say nothing regarding the relation of
the intermicrozymian matter and the microzymas. This will be
the subject of the next chapter.

1. To explain how fibrin in its
spontaneous changes may give birth to a great number of
products of decomposition, it is well to add the following to
what I have said as to the complexity of the albuminoid
molecule.   It is commonly said that albuminoid
matter is a nitrogenous quaternary. But I have shown that
casein, absolutely free from mineral matter, contains
phosphorus, and as the casein in the mammary gland results
from the transformation of the albuminoid matters of the
blood, it follows that these are also phosphoretted; casein
also contains sulphur, which was known, but was supposed to be
accidental. Then the haemoglobin contained iron. An albuminoid
molecule may thus contain besides carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen
and oxygen, phosphorus, iron and sulphur, seven elements
instead of four.

    I have observed
that in the albuminoid matters of the vitellin microzymas the
sulphur does not produce sulphuric acid precipitable by baryta
when they are oxydized by the hypermanganate of potash; in
this it resembles Taurine, "Memoire sur les matieres
albuminoides," p. 389.

---

**CHAPTER III****.**

**OF THE STATE OF
THE FIBRIN IN THE BLOOD AT THE MOMENT OF VENESECTION AND OF
THE MOLECULAR GRANULATIONS. THE FIBRIN WITHOUT MICROZYMAS.
THE HAEMATIC MICROZYMIAN MOLECULAR GRANULATIONS.**

**The third anatomical element of the blood and the molecular
granulations Of the blood globules.**

**Treatment of the haematic
molecular granulations with very dilute hydrochloric acid.**

**Experiment upon blood diluted
in a saturated aqueous solution of sulphate of soda.**

The experiments which demonstrated
that the fibrin was of a complete whole, formed of a special
albuminoid matter belonging to it, and of microzymas, and not
a proximate principle, did not solve the problem raised by
Dumas, to ascertain under what condition a substance thus
composed existed in the blood; neither did it solve the
problem whether such a substance pre-existed in it or if it
was the result of a chemical transformation accomplished after
the bleeding.

It was not at the first attempt
that I solved the problem in the sense of the conclusion
arrived at in this chapter, viz., that the blood really
contains the fibrin in the state of microzymian molecular
granulations where the microzyma and the special albuminoid
matter are closely associated in a very special anatomical
element. The solution of this problem could only be completely
given after the collection of the observations which have been
summarized in the first two chapters and of those which I have
yet to describe.

Let us recall first what, in 1869,
was the state of opinion regarding, first, the pre-existence
of the fibrin in the blood; second, its production in the
blood after it had issued from the vessels. On the
pre-existence of the fibrin there were two opinions: According
to one, which was that of Hewson, of Milne-Edwards and of
Dumas, fibrin existed in the blood in a condition of extreme
division, in fine molecules, which, after the bleeding, became
consolidated to constitute the ordinary fibrin. According to
the other, which was also that of Hewson, and, in a certain
manner, of Dumas, it existed in it in a state of solution or
of quasi-solution. Cl. Bernard1 allied himself thereto by
admitting that the blood contained an albumino-fibrinous
liquid which could only remain liquid in the economy, taking
on the form of fibrin after the bleeding.

*1. CL Bernard, "Liquides dc
1'organisme." Vol. I, p. 152 (1859).*

These opinions, nevertheless, have
had no part in the solution of the problem. They had been so
thoroughly lost to sight that Estor and I had tacitly ranged
ourselves among those who did not admit the pre-existence of the
fibrin. Indeed, after having proved the presence of the
microzymas of the blood in the fibrin, by the fact of their
vibrionian evolution in the substance itself, we said, in
February, 1869:

"That which is called the fibrin of
the blood is a false membrane formed by the microzymas of the
blood, associA-ated with a substance which they secrete in an
acid state from the albuminoid elements of this liquid."1

It was because we had sought for and
discovered the molecular granulations in the blood, before
proving that there were microzymas in the fibrin, that we
compared them to the microzymas of the liver, finding them
smaller and more transparent than the latter.2

Nevertheless, these microzymas in the
blood had not been isolated by us. The consideration that, in
the liver, the microzymas are especially included in the hepatic
cellules led us to seek in like manner for the microzymas in the
globules of the blood. It was on this occasion that we made an
experiment suggested by that observation, which is as follows:

*1. C. R.,Vol. LXVIII.p. 408.*  *2. lbid.. Vol. LXIV. p. 713.*

Dr. Clement Combescure, who,
alongside of me, had experimented on the blood from the point of
view of its supposed coagulation in the vessel by an excessive
consumption of alcoholic drinks, had long ago discovered that
the blood, received directly from the vessels into alcohol at
40% to 45%, far from coagulating, dissolved in it.1

The experiment being repeated under
the same conditions we found that the mixture of blood and
alcohol remained liquid, appearing limpid, depositing neither
globules, nor fibrin, but that by degrees it made an abundant
deposit, which the microscope showed was almost exclusively
formed of molecular granulations animated by the brownian
movement.2 It was from this result that we finally reached the
solution of the problem, but only long after I had resumed the
study of the fibrin and of its changes.

As I had done in 1869,1 at first
regarded the molecular granulations of the deposit from the
alcoholized blood as being the microzymas of the blood or the
microzymas of the globules. But when I had isolated the
fibrinous microzymas of an extreme minuteness and after the
study of the molecular granulations of spontaneously changed
fibrin, liquified, without becoming fetid, I doubted. Here are
the consequences of this doubt:

*1.  Dr. C. Combescure, Theses
sur les effets therapeutiques des ammoniacaux. p. 82. Theses
of the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier (1861).*  *2.  C.R.. Vol. LXX, p. 265 (1870).*

The third anatomical element of the
blood and the molecular granulations of the blood globules.

The conditions of the experiment for
isolating the third anatomical element of the blood are as
follows: Take alcohol, rigorously rectified, free from acid and
from alkali, and dilute it with distilled water, to bring it to
from 35 to 40 per cent. Into two volumes of alcohol thus
diluted, one volume of blood is made to flow directly and
without interruption as it comes from the vessels. So much for
the blood as a whole.

For examining blood already
defibrinated it must be passed through a fine linen cloth, to
remove the fibrin which

might be held in suspension, and it
also is then poured into twice its volume of like diluted
alcohol.

The mixtures, dark red, being left
to themselves in a cool place, there is formed by degrees a
clear red deposit which takes at least 24 hours to be
completed.

The deposit is much more abundant
for the entire blood than for the defibrinated.

The deposit is first washed by
decantation in alcohol at 35 per cent, then on a filter with
alcohol at 30 per cent., until it is perfectly white. Under
the microscope the matter resolves itself into an infinite
number of very fine molecular granulaA-tions. These
granulations are mixed with remains of cellules, more abundant
in a deposit furnished by the defibrinated blood.

I made several determinations of
these molecular granulations. The following were made upon
sufficiently large volumes of sheep's blood, by bleeding from
the jugular vein.

800 c.c. of the whole blood gave
37.4 gr. of humid granulations completely drained, containing
5.76 grammes of matter dried at 120A deg (= 248A deg F.); that is,
7.07 grammes of dried granulations per litre of the whole
blood.

2675 c.c. of the same blood, first
defibrinated, gave 22.1 gr. of humid granulations, drained,
and containing 4.87 gr. of matter dried at 120A deg C.; that is,
1.82 gr. per litre of defibrinated blood.

But these quantities are far from
being constant, even for the blood of the same animal. For
example, one litre of sheep's blood, in another experiment,
gave only 5.70 gr. of granulations dried at 120A deg C., and
another by whipping only, gave 3.15 grammes of fibrin, dried
at 120A deg C., per litre.

However it maybe with regard to the
molecular granulations of defibrinated blood let us consider
them as representing (as will be hereafter demonstrated) the
molecular granulations and the envelopes of the destroyed
globules; the difference 7.07 gr.a 1.82 gr. = 5.25 gr. will
represent the molecular granulations which the blood without
the globules will have furnished.

In the "Memoire sur les matieres
albuminoides," I still considered the molecular granulations
of which I was treating as being microzymas such as they
existed in the blood, and I showed that, like the fibrinous
microzymas, they liquified fecula-starch and decomposed
oxygenated water. In fact, 1 c.c. of humid molecular
granulations of the entire blood, disengaged, in 12 hours, 26
c.c. of oxygen from 2 c.c. of water oxygenated to 15 volumes
of oxygen; and 1 c.c. of humid molecular granulations of
defibrinated blood, disengaged, in 12 hours, 23 c.c. of oxygen
from 2 c.c. of the same oxygenated water.

These granulations possess then the
properties of the fibrin and of the fibrinous microzymas. But
are they really isolated microzymas? Are they not precisely
the fibrin, such as it exists in the blood? That which led me
to put this question was, first, the observation of molecular
granulations of the fibrin spontaneously changed and, second,
that the weight of these granulations is often greater than
the weight of the fibrin which the same volume of blood was
able to furnish.

I then treated granulations
obtained from the blood, diluted in alcohol as I had treated
those of the altered fibrin, or the fibrin itself, to isolate
from it the microzymas.

Treatment of the haematic molecular
granulations with very dilute hydrochloric acid. The humid
deposit of the isolated granulations is treated with very
dilute hydrochloric acid; in contrast with what happens to
fibrin they disappear almost instantaneously at the ordinary
temperature, even when the acid is diluted to one in a
thousand. In some minA-utes ten grammes were dissolved in a
cloudy liquid from which microzymas, as small as those of the
fibrin from whipping, were slowly deposited.

The limpid hydrochloric solution,
separated from the microzymas, exactly saturated by carbonate
of ammonia, furnished a precipitate of fibrinine, which when
well washed does not decompose oxygenated water, while the
microzymas, isolated and washed, decompose it, etc.

The rotatory power of the materials
dissolved by the hydrochloric acid was (a) j = a74A deg.

As to the rotatory power of
fibrinine, it has been found in acetic solution (a) j =
a68A deg.9.

That is to say, perceptibly those
of the fibrin and of fibrinine of fibrin under the same
conditions.

The very great difference between
fibrin in the state of molecular granulations and fibrin
obtained by whipping resides then essentially in the manner of
reacting with regard to very dilute hydrochloric acid, the
solution of ordinary fibrin, being a function of time and of
temperature.

The blood of the ox and that of the
rabbit behaved exactly as did that of the sheep. But the blood
of the duck offered interesting peculiarities, as we shall
perceive presently.

The only condition for the success
of the experiment, but rigorously indispensable in every case,
is that the shed blood shall flow directly from the vessel
into alcohol at 35-40 per cent., the volume of which should be
twice that of the blood to be collected. The least interval,
as, for instance, receiving the blood into a porcelain capsule
or one of glass, from which to pour it into the diluted
alcohol is sufficient to compromise the result. Under
circumstances similar to the last the deposit seemed to be
made more rapidly and instead of being pulverulent, it was
flocculent. The deposit, collected as usual, 24 hours

*end page 115 missing*

which (when poured directly into
the alcohol) it was effected at once. Hence it results that
the matter of the molecular granulations of the deposit
formed by the instantaneous mixture of the blood, as it
issues from the vessels, with the dilute alcohol, is in a
state, chemical, physiological and anA-atomical nearest to
that which it assumes in the circulating blood. It is,
therefore, necessary to obtain the most exact idea of the
physical constitution of the molecular granulations in that
condition, in order to understand their constitution in the
blood at the moment that this is held by its flowing into
the alcohol.

It is an invariable fact that the
molecular granulations of the deposit formed by the
instantaneous mixture of the blood, at the time of the
bleeding, with twice its volume of alcohol at 35-40 per
cent, are immediately dissolved by very dilute hydrochloric
acid to a cloudy liquid containing the microzymas, and that
at low temperature. And it is a no less invariable fact that
at the moment of the mixture with alcohol the blood appears
to be dissolved, so much so that a thin layer of the liquid
is almost transparent; under the microA-scope no globules are
seen, and it is with difficulty that one can perceive
certain particles which are themselves transA-lucent. The
deposit, which is then made very slowly, is not the result
of a formation first of all of a precipitate due to some
reaction or coagulation of some dissolved matter; it is
quite otherwise, since the globules which swim insoluble in
the circulating blood are themselves dissolved, while being
desA-troyed. It is further evident that if the deposit had
been proA-duced by coagulation, by the alcohol, of a
substance which existed dissolved in the blood and which
became insoluble in water from the fact of this coagulation,
but became soluble in very dilute hydrochloric acid, the
whole should be dissolved by the latter! But the microzymas
are the persisting insoluble residue of the deposit as they
are of the fibrin obtained by whipping. But, further, this
important fact must be borne in mind to which I have already
called attention that it is precisely when an interval, even
a very short one elapses between the venesection and the
mixture of the blood with the alcohol, that the molecular
granulations o the deposit are not immediately dissolved by
the dilute hydrochloric acid; that is to say, that a certain
coagulation has occurred.

We reach then the conclusion that
the granulations o the deposit formed instantaneously in the
mixture represent the nearest state to that which they have
in the blood at the precise moment of the bleeding.

But what is the relation between
the part soluble in dilute hydrochloric acid of these
molecular granulation: and the microzymas which remain
undissolved?

It is the same which I have
pointed out in the molecular granulations which exist in the
deposit from the spontaneous alteration of the fibrin in
carbolated water, WHERE EACH GRANULATION IS ASPHERICAL MASS
OF ALBUMINOID MATTER HVING A MICROZYMA FOR ITS CENTRE. In
fact, the molecular granulations of the deposit formed by
the alcoholized blood are like that, round, spherical,
motile; that is to say, animated by the brownian movement,
representing an exceedingly minute mass of albuminoid matter
having a microzyma for centre. The very dilute hydrochloric
acid dissolves the enveloping albuminoid matter, leaving the
central microzyma undisolved.

A microzyma for nucleus,
enveloped as by an atmosphere by a mass of albuminoid
matter, insoluble in water, but which very dilute
hydrochloric acid dissolves, such then is the physical
constitution of a molecular granulation formed by blood
diluted in two volumes of alcohol at 35-40 per cent. It may
be called a microzymian molecular granulation.

But do molecular granulations
thus constituted exist anatomically? and do any such exist
in the blood? Yes, and the example is not solitary,1 but the
haematic microzymian molecular granulation, with its special
albuminoid atmosphere, is a prime example of this kind. It
only remains to represent that state of this atmosphere in
the blood.

I revert to the remark already
made, that the deposit in the alcoholized blood is not the
result of the precipitation of some dissolved substance
contained in the blood, according to the plasma hypothesis.
But direct observation had already permitted Estor and me to
declare that the blood, as it issues from the vessels before
the commencement of the formation of the clot, contains,
around the globules, an innumerable number of microzymas
(that which we took for microzymas) most readily to be seen
in the blood of very young animalsa for example, of kittens
from three to forty days old; and these microzymas we found
to resemble those of the liver, but more transparent; and we
did not fail to add that the reason they had escaped the
attention of histologists was because of their minuteness
and transparency.2 It was in reality a diligent idea which
enabled us to find them where they had not before been seen.
In the defibrinated blood they cannot be found.

1. Before I discovered the
microzymian molecular granulations with an albuminoid
atmosphere. I had already observed some of them of another
kind. In isolating the microzymas of the pancreas, as Estor
and I had isolated those of the liver, I found them
enveloped with an atmosphere of complex matter. Treatment
with alcoholized ether and with water dissolved the matters
of the enveloping atmosphere and the naked pancreatic
microzymas became visible with their special minuteness and
color.

The vitellin microzymas of the
yolk of the eggs of birds are also enveloped with a complex
matter.

When the sort of tissue which
constitutes the yolk of these eggs is steeped in a good deal
of distilled water the intergranular materials dissolve and
the vitellin molecular granulations are deposited,
spherical, sometimes mixed with vitellin globules. Washing
with water removes everything which can be dissolved in it;
then treatment with ether and with alcoholized ether
dissolves the enveloping matter, a son of alloy, an amalgam
of fatty bodies and of lecithin. Finally, washing with water
and again with ether yields the vitellin microzymas of a
perfectly white color. The vitellin microzymas and the
pancreatic exist then well enveloped, in the condition of
microzymian molecular granulations.  
2. C. R-.VoI. LXIX, p. 713.

That which we took for
transparent microzymas, visible with difficulty, were the
haematic microzymian molecular granulations, the same as
those of the deposit in the alcoholized blood, except that
the albuminoid atmosphere of the latter is a condensed
atmosphere, contracted, become opaque, while in the blood it
is inflated, soft and mucuous, hyaline, and can again, as
will be presently shown, become inflated in blood, to which
water had been added. The theory of the phenomenon presented
by the blood diluted in the alcohol is as follows:

When the blood is directly
received into the alcohol under the specified conditions,
its anatomical elements are rudely placed in new conditions
of existence; while the globules are destroyed and their
coloring matter (the haemoglobin) dissolves, the soft and
mucoid atmosphere of the insoluble microzymian molecular
granulations condenses by degrees and hardens around each
central microzyma; then, becoming more dense, the
microzymian molecular granulations are deposited.

And it is because the mucoid
albuminoid atmosphere, insoluble in water, is condensed and
hardened, laid hold of as it were, by the alcohol before
being coagulated, that it is dissolved immediately in very
dilute hydrochloric acid, while it is modified by
coagulation, and becomes insoluble in it, as it is in the
case of fibrin obtained by whipping, if some interval of
time separates the venesection from the mixing of the blood
with the alcohol. Once more, the condensed atmosphere of the
microzymian molecular granulations contains the albuminoid
matter in the state nearest to, if not identical with, that
which it had in the blood.

The following experiment will
instruct us still better as to the nature of the mucoid
atmosphere of the haematic microzymian molecular
granulations.

Experiment upon blood diluted in
a saturated aqueous solution of sulphate of soda.

It is known that blood mixed with
several times its volume of a saturated solution of sulphate
of soda yields no clot and that the globules are deposited
in the mixture without yielding up their coloring matter.
Why under these conditions is no clot formed? The following
is an attempted explanation of the phenomenon. The
experiment ought to be made in winter in freezing
temperature.

A volume of sheep's blood is
received directly from the jugular vein into four times its
volume of a saturated solution of sulphate of soda and the
mixture left at rest. Twenty-four hours afterwards the
greater part of the globules will be deposited. The
supernatant clear liquid is filtered upon a filter lined
with sulphate of barium,1 in order to retain the globules
and the microzymas which remain in suspension. The
filtration is necessarily slow. The filtered liquid, almost
colorless, is absolutely clear; mixed with oxygenated water,
it slowly sets free a little oxygen.

1. The lining with sulphate of
barium is made as follows: The filter should be without a
fold; it must be filled with liquid, into which a suitably
diluted solution of chloride of barium has been precipitated
by a similar solution of sulphate of soda; the filtrate is
to be again poured on the filler until that which passes is
perfectly clear. It must be so arranged that the bed of
sulphate of baryta be at least half a millimetre in
thickness. Finally the filter is to be washed with a
solution of sulphate of soda.

The liquid which had remained
limpid during the whole period of filtration (about 20
hours) furnishes by agitation a small mass of fibrin of a
brilliant whiteness, having the membranous appearance of the
fibrin obtained by whipA-ping. The liquid separated from this
matter, again filtered on a filter lined with sulphate of
baryta, also sets oxygen free from oxygenated water.

The fibrin separated from the
filtered liquid of the mixture of blood and of sulphate of
soda, that is to say, a fibrin without microzymas, does not
set free oxygen from oxygenated water, but dissolves in it.

A mass of this fibrin without
microzymas, about 1 c.c. being placed in 8 c.c. of
oxygenated water having six volumes of oxygen, did not set
oxygen free even after six days of contact (at least not
more than would have been set free from it without the
addition), but the fibrin had disappeared; it was dissolved.
And the solution was albuminoid, for on treating with
Millin's re-agent, a white precipitate appeared which became
red on slightly heating it.

As to the clear liquid separated
from this fibrin without microzymas, it gave, on acetic acid
being carefully added, a slight albuminoid precipitate which
has not been further examined. But the liquor separated from
this precipitate contained a soluble albuminoid matter
precipitated by alcoA-hol, which, in acetic solution, had a
rotatory power: (a) j= a 86A deg, very different from that of
seralbumine.

From this experiment we may
conclude that the microzymian molecular granulations are,
like the globules, insoluble in blood, where the conditions
of their anatomical integrity exist united; but the blood
being diluted in the solution of sulphate of soda, although
the globules remain insoluble, the albuminoid substance
which forms the soft atmosphere of the microzymian
granulations is dissolved in the new medium, at least in
part, undergoing doubtless some transformation. In fact,
while by agitation a part is separated in the condition of
an insoluble mass1 having the membranA-ous appearance of
fibrin, another part remains dissolved and can be separated
from it, and has a rotatory power greater than that of
seralbumin. The fact of the change is also evident from
this; that the insoluble matter of fibrinous appearance is
dissolved in oxygenated water without setting oxygen free.
And if the limpid liquid of the filtration before and after
the separation of this fibrinous substance sets free a
little oxygen from the oxygenated water, it is because some
of the matter which, in the microzymas, effects this
disengagement is diffused in it. Thus the direct experiment
demonstrates that that which in the fibrin decomposes the
oxygenated water are the microzymas; the intermicrozymian
mass or the enveloping albuminoid matter does not decompose
it; thus constituting a verification of the facts
established in the first chapter; so much so that it is
unnecessary to add that the defibrinated blood, treated with
sulphate of soda, does not yield any fibrinous substance.

1. There is nothing to be
surprised at in this spontaneous passage from the dissolved
state to an insoluble state. There is a parallel case in a
modification of amylaceous matter, which, from a condition
of perfect solution, passes by degrees, in the liquor
itself, to an insoluble stale.

Such are the facts. But these
microzymian granulations, which Estor and I took for
microzymas, had they not been already perceived? On this
subject the following is the only information I have been
able to collect:

"There is to be found, says M.
Frey,1 in human blood besides globules agglomerations of
small pale granulations 0.00 l mm to 0.002 mm in diameter
(Schultze); adding that these granulations, which had been
noticed before, showed themselves sometimes with active
movements of protoplasm, sometimes with a molecular movement
(brownian moveA-ment). "2

*1. Frey, Traite d'histologie
et d'histo-chimie; Fr. trans. From the Ger. by P.
Spielman, p. 120 (1877). Eng. trans, by A. E. Barker, p.
108. N.Y., Appleton. 1875. Note'p- sup.*  *2. Frey. loc. cit., p. 121.*

Further these molecular
granulations had been observed in other humors and animal
tissues and many opinions had been expressed as to their
role, but it was not known what that role was, nor whether
they were organized.

Now, thanks to the anatomical
analysis of blood treated with alcohol, the existence of the
molecular granulations of the blood is certain, it remains
to explain how such an observer as J. Muller did not see
them and could have maintained, under microscopic
examination, that, except the globules, the whole of the
rest of the blood was in a state of perfect solution. To
understand this, it is sufficient to take into consideration
the anatomical and physical constitution of the haematic
microzymian molecular granulations in the blood; a
microzyma, (whose diameter at the most is 0.0005 mm) and is
enveloped in an atmosphere of a soft substance, mucous and
hyaline. But in the blood this mucous atmosphere when much
inflated may have the same refractive power as the
surrounding liquid, it is not then surprising, the central
microzyma being so very small, that it escaped microscopic
observation; in fact, it only becomes visible when the
albuminoid matter of the enveloping atmosphere, outside of
the vessels, begins to undergo the allotropic modifications
which cause it to acquire the properties which it possesses
in the fibrin.

To convince oneself that this
interpretation is a true one, it is sufficient to consider
crystallin, the transparency whereof is perfect.
Nevertheless, anatomically, crystallin is constituted by two
layers of crystalline tubes; further it contains, like other
anatomical elements, a crowd of micro-zymas; all this the
microscope is incapable of showing directly because all the
parts have in the entire organ the same refractive index.
But so soon as, by grinding, this organization is destroyed,
the conditions of existence of the anatomical elements of
the organ being altered, microzymas and crystalline tubes
become visible.

To sum up; the facts of this
chapter establish definitely that the blood contains a third
anatomical element, as constant, as necessary as the
globules, consisting of a microzyma enveloped in an
atmosphere of a special albuminoid substance, insoluble in
the sanguineous medium. This anatomical element, heretofore
unrecognized, because of its anatomical constitution, its
location and its properties, I have named haematic
microzymian molecular granulation.

And now, when one considers that
the weight of these microzymian molecular granulations,
deduction made of the molecular granulations which are
furnished by the same volume of defibrinated blood,
represents very nearly the weight of the fibrin obtained
from the same volume of blood by whipping, it becomes
evident that ordinary fibrin is nothing else than the
microzymian granulations, heaped up and soldered together,
whose albuminoid atmosphere has undergone, outside of the
vessel, an allotropic modification, by virtue of which, from
having been directly soluble in very dilute hydrochloric
acid, it has become soluble in it, only as a function of
time and of temperature.

We shall see how the anatomic
constitution of the haematic microzymian granulations and
the properties of their enveloping albuminoid atmosphere
explain at the same time, mechanically, the phenomenon of
the spontanA-eous coagulations of the blood and the
production of the fibrin by whipping. Meantime let us say
that the foregoing demonstrations destroy the hypothesis of
the plasma and verify, while completing, the conceptions of
Hewson, of Milne-Edwards, of J. B. Dumas, regarding the
existence of the fibrin in the condition of fine
granulations in the blood.

---

**CHAPTER IV.**

**THE REAL
STRUCTURE OF THE RED BLOOD GLOBULE: THE MICROZYMAS OF THE
BLOOD GLOBULES: THE BLOOD GLOBULES IN GENERAL.**

**Demonstration that the red
globule is a real cellule having microzymas for anatomical
elements.** **Molecular granulations of the globules of fowl's blood.   
Molecular granulations of the globules of the duck's
blood.**

An exact knowledge of the
physical constitution and of the anatomical structure of the
red globule is of great imA-portance to the scope of this
work. Is or is not the red globule of the blood a cellular
anatomic element, constituted by an envelope with its
content; or is it a kind of naked anatomical element, as was
said of the milk globules? An alternative, necessary to be
resolved, to obtain a clear idea of the role of the red
globule!

Prevost and Dumas1 admitted that
there was an envelope to the red globule and, later, Henle,2
by exact observations, demonstrated the reality of the
existence of this envelope. In 1856, Kuss taught us in his
course on physiology, at Strasbourg, that "the blood
globules are not bladders, but compact organs, solid in all
their parts, the least aqueous of all the organs of the
body." More than twenty years afterwards, M. Frey,
interpreting the general opinion, said: "To sum up, the
globule maybe regarded as a mass of gelatinous substance
saturated with water."3 And he added: "In spite of the
difficulties of observation and the uncertainty of such
examinations, some authors have pronounced themselves,
during these later years, in favor of the existence of a
cellular membrane."

*1.  "Ann: de Chimie,"
Vol. XVIII. p. 280 (1821). and Vol. XXIII, pp. 53 and 90
(1823).*  *2.  "Anatomie generale," Vol. I, p. 459.
Jourdan's trans. (into French.)*  *3. Frey, loc. cit., p. 123.*

Dumas, as we shall see, not only
considered them as having a cellular constitution, but as
individual living beings, saying that the deprivation of
oxygen was fatal to them. Such was not the physiologists'
point of view; and I cannot give a better proof of this than
the following:

I had compared the scintillating
corpuscle of the pebrine to a cellule already acknowledged
to be alive, such as that of the globule of yeast. M.
Pasteur asserted that this was an error and, referring to
it, made the following statement: "My present opinion is
that these corpuscles are neither animals nor plants. \* \* \*
From the point of view of a methodical classification they
should be placed rather alongside of globules of pus or
blood globules, or still better, of grains of starch rather
than alongside of infusoria and moulds;"1 and later: the
corpuscle "is a production which is neither animal nor
vegetable and incapable of reproduction, and it must be
placed in the category of those bodies, regular in form,
which physiology has for some years distinguished by the
name of organites, such as globules of blood, globules of
pus, etc."2

*1. C. R,Vol. LXI.p. 511.*  *2.  lbid, Vol. LXIII, p. 134.*

It is evident that that which is
neither plant nor animal has neither organized structure nor
life; has no content in an envelope. But that was the state
of science, and that which M. Pasteur believed regarding the
blood globule and regarding pus, was believed of every other
anatomical element, for instance, of the spermatozoids,
comprised in the "etc." of M. Pasteur, and which he compared
to grains of starch, under the name of organites, i.e.,
simulacra of organs. If I insist particularly on this
savant's mode of viewing these things it is because he has
specially occupied himself about the blood and thence about
what happens to its globules during its spontaneous changes.

It is no idle question to inquire
whether the blood globA-ule is naked or covered, furnished
with an envelope separate from its mass. The property of a
living body as to whose organization there is no dispute,
whether it relates to an animal or to a globule of yeast, is
to be limited in its form by a continuous enveloping
membrane (distinct from its interior medium), which lakes
the name of tegument, a word of which the etymological
meaning is clear; the enveloping membrane of the cellule is
then the same as the tegument. In the organism the interior
organs are individualised by their own tegument. Among
bodies which can only realize the conditions of their
existence in water or in aqueous media, the insoluble
tegument, endowed besides with special osmotic properties,
protects the content, or the interior medium, against being
dissolved or from other like change. Well! the blood globule
like beer-yeast, is individualized by its tegument: hence it
is an organ and not an organite.

That which has given rise to
doubt as to the existence of a tegument to the red globule
is that the blood steeped in water seems to be altogether
dissolved in it: the globules disappear so completely that
under the microscope not a vestige of them can be
discovered. Those who, like Dumas, admitted an envelope,
thought that it was broken and thus explained why the weight
of the isolated fibrin of the clot was greater than that
obtained by whipping. But, as we shall presently see, that
apparent solution of the globules is only the osmotic
issuance of the interior part, soluble in water, across the
envelope: the cellular tegument remaining entire is
invisible under the microscope only because its refracting
index is the same as that of the ambient liquid.

Demonstration that the red
globule is a real cellule having microzymas for anatomical
elements.

The mode of demonstrating the
unbroken tegument of the red globule of the blood, steeped
in water, consists in rendering its refraction different
from that of the liquid which results from this mixture. To
do this the blood, defibrinated or not, is to be mixed with
an equal volume of a solution of about 15 per cent, of
creosoted soluble fecula; at the end of 24 hours one can see
that the globules resist the contact with the water much
better, the envelope being clearly visible. The experiment
is most striking with the blood of the duck; in one of them,
which had lasted three weeks, successive washings with a
solution of soluble fecula and with water removed all the
coloring matter, leaving for residue colorless globules,
where the nucleus could be seen rolling about in the
water-logged globule; sometimes even the colorless tegument
could be seen to wrap itself around the nucleus. The
tegumentary vesicle, after these washings, has sometimes
become so pale that it was only visible after an addition of
an iodide paint which colors it yellow; but it is not
colored by the ammoniac solution of carmin, nor by that of
the picrocarminate.

I have also similarly
experimented on the blood of a fowl, of a pigeon, of a frog,
of a dog, of an ox, of a guinea-pig; in all cases the
vesicle is seen entire, but among the elliptical globules
having a nucleus those of the fowl deserve more attention.
And it is to be noticed that, in experiments which take up a
long time, the nucleus of the blood globules of a bird ends
by being resolved into fine molecular granulations which can
be seen in the colorless envelope which remains whole. In
the emptied vesicles of the circular globules, nuclei are
never to be seen.1

After the publication of these
experiments Profs. J. Bechamp and E. Baltus described the
process of tinting by which in all cases the unbroken
cellular tegument may be distinguished, even in blood merely
steeped in water.2

*1.C. R., Vol. LXXXV. p. 712.*  *2. Ibid., p. 761 (1877).*

But that is not all: if there is
no cellule without envelope, neither is there one without
microzymas. The blood globules are, in fact, no exception.
On the other hand, as I have before mentioned, in certain
experiments the decolored vesicles of the blood vessels of
the duck, emptied of their coloring matter, contained their
nucleus reduced to molecular granulaA-tions; on the other
hand, I have stated that the deposit of molecular
granulations formed in defibrinated blood, with two volumes
of alcohol, 35-40 per cent, added, came from the destroyed
globules of this blood. It is necessary then, by direct
experiment, to put this beyond doubt, the doing of which has
brought to light some particularly interesting observations.

To solve the problem of the
existence of these molecular granulations in the globules of
the blood, these latter were isolated from the defibrinated
blood, separated from all trace of fibrin by filtration on
fine cloth, and four times its volume of a saturated
solution of sulphate of soda, or of an analogous salt, was
added to it.

Molecular granulations of the
globules of ox blood.

The globules being received upon
a filter with the usual precautions are washed once more
with sulphate of soda, and are then treated with alcohol of
35-40 per cent., which ought to dissolve the coloring
matter; this was, in fact, done by a washing in this alcohol
until discoloration was as complete as possible and finally
with water; the filter retains the molecular granulations
mixed with the remains of the cellular envelopes, possessing
the appearance and properties of those obtained from
defibrinated blood treated directly with alcohol.

The peculiarities already
presented by the globules of the bloods of the duck and of
the fowl induced me to repeat these experiments upon these
bloods.

Molecular granulations of the
globules of fowl's blood.

The globules separated from the
defibrinated blood of the fowl by the saturated solution of
sulphate of soda are received upon a filter and treated in
the same manner as was ox-blood, with alcohol at 35-40 per
cent., until deprived of their color; while the washing was
made with alcohol, the colorless residue upon the filter
seemed pulverulent, as in the case of the ox's globules; but
by continuing the water washing the pulverulent mass was
transformed into a mucous mass. Then, much surprised, I made
this further experiment.

The defibrinated blood of another
fowl was treated as usual by twice its volume of 35-40 per
cent, alcohol. The pulverulent deposit of molecular
granulations was obtained in the ordinary way; the deposit
received upon a filter and washed with weak alcohol became
white, remaining pulverulent; but so soon as water was added
the matter assumed the mucous condition of the granulations
of isolated elliptical blood globules.

The mucous mass sets free the
oxygen from oxygenated water; it dissolves only with
difficulty in hydrochloric acid at 2/1000.

As a consequence, from this it is
clear that the albuminoid atmosphere of the microzymian
molecular granulations of the blood globules of the fowl,
which assume the mucous state in water, is formed of a
different substance from that of the atmospheres of the
blood globules of the ox. We have already seen that the
fibrin of fowl's blood, yielded by whipping, is scarcely
attacked by hydrochloric acid. The granulations of the
globules of the same blood having become mucous have the
same property.

Molecular granulations of the
globules of the duck's blood.

The red globules of the duck,
isolated from the defibrinated blood by sulphate of soda,
are also treated on the filter by alcohol at 35-40 per cent.
The most prolonged washing with this alcohol does not at all
discolor the molecular granulations; much more abundant than
in the fowl's blood they remain, until the end, colored of a
brownish red. Is it, otherwise, with those of the deposit of
the same defibrinated blood treated with alcohol?

The defibrinated blood of the
duck treated at the moment bleeding, with two volumes of the
same alcohol, rapidly gives a deposit much more abundant
that does the defibrinated blood of the sheep. The deposit
formed chiefly of the molecular granulations is not
decolored by the washings with alcohol and with water, and
remains of a brownish red.  Treated with very diluted
hydrochloric acid it yields colored solutions.

The bloods of the fowl and the
duck deserve a more complete study than, to my regret, I
have been able to make.  For the results prove that the
globules, elliptical in form and with a nucleus, differ not
only by their forms from the circular globules, but further
that they differ among themselves. These two facts, and
those relating to the blood of the ox, prove that from this
time forth we have to study, not only the blood, but the
bloods, perhaps as much in the properties of their
anatomical elements as in that of their albuminoid
components, and especially of their haemoglobins.

However that may be, it remains
proved that the blood globules in general are not only
constituted upon the model of the perfect cellule, but that
by a sojourn of the blood in a solution of fecula the
refracting index of the tegument of the globules is modified
without modifying its osmotic properties.

Further, it has been demonstrated
that the blood globules themselves have, for anatomical
elements, molecular granulations constituted like the
haematic microzymian molecular granulations, as well the
circular blood globules, as the elliptic, and that the
molecular granulations of of one blood globule may differ
from those of another. The physiology of the blood will be a
great gainer by the study of of other special cases.1

*1. This remark gives
importance to the following: "The whole of the small
family of Chameleons presents the singular exception that
their blood globules are elliptical. But nothing like it
has been found in other animals of the same class and
nevertheless the bloods have been examined of more than
200 species chosen among all the natural subdivisions of
the group, including even the marsupials and the
monotrema, which, in certain respects, seem to establish
the passage between the normal mammifera and the oviparous
vertebrates. No adult bird is known whose blood globules
are not elliptical. It is the same with reptiles,
batrachians and ordinary fishes. Among cartilaginous
fishes the lampreys, for example, the form of the globules
is nearly circular." (Milne-Edwards, "Physiologic
comparee. Vol. I, p. 48, etc., edition of 1857).*  
The form, the external characters, among all living beings,
are allied to the entirely of their other properties. Why
should it not be the same with their blood globules and
their other anatomical elements?  
  
*[Milne-Edwards is correctly quoted by Prof. Bechamp, as
above, but the statement of Milne-Edwards is not
consistent with those of other authorities. All regard the
chameleon as a reptile, and all say that the blood
globules of all adult reptiles are elliptical.aTrans.]*

---

**CHAPTER V.**

**OF THE REAL
NATURE OF THE BLOOD AT THE MOMENT OF A GENERAL
BLEEDING.  THE LIVING PARTS OF THE BLOOD. 
PROTOPLASM.  THE UNCHANGEABLE CHARACTER OF MIXTURES
OF PROXIMATE PRINCIPLES.  THE VITELLIN MICROZYMAS AND
THE BLOOD GLOBULES.  THE VASCULAR SYSTEM.  THE
BLOOD A FLOWING TISSUE.**

The blood really contains three
kinds of anatomical elements: the red globules, the white
globules and the microzymian molecular granulations.
Anatomically, the blood is constituted by three sorts of
figured elements and, by a fourth term, a liquid. Is this
the serum, this liquid which is its interglobular and
intergranular substance?

The three sorts of anatomical
elements are living, insomuch as they are organized and
contain microzymas which I have proved to be living by their
function as ferments and by their capacity to become
vibrioniens by individual evolution, which was a novelty for
physiology and even for chemists.

Nevertheless, so far as concern
the red globule, since 1846 the statement that it is alive
was not a novelty. In fact, in a memoir,1 which merits the
more attention that it is never quoted, J. B. Dumas made an
observation which must be regarded as of the first
importance. It is that to isolate the red globules in their
integrity, by mixing the blood with sulphate of soda, a
current of air must be introduced; without this they will
change, losing their coloring matter which itself also
changes. And he said: "The globules of blood act as though
they were really living beings, capable of resisting the
solvent action of sulphate of soda so long as they are
alive, but yielding to this action so soon as they have
succumbed to the asphyxiation which affects them by the
deprivation of air, and which manifests itself with singular
rapidity, either by their change of color or by their rapid
solution."  Dumas asserted clearly that the globules
breathe; that account must be taken of their membrane in
explaining the phenomenon of respiration; and that the
breathing of an animal has especially for its object to
furnish oxygen to the globules of its blood and to expel
"the products into which they convert it." He also remarked
that in the discussions and the calculations respecting
respiration the blood had always been regarded as a
homogeneous liquid, while it was only the serum which
possesses this quality. He in no wise disregarded the part
taken by the serum in the phenomenon of arterialization, but
he insisted on the preponderant part taken in it by the red
globules.

*1. Dumas, "Recherches sur le
sang," C. R.. Vol. XXII, p. 900 (1846).*

To understand the blood, one must
place oneself in the order of ideas of the memoir of Dumas,
but broadened; that illustrious savant did not recognize in
it, nor did any one else at that time, other anatomical
elements than the globules, but there is another. He saw in
the blood only three nitrogenous organic matters: albumen,
fibrin and the globules, but there are others.

I will add that, in the serum, he
made allowance for the share therein of the phosphates and
other mineral matters.

At the moment of a general
venesection the blood has been regarded as being that which
it is in the vessels while it circulates in them, but as
being a mixture of the arterial and venous bloods; and we
have seen that at this moment the blood is so thoroughly
regarded as being alive that it was regarded as certain that
coagulation was its death.

The blood being alive, it is
necessary to recognize, in accordance with the doctrine of
Bichat, that, as in all the rest of the organism, the only
things living in it are the anatomical elements, that is to
say, that of the four parts which constitute it, the three
kinds of anatomical elements are the only things living in
it; the fourth, the serum, or that which will become the
serum, the interglobular and intergranular substance,
fulfilling with regard to them only one of the conditions of
existence.

But as this conclusion conflicts
with the prejudices of the schools, it is necessary to know
what those prejudices are to combat them, for they are the
negations of the doctrine of Bichat and precisely contrary
to it. In fact, while it is asserted that the globules of
blood, in general the anatomical elements, are only
organites, neither plants, nor animals, as M. Pasteur said,
that is to say, not living although organised, it was
insisted that that which in the blood is still called plasma
was living, a liquid whereof all the materials are said to
be in a state of perfect solution, that is to say, without
any anatomic, figured structure. But it is well to repeat
that such was the state of science just as it was before
Lavoisier and before Bichat, when the philosophical
naturalist, Charles Bonnet, speaking of the organization,
called it "the most excellent modification of matter." Even
in France a conception more or less analogous to it, that of
protoplasm, was preferred to the striking conception of
Bichat. But protoplasm or its synonym, blastema, was
considered to be organized living matter without structure.
Here is one of the most precise descriptions of such matter:
"A completely homogenous, amorphous matter without structure
can be regarded as organized substance if it is constituted
of numerous proximate principles, united molecule to
molecule by special combination and reciprocal solution, and
however simple may be this organization, it is sufficient to
enable one to say that it is alive." Diet, de Med., Littre
et Robin, art. Organique (1878).

Van Tieghem said: "Protoplasm is
a mixture with water, of a greater or less number of
different proximate principles, in the course of continual
transformation."

Huxley said: "All protoplasm is
similar to proteinaall living matter is more or less similar
to albumen."

Cauvet said: "Protoplasm is a
nitrogenous liquid, more or less flowing, composed of a
translucent joining substance and of fatty and albuminoid
granulations."

Even Claude Bernard said: "In its
simplest condition life, contrary to the idea of Aristotle,
is independent of all special form; it resides in a
substance defined by its composition and not by its shape;
the protoplasm."

Pasteur said: "Living organisms
are composed of natural substances such as life elaborates
them, the proximate principles of living bodies which
possess faculties of transformation which are destroyed by
boiling."1

*1. C. R., Vol. LXXIII. p. 302.
See letter of M. Pasteur to M. Donne. M. Pasteur's manner
of thinking was still that of Chevreul [born in 1786. was
still alive and active in 1856]a at the time (1810) of the
foundation of his chair at the Museum; Chevreul said,
speaking of living bodies, that they are organic bodies in
contradistinction to inorganic bodies, which we term
minerals. Buffon called minerals gross matter, admitting
that there was a universally diffused organic matter which
he termed organic molecules, but Buffon wrote before the
time of Lavoisier. Chevreul spoke of the proximate
principles of organic bodies which are the products of
life. Pasteur, speaking of the same proximate principles,
says that they are natural substances elaborated by life,
which have powers of transformation, etc. It may thus be
truly said that there was no idea of life as bound to a
determined, structural form of living anatomical elements,
according to the conception of Bichat. It is thus to be
understood how M. Pasteur could class in the same
category, as organites, the red globules of the blood and
grains of starch. It is true that the amylaceous granule
had been regarded as being a vesicle, but Biot and Payen
had shown that it was solid throughout its mass, and I
have proved, in my researches upon fecula, that it had
neither tegument, nor microzymas, being wholly formed of
amylaceous matter contaminated with a trace of albuminoid
matter.* *In the microzymian theory it is
not life which produces or elaborates the proximate
principles, but the anatomical elements are constituted
into living apparatus by the microzymas, according to the
same mechanism by which the fibrinous microzymas cause
starch to ferment, and elaborate the numerous proximate
principles which I have described as produced in that
fermentation.*

These quotations are sufficient.
Protoplasm is regarded as a pure mixture of proximate
principles, that is to say, of materials of a purely
chemical order. M. Cauvet and others, M. Frey, for instance,
have observed the granulations of the protoplasm, but they
were supposed to be pure proximate principles. This mixture
was declared by some, as in the course of continual
transformation; by M. Pasteur, as endowed with faculties of
transformation, but without other proof of what is precisely
the point in question, viz., whether such a mixture can
spontaneously change, can alter itself, give birth to any
living being whatever, be it a cellule or a microzyma. If
protoplasm were that which it was thought to be, the
conception of Bichat would be purely chimerical.

I have incontestably
demonstrated, in contradiction to the theory of protoplasm
and against M. Pasteur, that every mixture, artificial or
natural, of real proximate principles, with water, is, by
itself, in every way unalterable, incapable of giving birth
to anything living; in short, as not being in the course of
continual transformation and as not possessing any faculty
of transformation capable of producing in it any spontaneous
alteration. And if in such a mixture, boiling destroys the
"faculties of transformation" of some zymas, this latter had
not been produced spontaneously, it was the product of a
living organism. In short, if the mixture contains some
proximate principle which can be altered by oxygenation, by
absorbing oxygen from the air, this principle is itself the
former product of a living organism through the reaction of
a zymas.1  I have given positive proof of all of this
while studying the conditions of the spontaneous coagulation
of milk, which was said to be a pure mixture of proximate
principles. Cow's milk, creosoted by a suitable dose to
destroy the influence of the germs of the air and completely
protected from all contact with the air, first becomes sour
and then coagulates. After which, vibrioniens appear in it.
If by filtration, by the process which I have indicated in
the case of the blood, both the globules and all the milk
microzymas of the creosoted milk are absolutely removed, the
limpid liquid which results, containing all the proximate
principles of the milk, under the same conditions, does not
become sour and consequently neither coagulates nor permits
the appearance of the vibrioniens. The "faculties of
transformation" then resided in the anatomical element of
the milk which had been removed by filtration, and not in
the rest of its substance, which maybe called the
physiological serum of milk.

*1. The zymases are never the
products of the spontaneous alteration of an albuminoid
matter, but are always the products of the physiological
function of a living organism and of an anatomical element
in the latter. See the article zymas, "Dictionnaire de la
langue francaise." Littre (1869).*

The physiological serum of the
milk, which has the same composition as blastema or of
protoplasm, is then naturally unchangeable and consequently
not living.

It is the same with the fourth
portion of the blood, which we will call the physiological
serum of the latter. And precisely as the anatomical
elements of milk are the agents of its spontaneous
alteration, because they are living, so the anatomical
elements of the blood are, on several accounts, the agents
of its spontaneous alteration, as will be proved in the
following chapter. But first must be determined the
physiological role of this serum, in which are realized the
conditions of existence of the anatomical elements, globules
and granulations of the blood, while it circulates and after
it has been shed.

I understand by "conditions of
existence" of an anatomical element (following Bichat's
conception), that of the preservation of its physical being
at the same time with the integrity of its tegument and that
of its content, preserved with its composition unchanged,
which it can only be by finding in the medium in which it
lives all the materials for its nutrition.

Take, for example, the red
globules; we know that in blood, steeped in a certain
quantity of water, the soluble contents of its globules are
diffused by osmose, the teguments remaining whole; on the
other hand, we know that in the same blood, steeped in
several times its volume of a saturated solution of sulphate
of soda, its globules remain entire, both tegument and
content. We can even steep the blood in its own serum,
without the globules being altered ; without any trace of
the colored content being dissolved.  And it is the
same with the molecular granulations as with the globules;
so that if in blood, steeped in the solution of sulphate of
soda, a small part of their albuminoid atmosphere is
temporarily soluble, as we have seen, it is absolutely
insoluble in the serum and each granulation remains there
whole and independent, the same as each globule, and this
constitutes one of the conditions of the circulation.

But to understand the circulation
and the reciprocal influence of the vessels and of the
elements of their content, a slight diversion into
embryology is indispensable.

In studying the development of
the fowl to ascertain the role of the microzymas of the
vitellus in the formation of the anatomical elements and of
the organs, Estor and shown1 that the container and the
content of the vascular system are born and developed
simultaneously with the aid of the microzymas and the
unorganized materials of the vitellus. We have never seen
globules in the body of the embryo before the establishment
of the circulation; they are formed on the spot. Thus the
anatomical elements of the tissues of the vessels and the
anatomical elements of the blood contained therein are born
at the same time, by the microzymas of the vitellus as
builders, in the unorganized intermicrozymian medium of the
vitellus. Hence it results that the serum of the embryonal
blood comes into existence concurrently with the globules
and the granulations, having the non-organized parts of the
vitellus for their source. To sum up, container and content
are born at the same time, develop at the same time, and at
the same time become what they are destined to be in the
future.

*1. C. R., Vol. LXXV, p. 962
(1872). We were led to undertake this embryological
experiment as the consequence of the following experiment
of which Estor was a witness: The mother of vinegar formed
a microzymas, united among themselves by a hyaline
intermicrozymian substance, is a membrane of mucous
consistence with which we have compared the false membrane
called fibrin; but it is so much vegetable that it is
hardly nitrogenized. But in the "mother of vinegar," under
the conditions in which one forces its microzymas to live,
these become by individual evolution bacteria, or by
association manufacturers of cellules. It is the same with
the microzymas of beer-yeast, which, in certain media, act
as lactic and butyric ferments, undergoing vibrionian
evolution; while in others they reproduce the cellule of
yeast and the normal alcoholic fermentation." \**  
The microzymas then can be manufacturers of cellules by
grouping themselves together, and being grouped becoming
enveloped with a tegument when the conditions of existence
of these cellules are united. And it is precisely this which
the vitellin microzymas do during embryonic development.  
  
This new theory of the origin of the cellule does not weaken
the axiom of M. Virchow: omnis cellulae cellula.  One
cellule may be derived from another cell according to
another mode, that is all.  
  
Consequently, when M. Pasteur said that the globule of the
blood is an organite incapable of reproduction because it
could not be cultivated like beer-yeast, he was mistaken,
not knowing any other mode of reproduction.  
  
*\*For the developments of the theory of the microzymas,
manufacturers of cellules, see the following publications:
"Conclusions Concerning the Nature of Mother of Vinegar
and of Microzymas in General," C. R., Vol. LXVIII, p. 877
(1869); "Researches on the Nature and Origin of
Ferments.  Ann. de chemie et de physique," 4th
series. Vol. .XXIII. p. 443. And for the theory in its
entirely: "Les Microzymas Builders of Cellules." see: "Les
Microzymas," etc., M.Chamalet, 60, passage Choiseul,
Paris, p 431-463 and p. 948.*

The blood ought to be studied not
only by itself, but as being to the vessels that which the
content of a cellule or of an organ is to its tegument. The
tegument of the vascular system consists of the various
tissues of the arteries, of the veins and of the
capillaries. It must also be borne in mind that the system
is directly in relation with the heart, the lungs, the
liver, etc., and that the lymphatics (the chyle vessels)
communicate directly with it. And as the content of a
cellule, of an organ, does not exist without the container,
so also the blood does not exist without the vessels which
contain it and which make of the whole system an organ in
more or less direct relation with every part of the
organism.a And it must be observed that if there is any
difference between the anatomical constitution of the
container of the various regions of the vascular system
there is also a difference in their content. Independently
of the color there is more oxygen and less carbonic acid in
the arterial blood than in the venous. In several regions
differences have been observed in the portion of the number
of blood globules to that of the leukocytes. Lehmann
observed that if the blood obtained from the portal vein
gives fibrin by whipping, that of the suprahepatic vein does
not furnish any by this means, proving, as we shall see,
that the microzymian molecular granulations of the two
bloods differ in something, and Denis has already pointed
out that the fibrin of the arterial blood is not identical
with that of the venous blood, etc.

*[a  This original
conception throws a new light upon the purpose and
relations of the circulatory system, which I hope to
enlarge upon in a future memoir.aTrans.]*

Consequently it is
physiologically evident that the anatomical elements,
conceived as being personally and in individually living
from whatever part of an organism they may be taken exist
there only because the conditions of their existence are
found naturally realized there. It is not otherwise with the
blood; the conditions of existence of its anatomical
elements are only realized, in each point of the circuit,
while it is contained in the vessel and circulating.

It is ordinarily said that the
anatomical elements swim in the lymph, the liquor sanguinis
or the plasma; those who, with Milne-Edwards, admitted the
existence of finely divided fibrin, said that it too floated
in the serum. Anatomically, may we continue so to regard the
reciprocal relations of the three anatomical elements and of
the fourth portion of the blood?  And is it correct to
say that at each point of the blood current there are
molecular granulations and globules almost in contact with
one another? Is it not more correct to say that the fourth
part, the serum, is only the intercellular and intergranular
substance of these anatomical elements which hinder their
immediate contact, a situation analogous to that which is
correctly admitted to exist between the anatomical elements
of the other tissues? But, if this relation really exists
for the blood contained in the vessels, must we not say that
the blood not only is not a liquid, but that it is a tissue
like that of the content of the spleen, or of the liver, or
of the kidney which are more or less flaccid? The softness
of the tissue of the content of the vessels is much greater,
that is all; we must then say that the blood is a flowing
tissue.

The flowing state of the blood
tissue is related at the same time to the soft consistence,
gelatinous it has been called, and to the elasticity of the
globules, whose tegument is incessantly lubricated by the
intercellular liquor; to the much softer consistence of the
swollen albuminoid atmosphere of the microzymian molecular
granulations whose density is nearly equal to that of the
serum; to the absolute insolubility of the globules and of
the molecular granulations in the intercellular liquor,
which again contributes to their individual independence.
This general insolubility of the anatomical elements is
assured, at every point of the circuit, by the stability and
even the origin of the composition of the very complex
intercellular liquor, resulting from the nutritive
functioning of the anatomical elements of the container and
of the content, and at the same time by the matters
contributed by the divers organs with which the circulatory
system is in relation, and especially with the respiratory
apparatus.

At the moment that the blood is
shed it may be regarded as being the same flowing tissue
that it was in the vessels. Nevertheless, there is already a
profound difference, viz., it is not only a mixture of
venous and arterial blood, but of the bloods of all the
regions, whose anatomical elements are violently placed in
new conditions of existence, very different from their
physiological conditions.

We shall see how this change in
the conditions of existA-ence rapidly determines the
manifestation of the phenomA-ena of coagulation and then of
other alterations of the blood.

---

**CHAPTER VI.**

**OF THE REAL CHEMICAL, ANATOMICAL AND
PHYSIOLOGICAL MEANING OF THE COAGULATION OF THE SHED
BLOOD; COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD; THE BLOOD OF THE HORSE;
THE SERUM OF THE BLOOD; COAGULATION OF BLOOD DILUTED WITH
WATER; SECOND PHASE OF THE SPONTANEOUS ALTERATION OF THE
BLOOD; THE BLOOD IN CALCINED AIR; EXPERIMENT PROVING
OXYGEN HAS NO SHARE IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GLOBULES IN
THE DEFIBRINATED BLOOD; SPONTANEOUS ALTERATION OF FLESH;
SPONTANEOUS ALTERATION OF MILK; COAGULATION OF MILK;
FERMENTATION OF THE EGG; SPONTANEOUS DESTRUCTION OF THE
CELLULE OF YEAST; SPONTANEOUS DESTRUCTION OF TISSUES;
SPONTANEOUS ALTERATION OF THE BLOOD.**

The blood is a flowing tissue; Bordeu had already reA-marked
that it was flowing flesh. This chemically, histologically
and physiologically is far from being true;1 the only thing
certain is that the blood like the flesh is a tissue, and
that both of them are spontaneously alterable, as are all
tissues, when the natural conditions of existence of their
anatomical elements are no longer realized. For instance, in
the case of the muscular tissue, cadaveric rigidity follows
death very quickly, and, in the case of the blood, the
formation of the clot follows closely upon its issue from
the vessels.

*1. It was, I think, in 1742, in his thesis, entitled
"Chylificationis historia," maintained, at Montpellier, at
the age of 20 years, that Bordeu, among the original ideas
which makes him to be regarded as one of the precursors of
Bichat, put forth the idea that the blood is flowing
flesh. In the seventeenth century, Amyot had already said
that "the blood is engendered by the transmutaiton of some
flesh which becomes a flowing liquid." (Diet, of Littre.)
If an original sketch, later recognised as correct, is
sufficient for the author to be historically regarded as
the discoverer, assuredly Bordeu would deserve to be
regarded as having discovered that the blood, like muscle
flesh, is a tissue. But, as observed by Babinet, "if the
ancients have said everything, they have demonstrated
nothing." Bichat also inserted the blood tissue among his
twenty-one elementary tissues, next to his muscular
tissues.* *But since Bichat other savants have so done. In my
time at Montpellier the Professor of Physiology, M.
Rouget, taught that the blood, because of its globules, is
a tissue; and I replied that, according to the ideas then
accepted, the blood is no more a liquid or a tissue than
was sweetened water holding in suspension globules of
yeast.* *To-day, M. Ranvier also says that the blood is a
tissue because it contains figured elements like the
lymph. Doubtless the chief condition necessary for its
being regarded as a tissue is for a product of an organism
to contain some figured element, but that is not enough;
according to the doctrine of Bichat it is also necessary
to show that this element is living; and still that is
insufficient; otherwise milk, the saliva, and even the
urine and certain pathological serosities, spontaneously
coagulable, would like the lymph and the blood be tissues.
I will consider this further in the last chapter.*

It is not disputed that the
phenomenon of the coagulation of the blood is spontaneous;
the standard facts concerning this phenomenon are as
follows: The defibrinated blood obtained by whipping does
not coagulate spontaneously, and the globules remain intact
in the liquor which has lost its peculiar viscosity.

The blood of oxen and of sheep (I
leave for the present the blood of the horse), received into
a glass or metal vessel, seems to coagulate throughout its
mass, uniformly from the periphery to the center, forming a
single solid clot which follows the shape of the vessel into
which it has been received. This clot contracts by degrees,
up to a certain limit, expelling from it in so doing the
serum of a lemon color, which thereafter becomes
red-colored, getting gradually deeper, so that the
contracted clot (withdrawn from the edges) floats in the
serum which has been expelled from its primitive mass. As
Haller has already said, the clot is formed by the network
of fibres of the fibrin which imprisons the globules in its
meshes.

It remains to explain these
phenomena invoking only the chemical, physiological and
anatomical facts studied in the preceding chapters. The
necessary condition for the tissue to remain flowing is that
the properties of the anatomA-ical elements and their
independence remain unchanged; that their relations with the
intercellular liquor remain conA-stant, not only in the
vessel, but also after the venesection.

We know the distribution of the
globules in the blood, and how they pass, one by one, into
certain capillaries; the distribution of the microzymian
molecular granulations is such that if the globules should
disappear they will occupy all the space which the globules
occupied; that is to say, that the former exist in such a
manner in the blood that the globule; move in it in
displacing the former unceasingly, but in immediately
reoccupying the abandoned space; in short they realize the
conception of Dumas, when he said of the fibrin that it
exists in a flowing condition in the blood; only that this
flowing condition is molecular, attached, as we have seen,
as to each molecular granulation to a microzyma for nucleus,
forming a limited atmosphere around each, which albuminoid
atmosphere is absolutely insoluble in the blood serum.

To understand that the number of
microzymas of the blood is sufficiently large in order that,
surrounded by the atmosphere which constitutes them
microzymian molecular granulations, they may occupy every
point of the blood mass, even that of the globules which
were driven away, it is sufficient to know that they exist
there in innumerable quantity. This is proved in the
following manner: The fibrinous microzymas, that is to say,
the blood microzymas, are with the pancreatic microzymas,
the smallest I have observed. They assume, in their extreme
minuteness, the spherical form. The diameter of these
microzymas probably does not attain 0.0005mm (mm?) in the
humid state. This enables us to calculate that in the volume
of 1 mm. cube there are at least 15 milliards 250 millions.
Now a litre of sheep's blood furnishes 5.25 grammes of dried
molecular granulations, which nearly represent the weight of
the fibrin that the same-blood furnishes by whipping. But
the fibrin, supposed dried, contains 1/193 of its weight of
dried microzymas; then 5.25 grammes of molecular
granulations, likewise dried, contains 5.25/193 = 0.0272
grammes; that is to say, 27 milligrammes of dried microzymas
per litre of blood, which represents a very much greater
weight of humid physioA-logical microzymas; but in taking
this figure for the weight of the microzymas in the
physiological condition of humidity, and 15 milliards per
milligrammes or cubic millemetre, it is seen that one litre
of blood contains more than 27 times 15 milliards of
microzymas. But their weight is in reality much less than
this, for, humid, these microzymas can retain 80% of water;
in the blood, enveloped with an albuminoid atmosphere
saturated with the intercellular liquor, they certainly
retain less, but in a manner to render legitimate the
approximate calculations above given.

It will be interesting to learn
the thickness of the albuminoid atmosphere which surrounds
each microzyma to constitute the microzymian molecular
granulation, such as it exists in the blood at the moment of
venesection. An approximate idea of this can be obtained by
considering that the volume of the spherical molecular
granulations with a condensed atmosphere of the deposit
formed in the blood which has had added to it twice its
volume of alcohol at 35-40 degrees is about 50 cubic
centimetres per 1000 c.c. of blood; making allowance for the
space occupied by the globules, we may consider that the
volume of the molecular granulations, before the
condensation of their atmosphere, was about twenty times
greater to occupy the entire space of the 1,000 c.c. of
blood; it will be presently proven that they do in reality
occupy it all. The albuminoid atmosphere being thus swollen
and saturated with the intercellular liquor, it can be
understood that the great number of milliards of these
molecular granulations arc sufficient to occupy the entire
space presented by the blood, provided that their density be
very little greater, if not equal, to that of the
intercellular liquor which isolates them from one another.
This state of the microzymian molecular granulations
explains the sort of viscosity which belongs to the blood,
and how the globules, whose density is greater, move about
in it without being deposited and are only deposited very
slowly in the ox's or sheep's blood when at rest; and we
shall see how the exception presented by the blood of the
horse confirms these considerations.

We have now to inquire whether,
after the shedding the blood, the conditions, which I have
mentioned as necessary for the blood tissue to remain
flowing, can still be realized.

And first it is evident that this
tissue, bearing in mind that we are considering a mixture
outside of the vessels, longer in its natural physiological
situation.

In this new situation the
intercellular liquor, in which are united all the soluble
organic and mineral products of the denutrition of the
anatomical elements of the containers and of the contents,
immediately changes its composition; for the disassimilated
products, which have become non-usable, are no longer
eliminated, and the usable can no longer be utilized or
renewed; further, the anatomical elements of the flowing
tissue, which have imperative need of oxygen to function
properly, are more and more deprived of it; for, after
having consumed all that was held in reset the flowing
tissue and which the uneliminated products, thus
accumulating in it, had been able to absorb, the oxygen thus
consumed is not renewed by respiration. The first change
then which happens in the shed-blood is that which the
intercellular liquor necessarily undergoes in its
composition.

The microzymian molecular
granulations are first anatomical elements to be affected by
this change of medium and of conditions of existence, and,
we have seen, this impression is so intense and at the same
time so rapid that it manifests itself in a few seconds by
the profound change which occurs in the albuminoid substance
of their atmosphere which, from being as it was immediately
soluble in very dilute hydrochloric acid, becomes insoluble
in it, dissolving in it, only as a function of time and
temperature, while being transformed. It follows that this
influence has the effect of coagulating this substance
relatively will dilute hydrochloric acid.

That settled, the mechanism of
the formation of the clot is as follows:

The microzymian molecular
granulations exist throughout the whole of the space
occupied by the flowing tissue, excepting that which is
occupied by the globules and the intercellular and
intergranular liquor. Thanks to their density, though very
little greater than that of the intergranular liquor, they
approach one another and come into contact when at rest;
their albuminoid atmospheres, soft and mucous, mingle
together, while at the same time their substance undergoes
the coagulation of which I spoke. And these changes are so
rapid that the globules, although much superior in density,
have not the time to be precipitated and are caught in the
meshes of the network formed by the solA-dering of the
albuminoid atmosphere which constitutes the fibrin and
membranes, as already said by Haller.

Both the molecular granulations
and the globules are so closely connected by capillarity to
the intercellular liquor that at the time when, or some
minutes afterwards, the clot is completely formed, or, as it
is said, the coagulation is complete, the vessel containing
it can be turned upside down without any trace of the liquid
escaping. This, in fact, is what is to be expected from what
I have said about the distribution of the molecular
granulations in the flowing tissue and of that of the
intercellular liquor around the three anatomical elements.

It is true that it might be
maintained, with some appearA-ance of reason, "but that is
precisely what happens in the plasmatic hypothesis." But
that hypothesis has never been verified; on the contrary, I
have directly proved that plasma does not exist in the
blood, but that the existence of molecular granulations with
their central microzymas was certain, as was also that of
the microzymas in the fibrin obtained by whipping. But the
following are two phenomena which the hypothesis of the
plasma cannot explain.

The coagulation being complete,
by degrees the clot divides itself spontaneously into two
parts. That which, in the clot, encloses the globules; that
is to say, the network of fibrin formed by the soldering of
the microzymian molecular granulations, contracts then more
and more, up to a certain limit, preserving the shape of the
vessel in which the clot is moulded, and while the
retraction takes place a part of the intercellular liquor is
expelled, constituting what is called the serum, in which
the retracted tissue is now immersed.

And the first serum thus expelled
is transparent and lemon colored, but by degrees the oxygen
which the intercellular liquor holds dissolved, as well as
that which the globules contain, is consumed; then is
manifested the phenomenon observed and explained by J. B.
Dumas in globules deprived of oxygen; they change, and their
changed coloring matter is diffused in the circumambient
serum which becomes more and more of a deep red color. This
is what the plasmatic hypothesis cannot explain, if one
regards the plasma as a liquid in which all the components
are in perfect solution. Let us now give a more direct
demonstraA-tion of this fact.

All other things being equal, the
rapidity of the coagulation of the blood may vary notably
from one species to another. The blood of the horse, under
the same conditions as that of the ox and of the sheep, is
well fitted to verify the truth of the role ascribed to the
third anatomical element of the flowing tissue. It is known
that the (shed) blood of the horse is divided by rest into
two layers: the lower, called cruor, is formed by the
globules; the upper, called liquor, contains the microzymian
molecular granulations. The upper layer, transparent but not
limpid, flowing, possessing the peculiar viscosity, can even
be decanted after the globules are precipA-itated and very
quickly forms a clot in all its mass, in such wise, that the
containing vessel maybe turned up-side down without one drop
of the liquor escaping; after which the retraction, with
loss of transparency, is produced and the serum commences to
be progressively expressed from it, as in the case of the
bloods whose globules do not separate. Now this retraction
would not be produced if dealing with a substance really
dissolved which, in coagulating, should become insoluble in
the same medium.1

*1. The coagulation of the
blood has been compared to the gelatinization of a
solution of gelatine (Frey. Traite d'histologie et
d'histochimie. p. 141). but a solution of pure gelatine
heated in distilled water and sufficiently concentrated
can be obtained absolutely limpid by careful filtration.
On cooling this solution forms a jelly, more or less
consistent, perfectly limpid, not undergoing any other
contraction than that produced by the lowering of the
temperature. Nevertheless, in fact the gelatine has
coagulated, for in the gelatinized solution it has become
insoluble in cold water as it was before. But the
comparison made by Dumas with the state of fecula in
starch is more correct. In fact in the transparent starch
the fecula is not dissolved, it cannot be filtered. By
cooling, after a long time, the starch undergoes a change
in its appearance; it becomes more opaque and a retraction
accompanied by expulsion of liquid can be observed. This
happens because the fecula was not dissolved, but simply
enormously distended.*

The peculiarity presented by the
blood of the horse may be due to the greater difference
between the density of its globules and that of the
intercellular liquor, and at the same time to a greater
softness of the albuminoid atmosphere of the microzymian
molecular granulations, which will be more swollen, and,
consequently, their mass surrounded by the serum more
readily traversed by the globules. I have, therefore,
compared, as being the only thing accessible for
experimentation, the serums of blood of the ox and of the
sheep, with that of the blood of the horse, with regard to
their general composition.

The rotatory power of the organic
materials, taken altogether, of the serum of blood of the ox
is: (a) j = a 52A deg.8.

In 100 c.c. of this serum there
were:  
                                                                                               
Grammes.

Amount of fixed organic matters
.............................................  . 8.72  
Amount of fixed mineral matters, ashes  
.................................. 0.68  
        Sum of fixed
matters  
.....................................................     
9.40

Proportions in hundredths of
organic and mineral matters:  
Amount of fixed organic matters
............................................... 92.76  
Amount of fixed mineral
matters................................................
 7.24  
                                                                                                       
100.00

The rotatory power of the organic
matters, taken altogether, of the blood of the horse is: (a)
j = a 53A deg.

In 100 c.c. of the serum of the
blood of the horse there were:  
                                                                                                                        
Grammes

Amount of fixed organic matters
.................................................................
6.70  
Amount of fixed mineral matters, ashes  
...................................................  
0.06  
Sum of fixed matters  
.................................................................................
6.76

Proportions in hundredths of
organic and mineral matters:  
Amount of fixed organic matters
.................................................................
99.1  
Amount of fixed mineral matters
...................................................................
0.9  
Sum of fixed matters 
.........................................................................
 100.0

Rotatory power of the serum of
sheep's blood was: (a) j = a 64A deg.

And the proportions in hundredths
of the fixed mineral and organic manors, this serum, were:  
Amount of fixed organic matters
................................................................
91.4  
Amount of fixed mineral matters,
ashes........................................................
8.6  
                                                                                                
100.C

The most striking thing, above
all, is not alone that the serum of the blood of the horse
contains less fixed materials, organic and mineral, with a
rotatory power very nearly equal to that of the blood of the
ox and much lower than that of sheep's blood, but especially
that it contains between seven and eight times less mineral
matters than either of the other two.

The serum of the blood of the
horse differs then prodigiously from the two serums to which
I had compared it; this amply explains at once the softness
of the albuminoid atmosphere of the granulations and the
rapid deposit of the globules.

Experiment thus verifies the fact
that the molecular granulations occupy in the blood not only
all the space occupied by the globules, but also all the
space left free by their precipitation.

According to Charles Robin1
agreeing with many authors, the blood of man, and that of
the dog and of the ox, behave like that of the horse, when
they are cooled down a little below freezing; they remain
liquid a sufficiently long time to enable the globules to be
deposited, the leukocytes, according to Donne, forming a
grayish layer upon the top of the blood globules; the
supernatant liquid then forms the clot, losing its
transparency when the temperature reaches 12A deg to 14A deg
C.(=53A deg.6 to57A deg.2,F.), and it should be added that Ch.
Robin, having observed the transparency of the supernatant
layer separate from the globules under these circumstances,
and which he called plasma, stated that it could not be
filtered.

*1. Ch. Robin, Lecons surles
Humeurs. p. 59 (1871).*

I regret that I had not had the
time to verify these experiments, but the facts may well be
regarded as true, being certified by Ch. Robin. They support
the theory which I lay down; the lowering of the temperature
below zero (32A deg F.) having the effect of singularly
retarding the functions of nutrition of the anatomical
elements (as it retarded those of beeryeast) ought to retard
the coagulation of the albuminoid atmosphere of the
microzymian molecular granulations.

The formation of the classical
fibrin by whipping remains to be explained, and this is now
very easy. It is the result of a simultaneous mechanical and
chemical action. By the mechanical action the layer of
intercellular liquor which separates the molecular
granulations is broken, while the granulations forcibly set
free are united by their mucous albuminoid atmosphere, at
the same time that the changes in the conditions of
existence determine the allotropic transformation of the
albuminoid substance which, coagulated as we have seen,
contracts at the same time, still enveloping the microzymas;
in consequence of which that which was diffused throughout
all the volume of the blood is reduced to relatively small
volume occupied by the classical fibrin. And by the small
volume of the fibrin obtained by whipping a judgment may be
formed of the enormous volume formed by the albuminoid
atmosphere which surrounded the granulations of the flowing
tissue at the moment of the venesecA-tion, as we have
observed also in relation to the molecular granulations when
separated from the alcoholized blood.

In the separation of fibrin by
whipping the globules remain entire, and I have explained
that if the weight of the fibrin thus produced is less than
that of fibrin obtained by washing the contracted clot, it
is because to the free molecular granulations of the blood
are added those obtained by the destruction of the globules
with their envelopes.

Such were the facts upon which
rested the experimental physiological theory of the
spontaneous coagulation of the blood, when, in 1895, I
communicated them to the Bordeaux Congress of the French
Association for the advancement of science.

If there remained any doubt as to
the value of the theory concerning the spontaneous
coagulation of the blood as a flowing tissue, here is what
must remove them. The new experiments to which they relate
are the fruit of the following considerations:

If the formation of the clot is
actually the result of the spontaneous soldering of the
mucous albuminoid atmospheres of the microzymian molecular
granulations; if in the presence of alcohol, diluted to a
suitable degree, these atmospheres are condensed, the
molecular granulations remaining independent of one another,
what would happen if instead of alcohol the blood should be
received into water? The following is the experimental
answer:

Coagulation of blood diffused in
water. At the moment of venesection the blood is received
into increasing volumes of distilled water up to half of its
volume. The clot is formed in all cases; with small
quantities the globules do not appear to be altered and the
first serum has its ordinary appearance, but in proportion
as the quantity of water is increased there arrives a time
when the serum becomes colored. Encouraged by these trials,
one day in November, at Paris, the blood of the general
venesection of a Russian sheep was received, as to one part
into two volumes of alcohol at 36A deg, carbolated with two
drops per hundred c.c., and as to the other part into two
volumes of distilled water carbolized in the same
proportion.

The alcoholized mixture yielded
the ordinary deposit of microzymian molecular granulations
with the properties with which we are now familiar and
naturally there was no trace of a clot.

The aqueous mixture furnished
something very different from a precipitate. Like the
alcoholic mixture, the aqueous mixture had been made at 9
o'clock in the morning; naturally, like the other, it was of
a deep red color, since under such conditions all the
haemoglobin of the blood globules had become dissolved. But
at 3 p.m. the aqueous mixture was coagulated, the clot
occupying the entire volume of the mixture, a volume three
times greater than the blood clot without the addition of
water. A little deep red liquid was already expelled; the
next day the blood clot was not more contracted.

The experiment repeated with ox
blood gave the same results; the blood clot was formed in
the entire mass, floating in a little deep red liquid, etc.

The trembling and nearly
transparent clots of the two experiments were placed to
drain on a moist cloth of close texture. At a given moment
the cloths were found covered with a mucous substance which,
a prolonged washing, with water slightly carbolized (1 drop
per 100 c.c.), then with alcohol at 25%, and again with
water, did not completely decolor; at the end there remained
a red false membrane which could be removed in a single
piece from the damp cloth; such was the appearance and state
of the fibrin of the clot formed under these conditions; its
quantity is perceptA-ibly that which is isolated by the
washing of the ordinary clot. In this condition this fibrin
is not dissolved immediately in hydrochloric acid at 2/1000,
but like ordinary fibrin is a function of time and of
temperature, and without first taking on the condition of a
jelly like the fibrin from whipping, etc.

If then the albuminoid atmosphere
of the hematic microzymian molecular granulations is
condensed under the influence of alcohol of proper strength,
the same atmosA-phere is much more distended, three times
more, in water, and the blood still coagulates in all its
mass, the globules being destroyed.

The conclusion which results from
this new series of experiments is that the physiological
theory of the spontaneous coagulation of the blood, founded
on the existence of a third anatomical element, the
microzymian molecular granulations of the flowing tissue,
sufficiently explains the facts.

It is time then to erase from the
language of science the words plasma, plasmine, fibrinogen
and of fibrinoplastic, with which it has been encumbered.a
There must also be erased for the explanation of the
phenomenon the pretended influence of the globules, of
calcareous or other salts, catalytic actions of contact,
etc., not to speak of various occult

*[a. Term microbe must also be
erased; unless it be desired to retain it to denote
mankind and other short-lived animals! Trans.]*

influences. An exact knowledge of
the anatomy of the blood and of the conditions of existence
of the anatomical elements will suffice.1 But it is also
necessary to understand in another way than has heretofore
been done the meaning of what is called the coagulation of
the blood. In truth, the blood does not coagulate. The
experiment proves it; it is the substance of the atmosphere
of the third anatomical element of the flowing tissue which,
in undergoing the allotropic change of coagulation, gives to
the aggregate of the phenomenon the appearance of a total
coagulation; but, as we have seen, it is only an illusion.

*1.  It is because the
conditions of existence of the anatomical elements are
longer realized when the blood is preserved between two
ligatures in the vessel which contains it that the
coagulation of the flowing tissue is often long defer red.
This explains the success of certain experiments of
authors and, the most recent, those of M. Fr. Glenard
(1875). (Thesis above quoted.)*

The supposed spontaneous
coagulation of the blood is at bottom, only the end of the
first phase of the spontaneous alteration of the flowing
tissue, as the cadaveric rigidity, marks the first phase of
the spontaneous alteration of the muscular tissue.

But, what is it that changes in a
tissue? And what is the second phase of the spontaneous
alteration of the blood and at what moment does it begin?

It is of importance to the plan
of this chapter to give a precise answer to these questions.

Second phase of the spontaneous
alteration of the blood.

The first begins by the chemical
alteration of coagulation of the albuminoid atmosphere of
the microzymian molecular granulation, whence results the
formation of the clot, the retraction of the latter and the
expulsion of the lemon-colored serum. The globules have
nothing to do with this phenomenon, as is incontestably
proven by the experiment with the blood of the horse.

The second phase begins at the
moment when the serum becomes colored with red, which shows
that the change of the blood globules has commenced, their
haemaglobin, more or less changed, being diffused in the
serum.  The following experiment of M. Pasteur has
shown what becomes of the globules in this change. This
savant made it in 1863,1 five years after my verification of
the hypothesis of germs in the air, when he had given up
belief in the spontaneous generation of ferments, with the
object of demonstrating that in the absence of germs the
blood would not putrify because nothing living would appear
in it. To understand this it is to be remembered that M.
Pasteur was a protoplasmist seeing in an organism only
proximate principles, admitting in it nothing figured,
autonomically living, comparable to the figured ferments.

I take the recital of the
experiment from a book of the author, published long after
the microzymas had been discovered and the microzymian
theory of the organization completed.

He commences as follows: "Let us
examine into the interior of living beings, in good health,
such or such of the materials which may be found there, and
examine them in the state in which life has formed them, in
contact with pure air."2

*1. Pasteur. "Recherches sur la
putrefaction." C. R.. Vol. LV1 (1863).*  *2. L Pasteur. "Etudes sur la beere." p. 46 (1876).*

In fact, with the assistance of
Cl. Barnard, he poured the blood of a dog directly into a
vessel, the air in which had been calcined. The receiver,
sealed with the blow-pipe, contained thus one of the
materials to be examined, obtained from the interior of the
animal, and thus protected from the germs of the air. I now
quote textually as follows what M. Fasten thought he
observed:

1.  The blood does not
putrify, even at the highest temperature of the atmosphere;
its odor remains that of fresh blood, or takes on that of
lye.

2.  After an exposure of the
flasks to 25A deg-30A deg C. (= 77A deg to 86A deg F.), during several
weeks, nothing can be observed but an absorption of 2% to 3%
of oxygen, which is replaced by a perceptibly equal volume
of carbonic acid.

3.  Under the circumstances
in which the blood of the dog, exposed to the contact of
pure air, does not putrify at all, blood crystals are formed
with remarkable readiness.

4. In the first days of its being
placed in the oven, slowly, at the ordinary temperature, the
serum became gradully colored a deep brown.

5.  In proportion as this
effect is produced the blood globules disappear and the
serum and the clot become filled with crystals of a brown or
red color. After some weeks not a single blood globule
remains either in the serum or in the clot. After a longer
interval the whole of the fibrin may become collected in a
single hyaline mass.1

*1. Ibid, p.49.*

Such was the experiment from
which M. Pasteur concluded that, if protected from germs of
the air, blood did not putrify at all; that is to say, was
not altered by the action of any figured ferment, which in
his opinion only the germs of the air could produce. I have
elsewhere shown that, supposing the technique of the
experiment to have been accurately carried out, the
observations made thereon were incomplete, and the
interpretation of the results vicious in the extreme. I will
revert to this hereafter; for the present I will only show
that the facts of the experiment corroborate my own.

It is evident that, taken
altogether, the experiment of M. Pasteur has confirmed that
which the microzymian theory never fails to prove, namely,
that every tissue, every humor, withdrawn from a living
healthy animal, absolutely protected from the germs of the
air, necessarily alters and, consequently, alters
spontaneously.

It demonstrates further that
there are two distinct phases in the changes of the blood.

It is true that M. Pasteur did
not stop an instant to consider the phenomenon of
coagulation, but he observed that the serum, at first
lemon-colored, became by degrees red, then deep brown,
without insisting on the mechanism of the contraction of the
clot and the expulsion and tardy coloration of the serum
which marks the commencement of the second phase and which
follows so exactly the consumption of oxygen which the blood
contained, that the author himself testified to the
absorption of a small quantity of the oxygen in his flasks
with a corresponding production of carbonic acid. During the
second phase, in which the haemoglobin alters more and more,
blood crystals are formed, at last the globA-ules are
destroyed and disappear while the fibrin which imprisoned
them in the network formed by it contracted more and more.

This picture shows clearly that
during the two phases the alteration is at once chemical and
anatomical, ending in the destruction and total
disappearance of the globules.

But to what cause did M. Pasteur
ascribe such prodigious effects? In 1863 he also
experimented on muscle flesh, imitating my method of
investigation, replacing creosote by alcohol. He wrapped up
a voluminous mass of flesh in a linen, soaked in alcohol,
and left it to itself.

"There will not be any
putrefaction, he said, not in the interior, because the
germs of the vibrios are absent, nor externally because the
vapors of alcohol hinder the development of the germs on the
surface." Nevertheless the author certified that the meat
"became gamey in a pronounced manner." And why did it become
gamey? Simply, said he, "because it is impossible at
ordinary temperature to withdraw the interior of this flesh
from the reaction of solids and liquids upon one another . .
. There will necessarily always be what are called actions
of contact, which develop in the flesh small quantities of
new substances, which add to the savor of the meat their own
savor."1

Then at ordinary temperatures the
same thing should happen with the blood as with the muscle
tissues; there will be actions of contact, reactions of the
solids upon the liquids; and that is why the blood changes
without putrifying as flesh becomes gamey without
putrefaction. There is some excuse for M. Pasteur and the
academies with him to have been satisfied with these
explanations, seeing that protoplasmism had been accepted as
a dogma among savants. It was faith in this doctrine which
caused the globule to be regarded as an organite, and the
mass of the blood or of the flesh, for a collection of
proximate principles, and, which is more serA-ious, hindered
M. Pasteur from seeing the microzymas among the results of
his experiment, or, if he saw them, caused him to neglect
them, as he had neglected the microA-zymas and even the
vibrios in the gamey meat. However it maybe, it was by
invoking actions of contact, and of reactions of solids and
liquids, that M. Pasteur persuaded himself that the
alterations of the blood and those of the flesh were not
phenomena of putrefaction; that is to say, of fermentation.
And this manner of regarding things on the part of the
celeA-brated savant prevailed so generally that I was obliged
to make an explanation on the subject of an assertion made
by Balardin 1874.

M. Servel, Estor's assistant, had
presented to the Academy2 a work verifying the fact that
with absolute protection from atmospheric germs the most
divers tissues could

*1. L. Pasteur, Recherches sur
la putrefaction. C. R., Vol. LVI. p. 118-9 (1894).*  *2. C. R., Vol. LXXIX, p. 1270.*

produce bacteria even in their
interior, and cited other verifications made in Germany.
Now, Balard, who presented the work, took the occasion to
say that blood is preserved without putrid fermentation and
without bacteria in the experiment of M. Pasteur.1 I replied
to M. Balard, saying that the blood is one of these
substances, of which the egg is another, whereof the
microzymas undergo with most difficulty the vibrionian
evolution.2 In spite of this the experiment of M. Pasteur
was given as a pre-emptory demonstration that the interior
medium contains nothing figured which could become bacterium
by evolution in the substance of a tissue or of a humor; and
it was asserted, in agreement with him, that the experiment
proved at the same time that the bodies of animals were
closed to germs from without.

*1. Ibid., p. 1272* *2. Ibid.. Vol. LXXX. p. 494. The note of M. Servel
and my reply to M. Balard should be read with attention to
have a clear idea of the state of the question in 1875.*

Nevertheless, in a discussion at
the Academy of Medicine, where, once more, I defended the
microzymian theory, M. Pasteur took part in the discussion,
maintaining his former conclusions, continuing even to deny
the existA-ence of the microzymas. It was then that I urged
against him his own experiment upon the blood which is a
demonstration against his own system. I said: "Do you affirm
that the blood in which crystals are formed and the globules
disappear is not altered? The globules of this blood are
always destroyed and disappear: what then has destroyed
them? Even the haemoglobin is transformed into crystals and
we find in the liquid a swarm of microzymas . . . these
microzymas which you have neither seen nor noticed."

No longer invoking actions of
contact, M. Pasteur said: "But these transformations are
made under the influence of the oxygen of the air." With
regard to the presence of the microzymas he admitted it in
leaving it to be believed that I had stated that they became
bacteria in his experiment.1

*1.Bulletin de l'Academic de
medecine, 2d series, Vol. XV. p. 679.*

The presence then of the
microzymas being acknowledged, the observation of the
results of the experiment was completed, it matters little
after that, that M. Pasteur continued to treat them as
"creatures of the imagination," and that he explained the
phenomena as the result of some influence of oxygen; I had
reason to hope that this avowal would open the eyes of my
academical opponents and that they would acknowledge that
they had been deceived. But nothing of the kind; the
acknowledgment exists nevertheless, and it only remains to
prove that they are really the agents of the changes of the
second phase of the phenomenon and of the destruction of the
globules.

In the first chapter we have
shown that fibrin left to itself covered by carbolized
water, open even to contact with the air, is transformed
into soluble products without the appearance of bacteria,
leaving a residue of new microzymian molecular granulations
without phenomena of fetid putrefaction; and we have also
seen that the microzymas of these granulations were the
ferments of the transformA-ations. On the other hand we have
also seen, that in fecula starch, the same fibrin liquefies
this starch and makes it ferment, while its microzymas
become bacteria; we have there two examples, in one of which
the microzymas are active without evolution, in the other
they undergo bacterian evolution.

The following experiment
demonstrates that oxygen has no influence in the phenomenon
of the destruction of the globules in defibrinated blood.

About 300 c.c. of the blood of
the ox, having added to it 50 c.c. of a saturated aqueous
solution of phenol, were immediately defibrinated and the
blood carefully separated from the fibrin submitted to a
current of carbonic acid, for the purpose of expelling the
oxygen. The flask was closed and left to itself at the
temperature of the month of June in Montpellier during one
month, and afterwards in the oven at 30A deg to 33A deg C. (= 86A deg to
91A deg.4 F.); this blood did not undergo fetid putrefaction,
the globules, very slightly altered in shape, remained whole
during the first ten or twelve days. It was only about the
15th of June that there appeared a great quantity of very
fine molecular granulations, of which only some rare
examples had before appeared, without any trace of vibrios
or of bacteria. The globules resisted for a long time
further, and ended by disappearing. Here was an alteration
without the presence of oxygen, whereof the microzymas could
not be other than those of the globules.

The fibrin and the globules of
defibrinated blood can then be destroyed by their own
microzymas alone, without fetid putrefaction and without
bacteria.

If in the experiment with the
blood of the ox, defibrinated or not, no blood crystals were
formed it was because the haemoglobin of this blood is one
of those which either do not yield them at all or do so with
difficulty.1

*1 As to the assertion of M.
Pasteur relative to the influence of the oxygen of the
air, he knew that a long lime before I had refuted this in
advance (see Les Microzymas, p. 253. and following
(1883),Chamalet, 60, Passage de Choiseul): it is there
shown that the blood taken from the crural artery of a
dog, with the addition of a little of the saturated
solution of creosote, submitted to a continuous current of
common air is preserved arterialized and the globules
remain perfect a long lime; these last, however, end by
being destroyed so that the microzymas become free, often
without the appearance of bacteria, and always without
felid putrefaction. When the current of air is replaced by
pure oxygen the same thing happens and the crystals of
blood are formed at between 24A deg to 26A deg C. of temperature.
It is on the contrary, in carbonic acid, that the blood
globules of the dog are destroyed most quickly and the
crystals are formed most readily between 35 to 40 C,
always without fetid putrefaction.* *Later I showed that under :he same conditions as that of
the blood of the dog, the bloods of the ox. of the pig, of
the fowl, of the duck give neither crystals nor yet the
soluble haemoglobin of the ox. Bulletin of the Academy of
Medicine, 2d Series. Vol. XVII. p. 225 (1887).* *I will add that under the prolonged action of the current
of air on the blood of the dog I have found that the
quantity of normal urea was increased. This statement
should be verified.*

Assuredly, if in spite of the
changes certified to by himself, M. Pasteur came to the
conclusion that muscle, flesh and blood were not liable to
become putrid, it must have been because he firmly believed
that ferments had for their only source the germs of the air
and that the protoplasmic system of organization was founded
on rigorous observation. And I venture to say that he knew
he was in error and that, later, it was with design that he
disputed the microzymian theory, being unwilling to confess
that he had observed badly and had taken the wrong road.

Prof. Joseph Bechamp reviewed the
experiment on flesh as I had done for that of the blood. He
repeated the experiment of M. Pasteur without using alcohol
as an antiseptic, and in the centre of the piece of meat,
there where M. Pasteur said that the germs of vibrios were
absent, he found the microzymas in evolution and vibrios or
bacteria. At the same time he found the tissue
disorganizing.1

*1. C.R. Vol LXXXIX, p. 573.*

When I had led M. Pasteur to
acknowledge the presence of the microzymas in the altered
blood, I was anxious to make him confess the presence of
bacteria in the interior of the gamey mass of flesh in his
other experiments. But he refused, saying: "I do not know
what you mean in speaking of one of my experiments on
flesh."

The excessive role ascribed to
the germs of the air by this savant and his pretended
demonstration of the imputrescibility of organic matters in
general when protected from the germs of the air, have
diverted science into a deplorable road. He thus threw doubt
upon a truth long since acquired; namely, that all natural
organic matters, vegetable and animal, are liable to
spontaneous change by a phenomenon of fermentation under the
conditions specified by Macquer.

This truth must be re-established
if we would understand the real meaning of the experiment of
M. Pasteur upon the blood; to do this we must connect it
with the introductory matter which precedes the first
chapter of this work, which led up to the discovery of the
real nature of fibrin, which was 11 ic point of departure
for the discovery of the real nature of the blood.

I call to mind then that I proved
how a solution of sugar or of any other proximate principle,
or their mixtures, were changeable on contact with the air,
owing to the ferments horn of the germs of this air. M.
Pasteur, who had previously asserted the spontaneous
generation of ferments, repeated my experiments and was
convinced. Then he generalized and asserted that it would be
the same in the case of urine and of milk, resembling in
this sweetened yeast broth which, being boiled, was not
altered if creosoted or left to itself in calcined air.

Before the experiment on the
blood or on the flesh, this celebrated savant had
experimented on urine and on milk. As to fresh milk, he
admitted, a priori, that it soured owing to ferments born of
the germs of the air, and that it was coagulated by the
lactic acid which coagulated its casein. But here we have
boiled milk coagulating in calcined air without becoming
sour, while vibrios appeared in it. He was surprised at
this, but did not in anywise seek to fathom the mystery,
maintaining that in milk the germs of the air resist heating
to 100 A deg C. and become vibrios, to which he ascribed the
coagulation.1

*1. His Memoir should be read
(Ann. de Chimie et de Physique, Vol. LXIV, pp. 58-63) to
realize the efforts made by M. Pasteur to convince himself
that the germs of the air are the sole origin of the
vibrios.*

I have narrated, in the
introduction, how I applied the new method of research to
milk and thence to various other tissues; similarly I
studied from the point of view of their chemical and
anatomical changes urine, birds' eggs, fruits which become
over-ripe, sprouted barley, frozen plants after a thaw and
globules of beer yeast, etc.

Now for the chemical and
anatomical facts regarding milk, upon which I cannot insist
too strongly. The first phase of its alteration is the
separation of the milk globules in the cream; this
separation corresponds in an inverse sense to the separation
of the blood globules in the cruor of the blood of the
horse; the second phase is the souring which precedes the
formation of the clot; and this souring corresponds to a
fermentation which produces alcohol, acetic acid and lactic
acid, the agents whereof are solely the microzymas proper to
the milk, for at the moment when the clot is formed, whether
the milk has been creosoted or not, the microscope discloses
only these microzymas, which have become more readily
visible. The vibrios or bacteria which then appear mark the
anatomical phase of the phenomenon. But for the complete
understanding of the phenomenon of the alterations which
occur in milk, it is necessary, as in the case of the blood,
to recognize that after its issue from the gland its
anatomical elements are no longer in their normal conditions
of existence. Also perfectly fresh milk does not contain
lactic acid-contrary to the opinion of Berzelius a but it
contains alcohol and acetic acid; it hence results that the
production of lactic acid after the milking indicates a
functional change in the microzymas of the milk; and this
formation of lactic acid taking place without the
disengagement of gas, especially of hydrogen, indicates in
addition that the microzymas of the milk are different from
those of the blood.

And since it relates to the
phenomenon of coagulation, and that the clot of milk has
been compared to the clot of blood, it must also be
recognized that the milk clot is not the coagulation of the
casein by lactic acid. The casein, in fact, is an insoluble
albuminoid proximate principle, which exists in the milk in
the state of a soluble caseinate; the acids, whether it be
the lactic or the acetic acid, saturate the alkali and the
casein is precipitated; it results from this that that
.which is called coagulation of the casein in the milk,
which is spontaneously altered, is the slow precipitation of
the casein by the acids which render the milk sour.

With regard to the coagulation of
boiled milk, where there is no souring, that is a phenomenon
of another kind in which the caseinates, the albuminates and
the zymas of the milk modified by the heat take part; it is
a zymastic action, which may be likened to coagulation by
rennet, the zymas whereof has its origin in some functional
modification by heat of the microzymas of the milk. And this
functional modification of these microzymas is so certain
that, if there be added to the milk quantities of creosote
or of carbolic acid sufficiently great to prevent the
vibrionian evolution of the microzymas, there will be no
souring or coagulation of the milk; the albuminoid matters
undergo other transformations and at last, if the action
continues for a long time, at 30A deg to 35 A deg C., the milk
globules are destroyed, the fatty bodies which they contain
being set free.

The preceding facts regard
especially the milks of the cow and of the goat, which are
casein milk.

The milks of the ass and of women
do not contain casein, but they sour spontaneously without
coagulating and yield no clot on the addition of rennet.1

Normal human urine, creosoted,
ferments without disengaging gas, producing alcohol, acetic
acid and benzoic acid proceeding from hyppuric acid, while
the epithelial cellules are destroyed and the microzymas
evolute.2

*1. On the histological
constitution and the comparative chemical composition of
the milks of the cow, of the goat, of the ass and of
woman"; "On the spontaneous alterations of milk and on the
changes which heating produces in it." (M. Chamalet.
Passage de Choisel, 60. Paris.)* *2. C. R., Vol. LXI. p. 374, and Les Microzymas,
etc.. p. 713.*

The liver, plunged in carbolized
water, produces, with the disengagement of carbonic acid,
hydrogen and sulphuretted hydrogen, alcohol, acetic acid,
lactic acid, while its cellules are destroyed and its
microzymas evolve and become bacteria.1

But the changes of eggs and of
beer yeast are specially conclusive. The egg of the bird is
an organism whose function is to produce a bird. Donne, by
vigorous jolting, destroyed this organism, mixing, in the
shell, the yolk with the white and thus produced a kind of
alteration which I studied. The egg of an ostrich thus
treated, at a temperature of 30A deg-35A deg C. (86A deg-95A deg F.),
fermented and produced so much gas that the internal
pressure became sufficiently strong to throw out a small
part of the contents, on a hole being made in the shell. The
gases set free were carbonic acid, hydrogen and a trace of
sulphuretted hydrogen. When the gaseous disengagement ceased
there was no longer any sulphuretted hydrogen. All the
vitellin globules had disappeared and the microzymas were
preserved with their form, without any trace of vibrios or
other organized production. All the glucose of the egg had
disappeared while the albuminoid matter had been preserved,
the soluble being coagulable by heat. The products of
fermentation were alcohol, acetic acid and butyric acid,
showing that they had been produced from the lactate. Here
then was a fermentation strictly defined, whereA-in the
microzymas, like those of the blood, did not undergo
vibrionian evolution.2 In order that the vitellin microzymas
may evolve other conditions are necessary.

*1. C. R, Vol. LXXV. p. 1830.*  *2. C. R., Vol. LXVII, p. 523.*

The case of beer yeast is still
more interesting, for it has to do with a living being
reduced to a cellule, whose alteration and total destruction
will throw a strong light upon those of the blood globule.
Suppose an alcoholic fermentation of cane sugar for which a
little more yeast had been employed than was needed for the
complete fermentation of the sugar. The fermentation being
accomplished the yeast will be deposited in the fermented
liquor and be preserved there unaltered indefinitely, as if
in lethargy, with its form and its properties. This
determined, let us take some fresh yeast, as it comes from
the brewery, washed in distilled water to purify it from
what it has brought away from the vat, and steep it in from
three to four times its weight of creosoted distilled water
to destroy the influence of germs of the air. In this
situation, so different from its normal condition of
existence, at the temperature of about 30A deg C. (86A deg F.) and
without any trace of air, it will for a long time disengage
pure carbonic acid, producing at the same time a relatively
great amount of alcohol, acetic acid and other products,
preservA-ing its form all the time. Evidently it has only
been able to produce all these these things at the expense
of its own substance, of its contents, since its tegument at
first remains whole. And if the process of alteration is
allowed to continue, this tegument itself will disappear,
its microzymas will become free and vibrios appear.1

The following is the method by
which the mechanism of the spontaneous destruction of the
cellule of beer yeast can be most easily studied. It is well
known that yeast does not cause fecula to ferment. But what
is not known is, that it liquefies the starch of fecula and
is completely destroyed in producing the liquifaction,
leaving of its organism nothing but its microzymas, the
soluble part of their content being left in the
circumambient medium. The phenomenon lasts a greater or less
time according to the quantity of creosote employed to
destroy the influence of the germs of the air. If the
quantity of creosote is small the microzymas undergo
vibrionian evolution, if it is sufficient the microzymas do
not evolve.2 But that is not all. Thus studied, the
phenomenon of the spontaneous destruction of the cellule of
beer yeast has enabled me to confirm the generality of the
fact which I had long before observed in studying the
microzymian origin of the vibrioniens.

*1. For details and
developments see C. R,. Vol. LVIII. p. 601; "Sur les
fermentations par les ferments organises" (1864).* *2. Ann. de chimie el de physique. 4th Series. Vol.
XXIII. p. 443. and Sur la nature el l'origine des ferments
(1871).*

While the globule of yeast is
being destroyed and its microzymas set free and begin to
undergo vibrionian evolution, several phases of this
evolution are to be observed, which Estor and I have
described from the commencement of our researches upon the
liver, etc.,1 namely, at first the microzymas are scarcely
altered in their size and form; then microzymas coupled in
the form of the figure 8, then chaplets of microzymas of
from 3 to 10 and 20 grains, all of the same size; then
vibrios properly so called; then bacteria often very large,
motile or not; also the amylobacters of Trecul, free or
fastened end to end. When the phenomenon is not checked by
an addition of creosote or carbolic acid, all these
productions maybe seen at the same time in the field of the
microscope. Now if without changing any of the conditions of
the experiment the observation of it is continued, it will
be seen that all the forms other than the single microzymas
disappear successively; first the amylobacters disappear;
new forms of smaller dimensions appear and disappear in
turn, so that in the end there remain only swarms of motile
forms scarcely differing from the original microzymas which
had evoluted.

*1. C. R. Vol. LXVI. p. 421,
and p. 859 (1868).*

Speaking then in the language of
anatomy, we may say that the microzymas become vibrioniens
by evolution; the vibrios, the bacteria, the vibrioniens in
general, return to the microzymian form by an inverse
phenomenon of evolution, the ultimate forms differing in
little or nothing from the microzymas, the anatomical
element of the cellule.

It is thus directly demonstrated
that a yeast globule, a cellule in general, in being
destroyed sets its own microzymas free; that these, if the
necessary conditions are realized, become vibrioniens by
evolution, which, in the same apparent conditions, by an
inverse phenomenon reproduce the microzymas.

So that as Estor and I have
demonstrated in the development of the embryonic cellules of
the fowl, and as I have demonstrated in the case of beer
yeast and in the case of cellules which may develop in the
mother of vinegar, the microzymas which are the commencement
of all cellular and tissue organization are also their end,
being, as we have seen, the end even of the bacteria.

Now that which is true of the
microzymas of beer yeast is true also of the microzymas of
all cellules, of all tissues, both of animals and of plants.
And this fact has been confirmed unwittingly even by those
who deny the microzymas and who, to avoid naming them, have
called them punctiform ferments; a microzyma or
microzymas-producers at the beginning, microzymas at the
end, such are the beginnings and the ends of a bacterium and
of a cellule.

Thus all natural animal and
vegetable matters, that is to say, organized as Bichat
conceived them and defined their organization, the
anatomical elements morphologically definite, are the only
things living in them; yes, all these matters, from the
highest in organization down to beeryeast, are spontaneously
alterable from the moment that they are no longer in the
situation of their natural conditions of existence,
chemically and anatomically.

In insisting upon their chemical
alterations, especially upon the production of alcohol, of
acetic acid, of lactic acid and of benzoic acid, with or
without the disengagement of carbonic acid gas, etc., I
wished to show that these alterations belong to the class of
the best known fermentations, which assume a living figured
ferment. But even in the spontaneous alteration of
beeryeast, alcohol and acetic acid are not the only products
formed; I described others in 1864; on further studying
these latter I have found succinic acid, a special gummy
substance, a ternary, furnishing mucic acid, leucin and
tyrosin, nitrogenous compounds whose formation bears witness
that the albuminoids of the yeast contribute to the changes;
later others have been found equally nitrogenous, etc. In
extending these researches upon yeast to the spontaneous
alterations of the flesh of the horse and that of fish,
these researches have been verified by isolating similar or
analogous products.

But since these spontaneous
chemical alterations belong to the class of fermentations
which presuppose the presence of a figured ferment, what is
this ferment? For if the beer yeast which causes sugar to
ferment puts in it a part of itself, of its transformed
content which is recovered among the products of normal
fermentation, it is not destroyed; it remains whole, its
tegument preserving to it its form, with its own anatomical
element-microzymas. On the other hand, when it produces
alcohol spontaneously, without sugar, it alters, and is
destroyed, as are destroyed the cellules and the
organization of the blood, of flesh, of the liver, etc. It
is not then these cellules and these tissues which are the
ferments of the spontaneous fermentations. M. Pasteur sought
in the altered blood the vibrio born of the germs of the air
and, not finding it, concluded that there was neither
fermentation nor even chemical alteration in it; there are
nevertheless ferA-mentations without vibrios and without
cellules in which are produced alcohol and acetic acid; in
the first phase of the alteration of milk, for instance, and
in that of eggs jolted up within the shell. These ferments
are precisely the microzymas, often the vibrioniens
resulting from their evolution, and microzymas which are the
result of the destruction of the latter, for at a given
moment, either at the commencement or at the end of the
phenomenon, there is in the medium which is altering or of
which the alteration is completed no production
morphologically defined other than the microzymas of origin
or the microzymas resulting from their destruction.

And this is not a gratuitous
assertion, for I have experimentally proved that the
microzymas of animal origin and those of the yeast are
actually the figured ferments which produce, with sugar or
fecula, alcohol, acetic acid, lactic acid, and by
fermentation of the lactate of chalk, butyric acid. And it
is precisely the microzymas of the microzymian molecular
granulations of the blood or those of the blood globules
which belong to that class.

From all these experiments it
results incontestably that the microzymas of living
organisms in general, and those of the blood and of the
blood globules in particular, are anatomical elements and
are themselves figured ferments; that is to say, that they
are living and organized in the same manner as it is
admitted that yeast is so; as are also the vibrioniens which
these microzymas may become by evolution, out of the same
organized substance. But the microzymas are living beings of
an entirely special order without analogy, on which I have
insisted for a long time and again insist upon as crowning
the demonstration that the blood is veritably a tissue.

And now what happens when this or
any tissue whatever alters? First it is no longer preserved
in the state in which it exists and functions in the
organism, in coordination, to speak as does Dr. Antoine
Gros, in general coordination with the functioning of all
the organs and of their tissues; it has then, as we have
established for the albuminoid atmosphere of the hematic
microzymian molecular granulations and for the coloring
matter of the contents of the red globule, to undergo, owing
to the change in the conditions of its existence, some
chemical change in some of its parts; it is in short that
its special anatomical elements change their form and their
function to the extent of being destroyed and disappearA-ing,
leaving the microzymas as the only trace of their existence
which, according to circumstances, do or do not undergo
vibrionian evolution. And the anatomical change maybe so
rapid, as is well known to histologists, that one is obliged
to take steps to preserve the integrity of the tissues. In
fact, one or two minutes may suffice, after the blood has
been shed, to render it impossible to demonstrate the third
anatomical element.

We must conclude then that in all
the experiments, including those of M. Pasteur, the chemical
and anatomical alteration in the blood is the work solely of
the microzymas, which, in certain conditions, do not become
bacteria. As to the question, to what order the chemical
phenomenon belongs, it is now solved; since every chemical
transformation of a proximate principle of organic matter,
under the influence of a figured ferment, is called
fermentation or putrefaction, it is evident that the
spontaneous chemical alterations of the blood are the result
of a fermentation or of a putrefaction without fetid
products.

Assuredly, whenever the
experiment on the blood shall be taken up upon a larger
scale, even under the conditions of that of M. Pasteur,
other products will be discovered besides those which I have
pointed out, and among them I should not be surprised if
alcohol should be found to be one of them.

It is now evident what is the
real meaning of the phenomenon called the spontaneous
coagulation of the blood; it is the following: The blood,
being a tissue, is necessarily alterable itself, as is well
known are all tissues, and as are all natural organic
matters, animal or vegetable, that which is called
coagulation being only the first phase of its more complete
change, which extends to disorganization and to the
disappearance of its globules. And the phenomenon in its
entirety is the work of the microzymas, which, acting
physA-iologically as ferments, effect the chemical
transformation of the proximate principles, and thereby the
anatomical changes, which end in the disorganization of the
tissues and of the cellules.

But, as I have said, the
microzymas are living beings of a special order without
analogy, as I have shown in other publications, upon which I
have promised to insist afresh to give to this work and to
its demonstration their highest character of certainty and
also to refute new errors upon which I had only touched in a
casual manner in a former work.1 This will be the subject of
the following chapter.

*1. Microzymas et Microbes,
etc. . Chamalet. pub., Paris, 60 Passage de Choiseul, 60.*

---

**CHAPTER 7.**

**JUSTIFICATION
OF THE DOCTRINE THAT THE BLOOD IS A FLOWING TISSUE AND, AS
SUCH, SPONTANEOUSLY ALTERABLE. M. PASTEUR AND THE GERMS OF
THE AIR.  CH. ROBIN AND THE ALTERATION OF THE BLOOD.
MICROZYMAS AND SPORES OF SCHIZOMYCETES; MICROZYMAS AND
MICROCOCCUS; THE MICROZYMAS AND THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM;
COMPARISON OF THE MICROZYMAS OF THE BLOOD, OF THE
MICROZYMAS OF THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM AND OF THE MICROZYMAS
OF OTHER TISSUES.  AUTONOMY OF THE MICROZYMAS.**

The demonstration that the blood
is a flowing tissue, and like it spontaneously alterable,
rests entirely upon the discovery of the microzymas,
individual living organisms, unsuspected, but existing
normally, and, consequently, necessarily as figured elements
in all the parts of every living organism, in every cellule
of that organism, ab ovo et semine, during the entire
duration of its development and of its existence in the
physiological condition of perfect health. This discovery
has furnished the demonstration that all the tissues and
humors are spontaneously alterable, because they contain,
inherent in themselves, the agents of their alterability,
the microzymas, which by evolution may become vibrios or, in
certain fixed conditions, bacteria; all of which has been
disputed and even denied.

It is this principle, so
conformable to the conception of Bichat regarding the
existence of anatomical elements autonomically living, so
entirely opposed to the doctrine of a living matter without
living figured elements, called protoA-plasm or blastema,
which I have had to oppose and still oppose against certain
savants to justify the fact that the blood is really a
tissue and as such spontaneously alterable.

The following is a statement of
the starting point of the dispute and of the denial.

The fact of the spontaneous
alterability of organic matters under the conditions which
Macquer specified was admitted in science as an
incontestable truth. I have described, in the first chapter,
how this belief had been so generalized, that the
spontaneous alteration of all proximate principles (even
that of cane sugar) was admitted. But, as I have
demonstrated, it is only through the action of germs of the
air, whose existence, even notwithstanding the hypothesis of
Spallanzani was denied, that this alteration occurA-red which
had the appearance of being spontanteous. But at the same
time that I demonstrated that Macquer was right as regards
plants and animals, tissues and humors, I showed that of the
three conditions specified by Macquer, suitable humidity, a
certain temperature and momentary contact with the air, the
first two only were essential, the air and its germs might
be entirely suppressed.

M. Pasteur admitted the
spontaneous alterability of organic matters in general and
explicitly asserted that ferments, beer yeast, lactic yeast,
vibrios, were spontaneously born of the albuminoid matter of
the broth of sweetened yeast; M. Pasteur, having repeated my
experiments, was so convinced that germs do really exist in
the air and that he had been mistaken, thenceforward
declared that the sole origin of the ferments, vibrios
included, was these germs he had previously disregarded, and
that consequently these germs were the first cause of the
spontaneous alteration of all organic matters without
exception. He experimented for the purpose of proving that
without the germs of the air unputrefying corpses would
accumulate upon the earth and even calculated the
consequences of such accumulation. Thence to deny the
microzymas and contest the conseA-quences of their discovery
was but a step which, later, he did not fail to make. In
fact his own experiments on milk and on boiled urine, those
upon blood and upon raw meat, were made by him, in the ardor
of his new conviction for the purpose of combatting the
doctrine of spontaneous generation by the same weapons I had
employed, and not against the microzymas which I had not yet
named. It was only in 1876 that M. Pasteur began to deny and
to dispute the facts of the microzymian theory which had
been nearly all published in 1871, and since 1874 had been
verified and confirmed in France and abroad. But although
verified and confirmed they were also interpreted; for the
sake of history and comparison it is desirable that these
interpretations should be known.

Charles Robin was the first to
speak of microzymas as being things which by evolution may
become bacteria. But the way in which he understood the
existence of the microA-zymas in the animal body needs to be
mentioned. He admitted without difficulty the two meanings
attributed by M. Pasteur to his experiment upon the blood:

First: That the blood does not
change of itself.

Second: That the bodies of
animals are closed to germs from without, and, consequently,
that within the body there is nothing which could become
bacteria.

Ch. Robin even asserted that
Pasteur had proved positively and beyond question that the
human economy is absolutely closed to penetration by
bacteria. Nevertheless, the observations of Davaine and
Rayer, of Coze and Feltz, etc., had demonstrated that in
certain diseases bacteria appeared in the blood.

Unwilling to admit that the
microzymas existed in it as anatomical elements, they said
that one of two things must be confessed; either that
bacteria are the results of a spontaneous generation into
the state of the microzyma, passing into the state of
bacteria, or that the microzymas reach the blood by
penetration in the same manner as granules of dust, etc.1
The alternative exposed the perplexity of this savant's

*1. Ch. Robin. "Lecons sur les
humeurs."p. 255 (1874).*

position. In fact, Ch. Robin was
a protoplasmist, after a fashion; an anatomical element such
as the microzyma passing, as he said, into the state of a
bacterium, among the ordinary anatomical elements, which he
knew so well, disarranged all his ideas. But with the
loyalty of an impartial man of science, he did not hesitate
to class the microzymas in the same category as the
bacteria; thus in an article in the dictionary he asked
whence come the microzymas into the living organism? It was
doubtless the perplexity of which I have above spoken which
caused him to compare the microzymas to the micrococcus of
the botanist, Hallier, of Jena, or to identify them with the
Bacterium punctum of Ehrenberg.1

*1. ibid,. loc. cit.. p. 230
(1874).*

Two years later an honest savant,
of Switzerland, stated as follows:

"It is within my knowledge that
it was A. Bechamp who first regarded certain molecular
granulations, which he named microzymas, as being organized
ferments, and formulated the three following propositions,
based upon researches which he had pursued jointly with
Estor:

First. In all the animal cellules
which have been examA-ined there exist of necessity normal
granulations, analogous to those named microzymas by
Bechamp.

Second. In the physiological
condition, the microzymas preserve the apparent form of a
sphere.

Third. Outside of the economy,
without the intervention of any foreign germ, the microzymas
lose their normal form; they begin by becoming associated in
chaplets, of which a separate genus has been made under the
name of Torula, next they become lengthened so as to
resemble bacteria isolated or associated; and he added: "It
is evident that the subsequent researches of Billroth and of
Tiegel are in their results only the confirmation of these
three propositions."

Then, experimenting on the
pancreas of ruminants and of freshly killed dogs, he
declared there were always to be found the same molecular
granulations, having the brownian movement, and which became
vibrioniens by evolution. These molecular granulations, he
exclaimed,

"Are evidently the microzymas of
Bechamp, the coccos of Billroth and, without hesitation, he
affirmed that they were the Monas Crepusculum of
Ehrenberg."1

*1. Dr. M. Nencki, Ueber die
Zersetzung der gelatine and des Eiweisses bei der
Faeulniss mit Pankreas, p. 35. Berne Dalp'sche
Buchhandlung (1876).*

Again, later, M. Nencki, in
collaboration with M. Giacosa, confirmed our observations
generally, working upon the same tissues as we had done, but
being unwilling to class the microzymas as anatomical
elements to the extent that when the bacteria and vibrios
were no longer to be regarded as animals they should be
regarded as plants under the name of Schizomycetes, he came
at last to hold that the microzymas are the spores of these
infusorial plants.

Thus the facts were verified and
confirmed in every sense; they exist in all the parts, down
to the cellules of every living organism, ab ovo et semine
of figured ferments and are capable of becoming bacteria;
but instead of regarding them in such situations as
autochthones (aborigines) they were regarded as being there,
either the fruit of spontaneous generation according to one
of the suppositions of Ch. Robin, or as foreigners under the
names of Bacterium punctum, of Monas crepusculum, of Coccus,
of Micrococcus, of pointed microbe, and finally of Spores of
Schizomycetes. Nevertheless, if the microzymas are not what
I contend they are, autonomous anatomical elements, the
alternative stated by Ch. Robin remains; spontaneous
generation or penetration! But then what becomes of the
dogma of closure, and that of non-putrefiability? These will
be abjured rather than admit the microzymas among essential
anatomical elements! In fact, M. Cornil, before the
admission of M. Pasteur, declared as follows, in 1886:

"M Pasteur has abundantly
demonstrated that our tissues and interior media, like the
blood, contain no microorganisms, no more than the urine,
except such as have been introduced from without, and the
experiments of our illustrious colleague have been confirmed
in all countries."1

Then M. Cornil, continuing to
deny the facts I had advanced, but admitting the views of
those who believed in parasitic microzymas, exclaimed:

"Messrs. Nencki and Giacosa
regard the word microzyma as the synonym for micrococcus; if
this synonymity be admitted, if the microzyma is merely a
genus of the Schizomycetes, the word microzyma ought to
disappear and the whole doctrine of M. Bechamp will vanish.
"2

But after M. Pasteur's admission
of the presence of microorganisms in the altered blood of
his experiments, it was more than ever necessary to get rid
of the annoying word microzyma; therefore went M. Cornil to
Germany to call M. Nencki to the rescue. He replied
(according to M. Cornil):

"The microzymas of M. Bechamp are
in my opinion either the micrococcus or spores of bacteria
and you are right in saying that for me the microzymas of M.
Bechamp are spores of Schizomycetes."3

*1.  Bulletin de 1'Acad.
de Med., 2nd Series, Vol. XV, p. 259 (1886).*  *2. Ibid.* *3. M. Comil did not say spores, but genus of
Schizomycetes. which though very different is erroneous
none the less.*

And this reply of M. Nencki was
communicated by M. Cornil to the Academy of Medicine.

If M. Cornil was satisfied, he
was satisfied with very little, since his correspondent
could not go back on his interA-pretation of ten years
before. In fact, the matter in question was not one of
synonymy and interpretation, but of a principle disputed and
of {acts denied by himself, following M. Pasteur. This
principle and these facts, did M. Nencki deny them? That is
the question. The principle disputed is the following, just
as 1 had enunciated it in a letter to J. B. Dumas in 1865:

"Chalk and milk contain living
beings already developed, a fact which observed directly is
also proved by this fact, that creosote employed in a
non-coagulating dose docs not prevent the milk from clotting
later; nor the chalk from transforming, without outside
help, sugar and fecula, into alcohol, acetic acid, lactic
acid and butyric acid."1

*1. Annales de chimie et de
Physique, 4th Series, Vol. VI, p. 248.*

The following year (1866) I gave
the name of microzymas to the living beings already
developed in the chalk and milk, so as to mark the fact that
they were figured ferments. It will be seen that this
bringing together the chalk and the milk was intentional on
my part.

It was this principle derived
from experiment: that creosote which hinders the proximate
principles from altering on contact with a limited quantity
of air does not prevent natural organic matters from being
altered in fermenting, which was disputed; and it was the
presence of the microzymas, agents of these spontaneous
fermentations, and their capacity to become bacteria by
evolution, which was denied. But M. Nencki admitted both the
principle and the facts; he had even avowed that M.M.
Billroth and Tiegel had only confirmed the facts.

After that, it is of little
moment, that they have said in turn that the microzymas are
the Bacterium punctum, the Monas crepusculum, spores of
bacteria, called Schizomycetes after having been regarded as
animal-cules. I remark only that these various appellations
prove merely that they do not know what to believe; but we
shall see at the end of this chapter that the name microzyma
has been well chosen, and that they are what they have been
said to be, anatomical elements and living beings of a
category not before suspected and without analogy.

Meanwhile the principle of the
demonstration that the blood is a tissue whose change by
fermentation, outside of the vessels, is spontaneous, as is
that of every other tissue outside of the economy, is
certain, both by the acknowledgment of M. Pasteur and by the
declaration of M. Nencki obtained by M. Cornil. But if the
principle is recognized, can it be asserted that the fact
that the blood is a tissue has not been sufficiently proved?
It is necessary to insist further.

I have already remarked that it
is not enough that figured elements exist in a humor to
entitle the humor to be regarded as a tissue. In the order
of the ideas of Bichat, concerning elementary tissues, it is
necessary to prove that these figured elements (i.e. having
a certain form), regarded as anatomical elements, are really
living; this is what I began doing; but even this is not
enough, it must further be shown dial, as in tissues
generally, these elements, almost in contact, are separated
and yet connected among themselves by an intercellular
substance in such wise that the smallest mass of the complex
tissue contains them.

If the blood were a homogeneous
liquid holding the microzymas in the condition in which they
are isolated from the fibrin, that is to say, naked, in
suspension with the globules, they would be separated and
deposited notwithstanding the movement of the blood, because
they are of greater density than it, in the same manner that
rivers charged with argilacious mud deposit it
notwithstanding the motion of the water. But the blood does
not hold the microzymas naked, but surrounded by an
atmosphere of special albuminoid mailer; in short, the blood
contains the microzymian molecular granulations; and the
albuminoid atmosphere, mucous, hyaline and swollen, gives to
these granulations a density very little differing from,
perhaps the sa  hat of the intergranular and
interglobular substance which connects them; in such wise
that the molecular granulations with the globules pervade at
once the entire mass of the blood.

The structure of the
haematic-microzymian-molecular-granulations is precisely
that which was needed to constitute the blood, with its
globules a tissue. It is because of their mucous atmosphere,
which swells enormously, that these innumerable
microzymian-molecular-granulations occupy in the blood the
entire space not occupied by the globules and the thin bed
of the intergranular and interglobular liquid substance; and
it is due to this special viscosity that the swollen mucous
atmosphere of the microzymian molecular granulations, as
well as to the mechanical obstacle which these present, that
the globules remain uniformly disseminated and are not
precipitated during coagulation outside of the vessels
before the production of the clot; as to the special case of
the blood of the solipedes, it is due to the great
differA-ence between the density of the globules of their
blood, and to some peculiarity of the mucous atmosphere of
their microzymian granulations, connected with the lower
density of the intergranular liquid.

The demonstration that the blood
is a tissue, and a flowing tissue, follows from the relation
of the three anatomA-ical elements and the intercellular
liquid substance special to each species. There is not in it
any sort of mere hypothesis.

But the blood, as a tissue,
belongs to a special anatomical system of organs whereof it
is the content; but if it be true that the various
anatomical systems are differentiated by their microzymas as
they are by their form and structure, must it not be the
same with the circulatory system? and in fact that is the
case.

The microzymas of the vascular
system, container and content, are different from those of
the other anatomical systems.

I have proved this proposition in
the comparative study of the decomposition of oxygenated
water by the microzymas of various animal tissues, and I
then extended this study to that of the microzymas of
various plant tissues.

The results will be found in the
following tables and have been obtained as follows: Into a
graduated tube, over mercury, are introduced several cubic
centimetres of non-acidulated oxygenated water of known
standard. The tube is then reversed and one c.c. of
microzymas in cake, enveloped in silk paper, is introduced
for from 3 to 5 vol. of water, oxygenated, to 10 to 12 vol.
of oxygen, and the rapidity and the volume of the oxygen set
free in 24 hours are noted. As mercury by itself can set
free oxygen from oxygenated water, a lube having the same
volume of this water serves as a control.

A similar tube receives the dust
of the laboratory introduced under the same conditions as
the microzymas.

**TABLE  I.**

**Microzymas and
tissues obtained from the blood of the several regions of
the circulatory apparatus or dependent thereon.**

                                                                                                                                           
Oxygen Set Free.  
Microzymas of fibrin (sheep or ox)
................................................                                           
23 c.c.  
"                 
of blood (not defibrinated) 
.........................................                                         
  25 "  
"
                
of defibrinated blood, that is to say, of the globules
.............................................. 20 "  
"
                
of the lungs of a sheep
...............................................                                            
27 "  
"    
            
of the lungs of a dog (the lung was antracosed)
..............................................       
29 "  
"    
            
of sheep's liver (the liver had been
drained)..........................................................  
21 "  
"    
            
of sheep's liver (with bacteria, the microzymas having
partially evolved)   ................22 "  
"  
              
of spleen of a
dog.......................................................                                          
  
10 "  
"
                
of heart-muscle of a dog
............................................                                            
12 "  
Chopped muscle, well washed, of heart of dog 
.................. ;........................
                            
8 "  
Microzymas mixed with bacteria, of human urine
.............................
........................................14 "  
ControlaTube of mercury
only.................................................................................................
0.5 "  
Tube containing dust from laboratory  
...........................
...........................................................0.5
"

**TABLE  II.**

**Microzymas and
various tissues not belonging to the circulatory system.**

                                                                                                                                   
Oxygen Set Free.

Microzymas mixed with bacteria of
human saliva 
.....................................................................................2   
c.c.  
                   
of the gastric glands of a
calf.................................................................................................0.4
"  
                   
gastric, of a dog obtained by means of a fistulaathey were
isolated from the gastric juice...  
6    "  
       
"          
pancreatic of a dog 
............................................................................................................3   
"  
                   
of an ox  
...................................................................
........................................................3   
"  
       
"          
of brain of a dog 
.................................................................................................................2.8
"  
Pulp of a dog's brain
...........................................................................................
.....................................1.3 "  
Crystallin of ox 
........................................................................................................................................0.3
"  
Cornea of
ox.............................................................................................................................................2   
"  
Vitreous humor of ox 
................................................................................................................................0.7
"  
Ciliary processes of ox  
.............................................................................................................................2.5
"  
Sheep's periosteum
.....................................................................................................................................0.8
"  
               
bone  
...................................................................................................
.....................................0.8 "  
               
hoof.............................................................................................................................................0.6
"  
Costal cartilage of calf 
................................................................................................................................0.6
"  
Nails of man  
..............................................................................................................................................0.4
"  
Vitellin microzymas of fowl
...........................................................................................................................3   
"

**TABLE 
III.**

**Microzymas and
various tissues of plants.**

                                                                                                 
Oxygen Set Free.  
Microzymas of sweet almonds 
...................................................
24    c.c.  
Tissues of sweet almonds finely divided (cotyledon and
embryo)     8  
Microzymas of beer yeast (isolated by braying)  
............................3.6  
Ditto       
ditto        (another
sample)  
......................................... 11  
Beer yeast, quite fresh,
pure.........................................................
22  
Green leaf,
brayed.......................................................................
  3.8  
Crushed (brayed) yellow petals of a lily  
......................................  2  
Red petals .of a cruciferous plant (brayed)
.................................... 1  
Pollen of an iris (in 20 minutes) 
..................................................  14

A comparison of the results of
these three tables is very instructive.

From a comparison of the first
two, which relate to the tissues of animals, it is seen that
the microzymas of the circulatory system, including therein
those of the urine, are those which decompose oxygenated
water with the greatest energy, setting free the most
oxygen, and at the same time, that it is the hematic
microzymas and those of the lung and of the liver which are
most active; and these are the organs which are most
directly concerned in the circuit. This I wish especially to
make clear, to demonstrate that the circulatory system was
differentiated from the other anatomical sysA-tems by a
special property of its microzymas; a property so special
that one might almost think that the other tissues owe their
like power only to the hematic microzymas which they retain.
But this cannot be, for the microzymas of the thoroughly
drained liver are as active as those of the blood, etc.

The results of the second table
are still more significant, for one cannot suppose that any
hematic microzymas can be present among the vitellin nor yet
among those of the saliva and urine. And if, in short, there
remained the least doubt the result of the third table must
remove them, by a consideration of the action of the
amygdalic microzymas and that of those of beer yeast, which
further proves that differences of the same kind are
presented by the microzymas of the different plant tissues.

The microzymas of the vascular
system, the container and its content, differ then from the
microzymas of the other anatomical systems with regard to
their power of decomposing oxygenated water; this is also to
be seen from the observations of Thenard above mentioned
when correctly interpreted. And these differences are seen
to be still greater when we study comparatively the
physiological functional aptitudes of the various anatomical
systems in man and other animals.

For instance, while the
pancreatic and gastric glands of the dog and of ruminants
are endowed with like functional properties in digestion, it
is otherwise with the salivary and parotid glands of man and
those of the dog or horse: the salivary and parotidian
microzymas of man liquify and sacA-charify powerfully the
starch of fecula; the like microzymas of the dog or horse
liquify but slowly and do not saccharify at all the same
starch. Thus the zymas secreted by the microA-zymas of the
same gland in man and in other animals is essentially
different. Morphologically identical these microzymas are
functionally different, and I am certain that the more these
are studied the more reasons will be found for
differentiating the microzymas of the microzymian molecA-ular
granulations of the blood of the various species of aniA-mals
and those of their globules, as I have differentiated the
haematic-microzymian-molecular-granulations.

And the microzymian theory of the
living organization explains why this should be; it is
because the microzymas of each species are autonomous in it
and are, ab ovo, what they should be and become in order
that each species should propagate itself, develop itself,
preserve itself, and after death, thanks to oxygen, that
each individual should undergo that total destruction which
reduces all substances except the microzymas to the mineral
condition. If they were not anatomically autonomous why
should they differ and be functionally various in species
and in their anatomical systems? I have already answered
this question,1 and am answered by bald denials only. It is
then worth while to adduce new considerations to convince
those whom the assertions of Cornil and of Nencki might yet
lead astray.

*1. For demonstration as as to
their autonomy, see my other works -- Chamelet, publisher,
60, Passage Choiseul, Paris.*

---

**CHAPTER 8.**

**THE MICROZYMAS
AND THAT WHICH IS STYLED BACTERIOLOGY; THE MICROZYMAS,
LIVING BEINGS BELONGING TO AN UNSUSPECTED ORDER OF THEIR
OWN; OVULAR AND VITELLIN MICROZYMAS; MICROZYMAS AND
MOLECULAR GRANULATIONS; GEOLOGICAL MICROZYMAS; MICROZYMAS
OF THE EARTH AND OF THE WATERS; MICROZYMAS AND BACTERIA;
BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS OF THE MICROZYMAS; MICROZYMAS AND
THEIR PERENNITY; THE ORGANA-IZED END OF ALL ORGANIZATION;
OVULAR AND VITELLIN MICROA-ZYMAS; MICROZYMAS AND PATHOLOGY;
MICROZYMAS AND COA-ORDINATION; PHAGOCYTOSIS; MICROZYMAS AND
ANTHRAX; MIA-CROZYMAS AND DISEASE; MICROZYMAS AND MICROBES;
MICROA-ZYMAS AND THE INDIVIDUAL COEFFICIENT; MICROZYMAS,
LIFE AND DEATH; MICROZYMAS AND HEALTH; MICROZYMAS AND
REA-CEPTIVITY; MICROZYMAS, BLOOD AND  PROTOPLASM;
CONCLUSIONS.**

To place beyond dispute the
autonomy of the microzymas it is necessary to bring into
prominence the facts and observations which prove that the
existence of the microzymas as living beings has not been
suspected by those naturalists who have studied the
infusoria, nor yet by the anatomists who have studied the
cellules and the tissues.

Demonstration that the
microzymas, autonomous anatomical elements in living
organisms, are living beings, morphologically determined,
belonging to a category of their own, having no analogue.

Let us first get rid of the
hypotheses that the microzymas are either the bacterium
termo, or the Monas crepusculum, or the Micrococcus, or the
spores of bacteria.

It is to be borne in mind that I
gave the name of microzyma at first to the geological
figured ferment of the chalk of Sens and of another
calcareous earth; that I have discovered this ferment in
other calcareous rocks, always of a spherical form, very
brilliant, having the brownian movement and smaller than all
the vibrioniens described by authors.' Ehrenberg described
(in the chalk) the remains of fossil microscopic organisms
called Polythalamies and Nautilites, but makes no mention
either of Monas crepusculum nor of Bacterium punctum. In
fact, none of the microzymas can be confounded with those
described by Ehrenberg under those names. The microzymas are
even smaller than the Bacterium termo, the smallest of the
known infusoria, the first term of the animal kingdom,
according to Felix Dujardin.

Nevertheless the microzymas had
been seen in cloudy infusions of vegetable and animal
matters, but they were taken for "the active molecules of
Robert Brown"; that is to say, for molecules having the
staggering or scintillating movement without change of
place, called "brownian movement," and no further attention
was paid to them.

In fact, the microzymas are
neither the Bacterium punctum, nor the Monas crepusculum,
nor even the Bacterium termo, which is much smaller than
they. It will be sufficient to establish this fact by
referring to the description of these monas, etc., given by
F. Dujardin, in his "Historie Naturelle des Zoophytes,"
Infusoria, pp. 215 and 279.

On the other hand, if these
bacteria, these monads, these micrococci, belong to
determined species, it is contrary to the data of natural
history to regard them as capable of being transformed into
other genera and species of vibrioniens, as we see the
microzymas produce them by evolution; the suggestion that
the microzymas are the spores of schizomycetes is also
untenable for the following reasons: A spore is a seminulum,
or an egg, if according to the old view, the bacteria are
animals, and search has been made for the eggs of bacteria;
a grain, if according to the new creed the bacteria are
vegetable; egg or grain, a spore cannot multiply itself as
the microzyma does, and cannot therefore be the same thing.

Take the microzymas of the ovule
in the Graafian vesicle in the fowl, and the microzymas of
the vitellus of the mature egg. In the ovule there are
ovular microzymas, in the vitellus, vitelline microzymas. At
a given moment there are, say, a milligramme of microzymas
in the ovule, and there are two or three grammes dried at
100A deg C. (I have isolated and weighed them) in the vitellus.1

They have then multiplied
prodigiously during the development of the vitellus.2

So much then for the anatomical
analysis for the egg of the fowl, and the chemical analysis
shows that the elementary composition of the ovular
microzymas is not the same as that of the vitellin, the
former, as will be seen, being less carbonized; evidently
their composition changed in the process of multiplication.3

Chemical analysis has further
demonstrated that the vitellin microzymas of several species
of birds differ from those of the fowl in their composition
and especially in the properties of their respective
zymases.4 This accords exactly with the microzymian theory,
for it is evident that the microzymas are what they should
be specifically, in order that, by incubation, the egg
should produce the proper bird, its tissues, and all that
pertains to its future being. And it has been demonstrated
that during the development of the being, parallel with the
anatomical development by the multiplication of the
microzymas, there is a functional development of these, so
that in each anatomical system they become that which they
successively are in the embryo, in the foetus, in the adult,
etc.

*1. See the Memoir on The
Albuminoid Mailers, pp. 140 and following.* *2. For the mode of multiplication of the microzymas
see "Les Microzymas," pp. 490 and following.* *3. The Memoir above mentioned, p. 162.* *4.  See J. Bechamp, "Normal and pathological
albumins," pp. 77 and following.*

If the hypothesis that the
microzymas are the spores of bacteria were true, it would be
necessary that there should first have existed in the
circumambient atmosphere as many species of these spores as
there are species of animal and vegetable ovules; next it
would be necessary for these spores to penetrate as far as,
and into the ovule, and should there multiply to fill up the
vitellus of the egg of the fowl. I need go no further, for
there are still otherwise enormous difficulties, when we
take into consideration the microzymas of the developed
being, which are so different from the embryonal and foetal
microzymas! But it now lies with the opponents of the
microzymian theory to demonstrate the existence of these
spores and of their penetration as far as, and into, the
ovules and their multiplication.

We have thus discarded the
hypothesis opposed to that of autonomy. It is also discarded
by the following consideration, which deserves being
underscored.

Shortly before M. Pasteur's
admission in 1886 of the presence of the microzymas in the
altered blood of his experiment, he had, for the purpose of
denying them, asserted that the microzymas were the
molecular granulations "which we all know." This was to his
confreres of the Academy.

Yes, histologists and
anatomo-pathologists knew them and represented them by a
"stippling" in their figures of special tissues. But their
name even betrayed the opinion that they were neither
organized nor living; in effect, the qualification of
molecular was intended to indicate that it meant only small
collections of some sort of matter; thus they were described
as white, gray, minerals, fats, albuminoids, etc. They were
even described as possessing the brownian movement;
nevertheless, before the discovery of the microzymas, no one
thought of connecting them either with the bacterium punctum
or the monas crepusculum. They were connected with
anatomical organisms as being the remains of tissues, of
destroyed cellules, or as amorphous matter; no one dreamed
of making them come from outside. No consideration of the
anatomical-molecular-granulations had anything to do with
the discovery of the microzymas, but, as I have shown above,
purely chemical considerations.

No, the molecular granulations
are not the microzymas. And from the time of our first note,
Estor and I have stated that the microzymas exist only among
the anatomical objects which in histology are called
molecular granulations. But we held the microzymas to be
autonomous anatomical elements; a more careful anatomical
analysis enabled me to demonstrate that there exist naked
microzymas and microzymas in the condition which I have
termed microzymian molecular granulations.

Thus is disproved another
gratuitous and erroneous assertion!

I return to the microzymas. I had
described them from the commencement as being chemically and
physiologically figured ferments, producers of zymases,
which are called soluble ferments, and were placed in the
same category as me figured ferments which are insoluble.
Biologically, I distinguished them as being such as by
evolution could become vibrionien, a fact which we have seen
to be verified in every sense. But in the experiments on
spontaneous alterations, or fermentations, wherein
microzymas become bacteria, we have seen that these were
destroyed and that vibrioniens more and more minute appeared
in their place, so that at last there remained only of these
bacteria the forms nearest to the microzymas; in the same
manner consequently, that by their destruction the cellules
set their microzymas free, the bacteria in their complete
destruction reproduce microzymas similar to those of the
chalk, and we will now see how that is.

In the experiments on the
spontaneous alterations of natural animal matters, the
substances, which in a chemical sense are termed organic,
which result from transformations by fermentation under the
influence of the microzymas, before and after their
vibrionian evolution, with or without the setting free of
gas, are never entirely destroyed; that is to say, they are
not reduced to a mineral condition, carbonic acid, water,
nitrogen, etc.; for such destruction oxygen is necessary
under conditions which reproduce those realized in
geological epochs.

When I had discovered the
microzymas in the chalk and in other calcareous rock, and
became convinced that they were not dependent on atmospheric
germs, I asked myself if they were not the living remains of
organized being which had disappeared in geologic times.1
This hypothesis was verified in the following manner:

A kitten was killed and buried
between two beds of pure carbonate of lime, and left in a
cylindrical glass vessel, covered with a small quantity of
paper in such wise that the air had free access to it, but
its dust was excluded. The experiment lasted seven years.
Every part of the body, except some fragments of bone, had
disappeared. The carbonate of lime was perfectly white, so
complete had been the work of destruction. Under the
microscope, nothing was to be seen in the upper layers of
the carbonate except microscopic crystals of aragonite of
this carbonate; but in the beds adjacent to the place, and
underneath, where the kitten had been, and beneath, there
were crowds of glittering motile microzymas, such as are to
be seen in the chalk of Sens, etc.

And with this kind of artificial
calcareous rock, containing the microzymas of an animal of
the present day, I was able to repeat the experiments on
fermentation which I had made with the chalk of Sens and
with other calcareous rocks, both lacustrine and marine.2
Such was the first experimental verification of the
hypothesis that the microzymas of the chalk and of
calcareous rocks are the organized remains, still living, of
the beings which lived in the geological ages of the earths
to which those rocks belonged. Read the note of the Comptes
Rendus which I have just cited and you will be convinced
that this verification has also been its vindication.

*1. C. R.. Vol. LXX p. 914
(1870).* *2. Conference at the Congress of the French
Association for the Advancement of Science. Nantes (1875).*

I have said that the microzymas
of the artificial chalk were the microzymas of an animal of
the present epoch, but this needs some modification in terms
to be quite accurate. They were the microzymas of the
bacteria which the normal microzymas of the animal had first
become by evolution. By fresh experiments I have learned
that the microzymas of an entire body, or of the liver, of
the heart, of the lungs, of the kidneys, under the
conditions of my experiment become bacteria in the first
phases of the phenomenon, these then disappear, becoming
again microzymas, while the rest of the mailer already
transformed is, under (heir influence, and with access of
air, reduced to the mineral state, carbonic acid, water,
nitrogen, etc.1 And I have demonstrated that whereas in the
climate of Montpellier seven years were required to
accomplish this, a much longer time would be needed in a
colder climate, so that in a climate such as that of the Obi
valley centuries were required.

It was then a legitimate
conclusion that the microzymas of the calcareous rocks, of
the clays, of the marls; in short, of all the rocks which
contain them, are the organized and living remains of beings
which had been living, of animals and plants of the geologic
epochs; that these beings were histologically constituted as
are the beings of our epoch, that their microzymas, during
their destruction, had become bacteia by evolution, and that
the microzymas, geological ferments, of these rocks, are
those of these bacteria destroyed in their turn and reduced
to their microzymas.

*1. See "Les Microzymas," etc.,
pp. 624 and following. See also note: C. R., Vol. LXX, p.
914, "Les Microzymas," etc., p. 952.*

It is not surprising then that, having
long pursued the anticipated consequences of the hypothesis
now verified, I have demonstrated the presence of the
microzymas in the earths of the garrigues of the departments
of Herault and of Card, in cultivated lands generally, in
moor lands, in the alluvials, in the waters, in the dust of
the streets, where they are to be found in crowds; often
still in the condition of bacteria, proving that, like those
of the calcareous rocks, they are energetic ferments. And
already, prior to 1867, I had made known their role in the
soil in agriculture.

These researches led to a result of very great
importance; it was the demonstration that what was and
still is called germs of the air are essentially nothing
other than the microzymas of beings which have lived, but
have disappeared or are being destroyed before our eyes.
In fact, by precise experiments, I have proved that the
microzymas of the air are ferments of the same order as
those of the chalk, of the rocks, and of those of my
experiments with artificial chalk; only, varying with the
places, the circumambient a r may, along with these
microzymas, contain conides of lichens, spores of
mushrooms, bacteria and everything that the wind can
disperse in it.1

*1. See, for details. C. R, Vol. LXXIV. p. 629; Vol.
LXIII, p. 451; and "Les microzymas." etc., pp. 122, 135.
940. 952.*

There is then no panspermy such as that which Charles
Bonnet had invented, nor that which Spallanzani and M.
Pasteur (after me) had admitted. In short, there are no
pre-existing germs. At each period, as in our days, and in
each place there exist in the surrounding air only the
microzymas of former beings which had disappeared and are
disappearing with the things which the wind scatters in
it.

But if we reflect that the species of microzymas are:
first, as numerous as the species of eggs, of seeds, of
spores of the various species of animals and plants; next,
that there are in each animal and vegetable organism,
already developed or in process of development, microzymas
as specifically numerous as there are anatomical systems
and organs, tissues and special cellules in these
organisms, it is easy to conceive that the species of
atmospheric microzymas are present in enormous numbers.
One can also understand the very great number of changes
which these microzymas may cause, when some one of these
species fall into a fermentescible medium in which it can
multiply, and either evolve in it/or build in it a
cellule, or a mould.

If then, as I have demonstrated experimentally, there are
besides microzymas, and as well in animals as in plants,
among the micro-organisms of the circumambient air,
spores, conides of fungi, of lichens, even actual cellules
of ferments,1 it is easy to understand that if these
micro-organisms fall into fermentescible media they will
develop in it, each according to its nature, and that
various productions, moulds, divers cellules, and at the
same time vibrioniens, may appear in it.2

But in all the observations and in all the experiments
relative to the spontaneous change of natural vegetable
and animal matters, and in the fermentations of sugar or
of fecula by aid of the tissues and humors of animals,
when the influence of the micro-organisms of the air has
been desA-troyed or suppressed,3 only microzymas and
vibrioniens, and vibrios or bacteria, fruits of their
evolution, are seen; this proves that the microzymas are
autonomous anatomical elements existing in it of
themselves.

*1. "Sur L'origine des ferments du vin," by A. Bechamp,
C. R., Vol. LIX, p. 626 (1864).* *2. See C. R., Vol. LXXIV. p. 115, and "Les
Microzymas," etc.. p. 948.* *3. Here a complementary explanation is necessary
to explain more clearly the mode of action of creosote
in the experiments in which it has been employed to
annihilate the influence of germs of the air. And first
of all, in speaking of germs, it no longer relates to
this vague something, which when called upon by Ch.
Robin to define, M. Pasteur called "origin of life," but
figured ferments, upon which creosote exercises an
influence clearly determined. I must therefore recall
that I have several times insisted on the fuel that
creosote is efficient in annihilating the influence of
the germs of a limited volume of the surrounding air,
unless the air be renewed. And it is so, because a
limited volume of air contains only limited number of
micro-organismic ferments. But creosote, while it does
not prevent the ferments from acting, hinders their
multiplication. In reality the ferments of a limited
volume of air, which are capable of acting upon a
fermentescible medium, do act upon it, but only in
proportion to their quantity, in such wise that the
result is so inappreciable that it is as though it were
nothing; it is thus that the quantity of sugar,
inverted, in the presence of creosote, by the microzymas
of a small limited volume of air can be determined
neither by reagents, nor by the polariscope. But if a
slow current of several hundred litres of the same air
is caused to act upon a creosoted solution of sugar the
microzymas and other micro-organisms retained by the
liquor render this at last cloudy, and. thus
accumulated, there are among them some which effect the
inversion, without developing moulds, while the
microzymas undergo a greater or less vibrionian
evolution. Such is the exact idea to be formed of the
influence of the creosote, and of the role of the
atmospheric ferments. When, owing to their presence,
productions such as moulds are produced, it is because
die special conditions of existence of these moulds,
etc., have been realized. But microzymas in their
function of anatomical elements only become vibrioniens
from the substance of tissues and humors, ever, in spite
of the presence of creosote, provided the volume of air
be limited or completely absent.*

These statements and considerations may be summed up in
the following propositions:

(1). The microzymas of the animal organism proceed from
the vitellin microzymas, which are autonomous anatomical
elements in the vitellus.

(2). The number of anatomical species of microzymas is
enormous.

(3). The essential biological characters of the
microzymas are to be creators of cellules by synthesis and
of vibrioniens by evolution.

(4). The physiological and chemical characters of
microzymas are to produce the zymases and to be themselves
ferments having a determined form.

These propositions are also true for plants beginning
with the ovule; but from the fact that a microzyma may
become a vibrionien by evolution, it necessarily follows
that the species of microzymas being innumerable the
species of vibrioniens are likewise innumerable.

It is further important to remember that an anatomical
element microzyma is animal in an animal, vegetable in a
vegetable. Hence arises this question: To what kingdom
belongs the bacterium of such or such an animal microzyma?
Of such or such a vegetable microzyma? We must remember
that any microzyma, before it accomplishes the evolution
which produces a bacterium, passes through the
evolutionary phases of microzyma slightly changed in form,
of microzyma successively associated in twos, in threes,
in several grains, etc. But those forms have been
described under the names of Monas, of Bacterium termo and
punctum, of Coccus, of Diplococcus, of Torulo, of
Streptococcus, of Micrococcus, of Mesococcus, of Microbe
with a point, of Microbe with a double point, etc. Nor is
that all; bacteria in spontaneously destroying themselves
to become microzymas similar to those of the rock-chalk or
of the artificial chalk of my experiments, have passed
through new forms, of which the most constant is that
which has also been described as the Bacterium termo.1

*1.  See, on this subject, Felix Dujardin, "Les
Zoophites Infusoire," p. 232.*

But what are such specifications worth, based only upon
the shape, on the length and thickness, upon the color,
the motility or immotility of the object specified? 
In the order of received ideas it would be too tedious to
discuss them; it suffices for me to say that Felix
Dujardin, who knew the germ theory and did not allude to
it in his explanations, was of opinion that the phenomena
observed in these changes were favorable to the doctrine
of spontaneous generation; and consequently that outside
of the microzymian theory it is all incomprehensible and
arbitrary. A priori one cannot tell to what kingdom a
bacterium belongs, for one can only distinguish a
microzyma, and consequently a bacterium, by the origin and
function of the microzyma. An example will make this
clear: Take the parotid gland of a man, and that of a
horse, the structure and functions of which seem to be the
same and of which the microzymas of the cellules are
morphologically identical; well, while the parotidian
microzymas of man liquify and energetically saccharify the
starch of fecula, those of the horse liquify that starch
but do not sacA-charify it And we have established by other
differences of the like kind that the microzymas of the
different anatomical systems of a same organism may differ
one from the other; and by still greater reason those of
different organisms may differ.

Plants, like animals, being anatomically constituted
living by their respective microzymas, the bacteria which
these microzymas can become are evidently limited to the
two kingdoms; and so perhaps the question whether a
vibrionien is animal, as was thought, or plant, as is now
asserted, is an idle one.

But if one chooses in spite of all this to insist that
the bacteria are plants and that the microzymas are their
spores, a new question would arise, of which of the
species of schizomycetes which the same microzyma may
become before becoming a perfect bacterium (Bacterium
termo, Monas crepusculum, torula, Diplococcus,
Streptococcus, Micrococcus, etc.)ais it first the spore,
in the organism before evolution, and then in the
chalk-rock, or in the artificial chalk, after the total
destruction of the organism?

According to accepted notions the reply cannot be
otherwise than uncertain! According to the microzymian
theory here is the answer.

An anatomical element, microzyma, in a plant or in an
animal, whose conditions of existence have just changed,
can become a bacterium by evolution, and the intermediate
evolutionary phases, like those of the tadpole, which
becomes a frog, leaves the special nature of the microzyma
still existing; there are not new species. The perfect
bacterium depends on the nature of the microzyma, as the
perfect batrachian depends on the particular nature of its
tadpole.

Every bacterium resolves itself by spontaneous
destruction into a microzyma, and the microzymas thus
evolved are different from the anatomical microzyma which
has become a bacterium, not morphologically, nor
functionally so far as regards being a figured ferment,
but by a collection of properties, which assure the
perennity of the form and of the function in a condition
of individual separateness.

But the chief difference consists in this: The anatomical
element microzyma in the vitellus is the organized
commencement of all animal organization, and in the ovule
of the plant it is the commencement of all plant
organization. On the other hand, the microzyma resulting
from the destruction of a bacterium is the organized end
of all organization.

AND HERE IS SOMETHING STUPENDOUS! The geological
microzymas, as well as those of the artificial chalk in my
experiment, are organized and living, not only because,
without change of form, they are individually figured
ferments, but also because under certain conditions, such
as those of the fibrin in the experiment described in the
first chapter, at the same time that they act as ferments
they can again become bacteria by evolution. The
microzymas not only possess the sort of perennity of which
I spoke; they enjoy also the stupendous duration of the
geological epochs from the time the microzymian rocks have
been formed down to the present time. And this duration
means for us, that the microzymas have been constituted
physiologically imperishable. And this last statement must
convince us that the microzymas are organized living
beings, of a class apart, without analogue.

And it is thus, precisely because the microzymas are,
essentially and by destination, autonomous anatomical
elements in each anatomical system, becoming what they
ought to become in each, by substantial and functional
development, parallel with the development of such system
in the development of the entire organism, that they are
organized living beings of a class apart as above stated.

The following is the experimental proof that this new
principle of anatomy and physiology is well founded.

The vitellin microzymas of the egg of the fowl do not
pre-exist in the ovule; they are the result of a
substantial development, and of the proliferation of the
ovular microzymas.

To prove this, it will be sufficient to make the
elementary analysis of the microzymas of the vitellus of
the fowl's egg, and of those of the ovules remaining in
the Graafian vesicle, while these ovules are only a few
millimetres in diameter. The following are these analyses:

               
Vitellin Microzymas   Ovular Microzymas  
Carbon         52.67%
                        
50.63%  
Hydrogen        7.17%
                         
7.36%  
Nitrogen        15.71%  
                    
15.67%  
Oxygen, etc.1

*1. See"Memoire sur les matieres albuminoid." p. 161,
and the correction in the note on p. 489.*

The difference of two per cent, of carbon in the
percentage composition answers to great differences in the
nature of the proximate principles of these microzymas. I
will add that the vitellin microzymas contain much more
mineral matter than the ovular. It is thus evident that
the microzymas of the ovule become vitellin microzymas by
substantial development, while they multiply and the
vitellus grows. In short, one may say that the ovular
microzymas become vitellin microzymas by maturing.

It would take too long to dwell as long as might be
desirable on this result and upon the whole of the
chemical, physiological and anatomical phenomena which
this ripening necessitates in order that the vitellin
microzymas should become fitted to play their part,
chemical, physiological and histogenic, during the
embryonic development, etc. I must refer the student to
what I have said elsewhere.1 What is most important to
bear in mind is, that no matter how high one goes [in the
scale of living beings] the microzymas are found in the
ovule, and that these microzymas are not those which are
to be found in the vitellus, but will become them.

*1. See Les Microzymas," etc,  pp. 487 and
following.*

All the special facts which I have made known, including
the last, authorize me in erecting into a general
principle the precise experimental idea; that the
microzyma, the final term of the anatomical analysis, is
in truth the simple anatomical element which satisfies the
conception of Bichat and completely destroys that of
living matter not morphologically defined.

The cellularists, it is but fair to recall, regarding the
cellule as the simplest anatomical element, believed it
proceeded necessarily from a former cellule, omnis cellula
e cellula, holding it to be the vital unit, living per se,
and regarded an entire organism as the sum of these units.
But we now know that that was a deduction from incomplete
and superficial observations, for the cellule, a
transitory anatomical element, has the microzyma for its
anatomical element. It is this which alone possesses all
the characters of an anatomical element, living per se,
and which must be regarded as the unit of life. It is what
I have already stated in the following terms:

"The microzyma is at the beginning and at the end of
every living organization. It is the fundamental
anatomical element whereby the cellules, the tissues, the
organs, the whole, of an organism are constituted living."

Let us devote a few words to develop this idea. Let us
penetrate a little further into this notion of a
fundamental anatomical element, which, as has been said,
implies that the microzyma is the living atom of the
organization as the physical atom is the element of the
molecule of a simple body. This would be true if the
microzyma were unchangeable in its simplicity. But in
reality it is essentially mutable, as are all living
bodies; and it is especially so, in order that it may
fulfil its numerous functions. In fact, the microzymas,
functionally different in the different anatomical systems
of the same species, and different at all ages, beginning
with the embryonal stage, have been primitively those of
the vitellus, after having been those of the ovule. A
microzyma then is not, properly speaking, an atom; but
always anatomically simple, it becomes, by nutrition, that
which it needs to become, so as to accommodate itself to
each new condition of existence which the successive
phases of the development of each anatomical system
provide for it. It is thus that even in the embryo, in
that which will be the ovary, a category of microzymas
becomes again ovular microzymas to recommence the same
cycle. I add that, taken as a whole and in its details,
the THEORY HAS BEEN CONFIRMED, VERIFIED, CORROBORATED by a
great number of other facts of general anatomy and of
pathological anatomy and of physiology.1

*1. See particularly the notes and publications
following:*

*A. Bechamp: Facts useful for the history of the
origin of the bacteria. Natural development of these
little plants in the frozen parts of certain plants. C.
R.. Vol. LXVTII. p. 466(1869).* *A Estor: Note for use in the history of the
microzymas contained in animal cellules. C. R.. Vol.
LXVIII. p. 519. It relates to the microzymas in
bacterian evolution in a cyst which had just been
removed.* *Bechamp and Estor: On the microzymas of pulmonary
tubercle in the cretacious state. C. R., Vol. LXVII, p.
960 (1868). It relates to the discovery of microzymas in
a condition of evolution within the tubercle, regarded
as the remains of the destroyed epithelium of the
pulmonary alveoli.* *Bechamp and Estor: Facts useful for the history of
the microzymas and bacteria. Physiological
transformation of bacteria into microzymas and of
microzymas into bacteria in the digestive tube of the
same animal. C. R., Vol. LXXVI, p. 1143 (1873).* *Bechamp: Facts useful for the history of the
histological construction of the glairine of Molitg.
C.R., Vol. LXXVI. p. 1485 (1873).* *Bechamp: The diseases of the silk worm. C. R..
various notes from 1866 to 1374. They relate to the
pebrine, a parasitic disease, and to the flacherie, a
microzymian disease, not parasitic.* *J. Grasset: On the histological phenomena of
inflammation. Treatise regarding a new theory, based
upon the consideration of the molecular granulations
(microzymas). Gazette Med. de Paris, year 1873.* *E. Baltus: Theory of the Microzyma, a theoretic
and practical study of pyogenesis (the formation of
pus). Theses of the Faculty of Montpellier, year. 1874,
No. 41.* *J. Bechamp: The microzymas and their functions at
the different ages of the same being. Theses of the
Faculty of Montpellier, 1875, No. 63.* *A Bechamp: Microzymas and disease; in "Les
Microzymas," etc., p. 744. (Chamalet, 60, Passage
Choiseul.)* *A Bechamp: Puerperal septicaemia, pleurisy, the
albuminuria and the preface to Microzymas et Microbes.
(Chainalct, 60, Passage Choiseul, Paris.)* *A. Tripier: Electricity and Cholera. Genesis,
prophylaxy and treatment. (Georges Carre, pub. 1884). In
this memoir there will be found a comparison of the
microbian system and the microzymian theory, highly
original and at the same time the conception of what the
eminent author terms the individual coefficient.*

When by the attentive study of these facts one has become
convinced that the microzymian theory is their pure and
simple expression, it will be at once recognized that the
cellule is already an organ in which, by nutrition, the
conditions of the preservation of the microzymas with the
constancy and regularity of their chemical and
physiological functions are unceasingly realized. And it
will thus be understood that the microzymian molecular
granulations, whether of certain cellules, of the
vitellus, or of the blood, also realize after their manner
the conditions of this constancy and regularity. When
these conditions are no longer realized they may undergo
vibrionian evolution.

The most prominent fact in the history of the microzymas,
that which has been the most disputed, precisely because
of their capacity to undergo vibrionian evolution, is the
fact of their anatomical autonomy. Now this faculty, which
is only manifested when the normal conditions of existence
of the microzymas, functioning as anatomical elements, are
no longer fulfilled, is the best proof which could be
given of the change which has happened in their condition,
causing their irregular and changed functioning.

In fact, in their various anatomical situations, the
microzymas remain morphologically similar to themselves.
They function in each cellule, in each organ, in each
anatomical system, naturally, chemically and
physiologically for themselves while preserving their
individuality; at the same time that by coordination,
according to the happy and thoroughly scientific
expression of Dr. Antoine Cros, they function for the
benefit of the microzymian molecular granulations of the
cellules, of the organs and of the various anatomical
systems taken altogether, whose physiological condition of
health is preserved by them.

But if from some etiological cause certain changes happen
in an organ, changes such as auscultation or percussion
can precisely ascertain, as, for instance, an increase in
the volume of the spleen, M. Cross tells us that there is
a decoordination, a functional perturbation in the entire
organism and disease. It is worth mentioning that from the
time Dr. Cros became acquainted with the microzymian
theory, he did not hesitate to recognize the microzymas as
the anatomical agents of the decoordination; how does it
happen?

Among the causes which produce disease, a sudden chill in
summer is the one most frequently indicated or invoked.
The chill is at the same time an influence and a lowering
of temperature. I do not insist on the fact that it is
only something living which is painfully affected, so as
to confine myself to the physical phenomenon. But the
microzymas are very sensitive to variations of
temperature; so much so that even the geological
microzymas act regularly only at temperatures near 40A deg to
42 A degC. (= 104A deg to 107A deg F.); in fact, the microzymas of the
chalk of Sens do not act so as to cause fecula to ferment
in a temperature below 38A deg C. (= 100A deg.4 F.). Further a
very slight lowering of the temperature is sufficient for
the egg which should produce a bird not to produce one,
and to putrefy or to produce the monsters of Dareste when
the heat is not uniformly applied. In fact, the influences
of the medium (as if it should become neutral or acid),
which modify the activity of the microzymas acting alone,
are various. That which happens to the isolated microzymas
happens also to those of the egg and for those of the
organism. Suppress the air and the egg does not become a
fowl, but undergoes another kind of change.

If from any cause whatever the air does not have access
or has an insufficient access to the pulmonary alveolae,
and their epithelium becomes the pulmonary tubercle, the
cellules become reduced to their microzymas, which are
then found in vibrionian evolution in the tubercle in the
cretatious state. If the decoordination resulting from an
irregular functioning of a part of an anatomical system is
sufficient to bring on a malaise which is not removed,
there will arise a diseased condition because of a sharp
change of the conditions of existence of the microzymian
anatomical elements, and the change in the medium
sufficient to cause the decoordination will manifest
itself by the vibrionian and bacterian evolution of the
microzymas of such or such part of the system. It is thus
that in the disease called "Sand de rate" (Anthrax), so
thoroughly studied by Davaine, the diseased microzymas end
by evolving into what that learned physician called
bacteridiae, the blood globules undergoing the changes
which are so characteristic. The bacteridiae were not the
cause of the diseased condition, but were one of its
effects; proceeding from the morbid microzymas they were
capable of inducing this diseased condition in the animal
whose microzymas were in a condition to receive it. Hence
it is seen that the alteration of natural animal matters
is spontaneous, and justifies the old aphorism so
concisely expressed by Pidoux: "Diseases are born of us
and in us."

On the other hand, the disregard of this law of nature,
the firm establishment whereof is completed by the present
work, necessarily led M. Pasteur to deny the truth of the
aphorism, and to imagine a pathogenic panspermy, as he had
before conceived, a priori, that there was a panspermy of
fermentations. That M. Pasteur after having been a
sponteparist should reach such a conclusion was natural
enough; he was neither physiologist nor physician, but
only a chemist without any knowledge of comparative
science.

What is astonishing is, that he should have succeeded in
procuring the triumph of a preconceived system among
physicians and in academies, and to procure the rejection
of the microzymian theory [without examination. Trans.].
For instance, an enlightened physician thus summed up the
fundamental proposition of M. Pasteur: "The microbes
always come from without; they constitute species which
remount from generation to generation up to the origin of
the world."1

An eminent surgeon, M. Verneuil, ended by admitting as a
demonstrated theorem that there is no spontaneous tetanus,
that there is no spontaneous small pox, syphilis,
glanders, hydrophobia, tuberculosis, charbon or malignant
pustule; declaring that the pathogenic problem consisted
solely in discovering how and when the microbe, also
called virus, come from without, penetrates into the
organism; declaring that the question is thus stated
between old medicine and the microbina medicine "with
extreme simplicity and without the least ambiguity.2a

*1. Gazette medical, Paris, 6th Series. Vol. V, p. 218.
This is precisely what M. Chamberland said of
micro-organisms in general: "Recherches sur I'origine el
le developpement des organismes microscopiques." 
Theses de la Faculte des Sciences. Parais, 1879. See
also "Microzymas et Microbes," p. 25, 2d Ed.**2. C. R\_,Vol. CV, p. 552.*

*[a. There is an implication to be
found in the statement of Surgeon Verneuil, though
probably not meant by him, to which assent must be given
when understood. It is TRUE that there is no such THING
as tetanus, small pox. syphilis, etc., as is implied by
the general use of nosological terms. Disease is not a
thing, an entity: it is a condition, and the error of
regarding the condition of disease as an entity has
confirmed, where it has not originated, much of the
prevailing erroneous treatment of the sick.* *Nosological terms have a use; it is that of
bringing to the mind of the physician a group of
pathological symptoms, which may or may not be present
in the case of the patient under consideration; from
them, when present, the diseased condition of the
patient can be recognized and treated. Unfortunately,
through not understanding this truth, attempts are
frequently made to treat, not the patient, but the name,
which has been given to a collection of morbid symptoms.* *A broken limb is a thing; the inflammation which
results from it is a condition, and if gangrene ensues
the gangrene is not a thing, but a condition to be taken
into consideration with all the other symptoms in the
treatment of the patient. The surgeon, Verneuil, had
probably a glimmering perception of this truth, but he
misapplied it, for his theory and practice, as a
physician, and the theory and practice of nearly all
modern medicine assume that the condition to be treated
is a thing having a name and this name is treated
instead of the patient. a Trans.]*

But these assertions (of Surgeon
Verneuil) are reduced to nothing, when we call to mind
that the pretended germs of the air are only the
microzymas of organisms which have disappeared, which had
become bacteria by evolution; that even at the Academy of
Medicine I saidaand no one venA-tured to contradict meathat
no one had ever been able to reproduce a disease on the
nosological roll by taking the pretended pathogenic
microbe in normal air, but only in the diseased animal.
And I add, that just as with time the fibrin-ous
microzymas lose the property of decomposing oxygenated
water so, as proved long ago by Davaine, after a short
time the blood of an animal which had died of anthrax
[sang de rate] no longer communicated that diseased
condition; and the same is true in all cases.

THUS NORMAL AIR NOT ONLY DOES NOT, BUT
CANNOT, CONTAIN THE PRETENDED PATHOGENIC MICROBES, AND THE
VERY PRINCIPLE OF MICROBIAN MEDICINE CONSTITUTES A
FUNDAMENTAL ERROR.

But no attention was paid to this.
Abandoning the famous dogma of the closure of the body to
germs from without, it was admitted "that the human
organism carries constantly a large number of microbes of
many different species" which only await the moment when
"the organism being disturbed in its physiological
functioning will be given over to the activity of its own
microbes; whose presence it had theretofore borne without
being affected." M. Jaccond wrote the above [nonsense]
with reference to two cases of acute pneumonia following a
chill.1

*1. "Journal des societes
scientifiques," 4 May, 1887, p. 156.*

In M. Pasteur's set, M. Jaccond's
opinion was accepted; and although their master had
declared that the cellules were not living, his disciples
imagined that the leukocytes (under the name of
phagocytes) were living like amoeba and  able to
perform movements called amaeboid. And it was imagined
that these phagocytes formed themselves into troops to
pursue and devour the microbes. There was thus a
phagocytosis,a- which was trumpeted forth as providential.
The precise knowledge of the blood reduces to its just
value this latest form of the struggle against the
microzymian theory. Of all the suppositions and fancies of
M. Pasteur, there remains only, even for his disciples,
that which consists in admitting a sole cause, the germs
or microbes of the air, to explain the phenomena of
fermentations and disease.

Nevertheless all physicians did not think as did Verneuil
or as did M. Jaccond. Before 1866, while the triumph of
the microbian medicine was in full swing, Dr. A. Tripier
did not admit that there was a microbe come from without
to be considered. His attention had been drawn to the new
opinions by considering how frequently in the classical
books of medicine a sudden chill led to everything. Here
is the masterly way in which he explained it:

*[These words must be erased from
the language of science. Trans.]*

"It is not at the time when the
consideration of the individual coefficient tends to take
a larger and larger place in nosological speculations that
we must return to a simple etiology which has been rightly
questioned. I am far from pretending that the savants to
whom we are indebted for such interesting researches in
the direction of specific causes design to bring
everything within it, but those who do not exhibit that
much prudence must be reminded that to constitute a morbid
state the concurrence of many conditions are
indispensable, that however specific it may be, a single
cause is no cause at all."

 It was thus that M. Tripier
placed in parallel lines etiology according to the ancient
medicine and the microbian medicine. I will state later
the profound meaning of the expression, drawn from
algebra,a or "individual coefficient". Let us say, at
first, that it has been supposed that maladies resulting
from specific causes are poisonings by living matters
capable of reproducing themselves in the organism. The
mechanism of these poisonings, says M. Tripier, "has been
explained in many ways without being permitted to reject
one on account of another."

"According to M. Pasteur," said he,
"the multiplication of microbes would be the consequence
of the introduction of germs introduced from without. For
M. Bechamp the microbe a1 might proceed from a special
mode of evolution of living molecular granulations which
he named microzymas, granulations which exist in all
protoplasm, the vicious evolution whereof might be
regarded as causes independent of the introduction of
leaven of foreign origin."

The radical difference between the
principle of the microbian medicine and that of the
microzymian theory of disease is thus clearly expressed.
The microzymas are not then the cause of disease, but by
their defective or morbid functional evolution under the
various influences whereof I have spoken, their evolution
may become vibrionian. It was only through the ambiguity
that M. Pasteur succeeded in creating, that M. Tripier was
able to say that I had admitted that the microbe proceeded
from the microzyma, and that later M. Jaccond thought that
the microzymas are the special microbes of the human
organism.1

*[a. The term "individual
coefficient" was first introduced to indicate the amount
and direction of errors which each individual astronomer
was prone to commit.aTrans.]*

*[a. The term microbe, introduced for
the sole purpose of drowning the grand discoveries of
Bechamp, is, as presently shown, an etymological
solecism.aTrans.]*

*1. This is how the ambiguity was
created. The surgeon, Sedillot, thoughtlessly invented
the word microbe as a name for the vibrioniens, which
eventually Davaine regarded as the living agents of
disease. M, Pasteur, heedless of the inacurracy, even
from an etymological point of view of this word applied
to a microscopic being of immense longevity, adopted it
to designate the micro-organized ferments; thus beer
yeast was a microbe, as also the bacteridia of Davaine.
He went further, and in a book published under his
auspices he permitted the following definition to
appear: "Under the name of microscopic beings or
microbes are meant all living beings too small to be
seen by the naked eye, all those which can only be seen
with the aid of instruments which can enlarge them a
great number of times, such as the small worm called
trichina, which produces trichinosis, and an acarus,
which produces the itch..."  The work from which
the above is quoted appeared in 1833 with a preface by
M. Pasteur. Here we perceive how all diseases are
regarded as parasitic on the same ground as the itch,
and how the microzymas have become to be miscalled
microbes!*

To appreciate the antinomy between the microbian system
and the microzymian theory, and to give to this work its
practical utility by showing that the theory explains what
the system is powerless to make clear, it will be
sufficient to recall the two fundamental facts upon which
rest the fabric of the demonstration that the blood is a
flowing tissue, and, like all tissues, is spontaneously
alterable.

The first is that a mixture of proximate principles,
under the specified conditions, is naturally unalterable;
but on contact with a limited or unlimited quantity of
common air the same mixture always changes, owing to the
various ferments which develop in it from the germs
carried in this air. This mixture then does not alter
spontaneously.

The second, that a natural animal
matter, tissue, or humor, withdrawn from a living animal
in perfect health, and under the same conditions,
inevitably alters, even when absolutely protected from the
air and its germs. Natural animal matter then is
spontaneously alterable.

It is also desirable to recall: First, that the
differences in the nature of the two orders of substances
is such, that in the alteration of the former the
micro-organisms consist of several categories of different
species; while in the alteration of the latter only one
category is to be found, viz., the microzymas, and
afterwards, most frequently, the vibrioniens, products of
their evolution; second, that, corroborating the facts,
creosote in adequate quantity hinders the alteration of
the former in contact with a limited volume of air,
preventing the appearance of ferments; while the same
quantity does not hinder the alteration of the latter,
nor, in suitable cases, the vibrionian evolution of the
microzymas.

Of these two facts M. Pasteur has only regarded the first
and has denied the second, and it is because he and
savants who have trusted to his word have looked upon the
animal body only as organs constituted of a mixture of
immediate principlesaprotoplasmawhere nothing exists
capable of becoming a vibrionien, that they have thought
that the microbe coming from without is the sole cause of
the alteration of this mixture and of disease. Now if the
organism were what they think, and the sole cause of
disease were what they say, a mixture of immediate
principles necessarily altering an exposure to the air,
every one would, of equal necessity, become diseased; but
even in times of epidemics the majority are not attacked!
An explanation of this fact has been sought in the microbe
itself and in other considerations of the like order; but
they are all worthless, for if the air contains that which
changes the mixture, it does not contain that which causes
disease.

The old medicine explained the immunity of the living by
the receptivity, the predisposition, which those who are
not attacked do not possess. M. Tripier, more precise,
invokes the individual coefficient. But a mixture of
proximate principles which, when exposed to the air, is
always ready to be altered enjoys no immunity!

In exact language one can only speak of receptivity of
the individual coefficient, of that which is regarded as a
living body. But what is a living body? What is life?

Life, say some, is a special force, manifesting itself in
ponderable matter. J. R. Mayer denies this. However it may
be, they, the former, speak of a physical theory of life.
We have seen that, according to Pasteur, life is that
which elaborates the proximate principles, the natural
substances of which the organism is composed.

Bichat said: "Life is the totality of the functions which
resist death." But what is life? What is death? And what
is the individual coefficient in the microzymian theory?
For there is no longer any question of protoplasm!

Bichat said that life was a property of tissue because he
regarded elementary tissues as the living elements of
organized beings, which, in his view, possessed in
themselves a permanent principle of reaction which enabled
them to resist the causes of destruction which surround
them.

The microzymian theory verifies the conception of Bichat
even on this point; in fact:

The microzyma is the fundamental
anatomical element, autonomically living, proliferating,
while remaining morphologically similar to itself. It is
in reality an apparatus whose functions manifest
themselves, in a medium which realizes the conditions of
its existence, by chemical reactions which cause it to
produce the special zymases depending upon its special
nature and the various proximate principles varying
according to the place and the medium where it functions
in the organism. Isolated from the organism and
consequently in new conditions, as in the case of fibrin,
there are some which act like lactic ferment with regard
to fecula, etc.

In short, the microzymas resist so well
the ordinary causes of destruction that, in the calcareous
and other rocks, geological microzymas are to be found,
now living, which functioned as anatomical elements of the
animals of the epoch of those rocks. Here then we have the
organized being, living per se, physiologically
imperishable, unsuspected until I described
it.a   It is in it alone, functioning as an
anatomical element, wherein resides the permanent
principle of reaction which enables the organisms, whereof
it composes the cellules, the tissues, the organs, to
preserve themselves by nutrition and resist the
athmotelluric (Tripier) conditions which

*[a. Literally "of which I spoke," but the real meaning
is as given above in my translation. a Trans.]*

unceasingly tend to destroy them. And as there is no
anatomical element simpler than the microzyma, and none
other like it, resistant to total destruction, if we call
life the totality of the anatomical properties which
render the microzymas constructors of cellules by
synthesis, and capable of becoming bacteria or vibrios by
evolution; and the aggregate of the physiological and
chemical energies which enable them to produce the zymases
and to nourish themselves by transforming for their own
use the materials of the medium in the anatomical systems
wherein they function, eliminating at the same time that
which they disassimilate after having used it, it must
surely be admitted that LIFE is, in them allied, it is
true, to matter, but to the matter in the structured
organization, morphologically defined, and not simply to
ponderable matter. So much for the general statement.

We now know that the microzymas are functionally
different in the various anatomical systems of the same
animal, and that they may be functionally different also
in the same organs of the same structure in man and
animals. It thence results that it is not always
permissible in experimenting to draw conclusions from one
animal to another and least of all to man. So that if we
could admit with Bichat that life is a property of tissue,
this property is not the same in all the tissues of the
same structure and in their microzymas.

I will endeavour to explain my opinion upon the cause
which leads to one kind of zymas being produced by one
microzyma and another kind by another microzyma.

If there is the life of a microzyma, the life of a
cellule and that of the organs of an anatomical system,
there is also the life of the organized WHOLE. This
necessarily results from the coordinated entirety of the
particular lives of the organs and I hence of the
individual lives of the microzymas which function in it.
It is this view of the functions which Bichat called I he
entirety of the functions which resist death.

But if the microzyma is physiologically imperishable,
what is the death of the living whole? It is the opposite
of that which constitutes its life, viz.: the absolute
decoordination of the functions of the microzymas.

It is thus that in a part abstracted from a living
animal, muscle or blood, etc., nothing is dead; but the
microzymas, the only things antonomically living, being in
decoordination, are no longer in their normal condition of
existence; they now function only for themselves,
determining the changes which attend the disorganizations
of the tissues and the destruction of the cellules."

Now what is the meaning of the happy expression,
"individual coefficient," introduced into medical language
by M. Tripier? As in algebra a quantity is said to be a
function of another upon which it depends, so in the
microzymian theory it may be said that an organism, a
cellule, are quantities which are functions of the
microzymas which compose it and upon which it depends.
Thus the expression of coefficient applied to the number
which multiplies these quantities can be readily
understood.

The individual coefficient is the factor which increases
or diminishes in the microzymas the sum of the energy
which enables them to resist the various causes which, by
disturbA-ing their functioning, determine morbidity in
them, and thence disease and death.

The factor, whatever it may be, being the same, the
variable, that is to say, the microzyma, differing, the
result will necessarily vary. Now it is a proven fact, the
microzymas are functionally different in the species, in
the races and even in the individual, according to sex and
age, in the different anatomical systems; the individual
coefficient then is relative to the functional differences
of the microzymas of the individual.

The state of perfect health results from the constancy
and regularity of the coordinated functioning of all the
organs the microzymas whereof are anatomically and
physiologically healthy; for even, in the state of
coordination, it is necessary to take into account
heredity, diatheses, atavism, which may in some way have
affected the particular microzymas of the individual.

The individual coefficient then is a complex constant
dependent upon the particular coefficients of such or such
functional systems of the individual.

To return to the blood, here is a typical example which
justifies the above considerations.

I said that in anthrax (sang de rate) the bacteridia,
regarded as specific cause, were the result of the vicious
evolution of the microzymas of the blood, become morbid as
the consequence of a decoordination, M. Jaccond would say,
of some disturbance in the physiological functioning of
the organism. But it is evident that if the interior
medium were inert or passive, this decoordination, in such
a mixture of proximate principles, would be an effect
without a cause, nothing leading it to become disturbed in
its supposed functioning; for such a mixture has been
shown to be unalterable of itself; while on the contrary
it would immediately, infallibly, be placed in a condition
of alteration determined by the agent, microbe, or
specific ferment come from without. In short, on the
hypothesis of a pure interior medium, a mixture of
proximate principles, for a soil of culture, as it is
called, for the microbe whose multiplication is poisonous,
all the sheep would be equally susceptible, especially in
times of epidemic, to contract anthrax (sang de rate)
under identical circumstances, by contagion, and in all
cases by inoculation.

Well, this does not happen. The adult sheep of the race
called the African sheep is refractory to anthrax; it does
not contract the disease by contagion, and generally not
even by inoculation. The individual coefficient is not the
same under identical circumstances, for the French sheep
and for that of Africa. And as proof that the coefficient
differs according to age, it is enough to state that the
African lamb is not refractory, while the adult sheep of
the same race is. Let us then say that the microzymas in
the blood of the African adult sheep are among those
which, even when ill treated, do not underA-go that vicious
alteration which would make them become carbuncular; with
the lambs of the same race it is otherwise.

If the internal medium were the mixture imagined by
microbian medicine, the foregoing facts would be incapable
of explanation. For the medium would be inert and passive;
since it has been proved that such a mixture is always
disposed to allow the multiplication of the microzyma or
of another like specific ferment able to alter it for its
(the ferment's) own nourishment, and which medium without
the ferment would be unalterable under other ordinary
athmotelluric influences, cold, etc. It is the individual
coefficient in relation to the functional differences of
the microzymas of the subjects which alone explains the
immunity of some, the susceptibility of others, since it
has been demonstrated that in the interior medium there is
nothing autonomically living, acting and physiologically
impressionable except the microzymas.

In the language of the old medicine, immunity,
susceptibility, is the capacity of the living organism to
resist an impression, not to undergo, or to undergo the
influence of external or internal agents. The microzymian
theory adopts this thoroughly physiological language since
it is only the microzymas of the living organism which can
receive imA-pressions and suffer or not suffer their
influence; that is to say, resist or not resist the
perturbing causes of their funcA-tioning according as the
individual coefficient is abnormal or normal.

But what proof have we of this resistance, and of the
mechanism of the harmlessness of the microzymas from
without? The following is one I have given of it.

The isolated microzyma of beer yeast performs the
function of a lactic ferment, producing little alcohol; in
its function of anatomic element in the globule of
beeryeast it never produces lactic acid. The young yeast,
vigorous, acting strongly on cane sugar, even in contact
with the air and with the addition of the chalk whose
microzymas always effect lactic fermentation, still does
not produce lactic acid; it resists, and microzymas of the
chalk when added also fail to produce it. But if the beer
yeast be old, in some respect altered,a and even protected
from the air, it will produce lactic acid, and the more,
if calcareous rock or even pure carbonate of lime has been
added. There we have the immunity of the beeryeast
organism and its acquired susceptibility; the immunity
which enabled it to resist the influence of the microzymas
of the air and of the chalk, annihilating their influence;
the susceptibility which enabled these microzymas to
produce lactic acid without hindering those of the chalk
in performing their work. Here we have the picture of the
immunity and of the susceptibility of the microzymas of
the cellules and of the tissues of the internal medium of
an animal organism."a1

*[a. The French text is aleree, which, I believe, to
be a press error fur alteree. a Trans.)*

*[a1. We are here presented with a
forcible illustration of the reckless ignorance of those
physicians who practice the inoculation of organic
poisons, such as the products of diseased conditions
known as vaccines, anti-toxines, etc., upon man and
other animals, whether as preventives or as remedies.
Even the changes mentioned in the text, as some of the
results of the learnedly devised experiments of Prof.
Behamp, are unknown to these gentlemen; and, absolutely
ignorant of what effect such inoculations may have upon
the life forces, i.e., the microzymas of their victims,
they arrogantly insist that their ignorance is learning,
and induce a degeneration among those races who,
recognizing their ignorance, place their faith in men as
ignorant as themselves! a Trans.]*

In microbian medicine the language of the old medicine is
without meaning, since the former admits that one sole
cause produces the disease and the alteration by
fermentation of organic matter in general, making no
distinction between the internal medium and a mixture of
proximate principles.

The insuperable contradiction which exists between the
microbian doctrines and the microzymian theory of the
living organization brings into strong relief the justice
of the aphorism of M. Tripier.  A single cause for
the disease and for the alteration or fermentation of
proximate principles, however specific it may be, is no
cause at all (est une cause nulle).

Yes, "the sole cause" is no cause, for I have
demonstrated beyond dispute that there do not exist (I do
not say germs, the word now is unsuitable) pre-existing
microzymas, pathogenic or not; but there do exist
microzymas, the living remains of bacteria derived by
evolution from the anatomical microzymas of organisms
which have disapA-peared or are disappearing beneath our
eyes.

I limit here these considerations, referring the reader
to my earlier publications for developments, which the
present work completes and corroborates.1

*1. For general pathology, see the three last
conferences of "Les Microzymas,"etc. For special
pathology, the communications, "Sur la septicaemic
puerperale," "Sur la Pleuresie" and "Sur les
albuminuries," in "Microzymas et Microbes." And for the
physiological theory of fermentation, as well as for the
true theory of nutrition, various chapters of the same
works. (Chamalet, publisher, 60, Passage Choiseul,
Paris.)*

And now I hope it will be confessed that the error,
common to all contemporary experimenters who have sought
to discover the cause of the phenomenon of the spontaneous
coagulation of the blood, also that of other equally
spontaneous alterations, or who, like M. Pasteur, maintain
the natural inalterability alike of the blood, as of all
natural organic matters, is that they have regarded
protoplasm as a mixture of pure proximate principles, and
have held as dogma that this mixture was living and
organized, although not morphologically constituted. At
last I hope that it will be recognized that the discovery
of the microzymas verifies the time-honored conception of
Bichat, according to which, that only is living in any
organism whatever, which is structured, morphologically
determinate.

It is the agreement of the microzymian theory of the
living organism with the brilliant conception of Bichat
which gives to the theory of the blood as a flowing tissue
and to the physiological and anatomical theory of its
coagulation and other spontaneous alterations their
highest degree of certainty.

Under the form of conclusions is here given a succinct
summary of the totality of the fundamental facts, the
discovery whereof has led to that of the true anatomical
and chemical constitution of the blood and to the
explanation of its spontaneous alterations.

(1)    Ordinary air, near the earth,
contains living microscopical objects called germs, and
these germs are essentially microzymas.

(2)    Proximate
principles, and any mixture of such principles are
unalterable in the presence of water, of a limited volume
of air at ordinary temperature when a little creosote has
been first added; and such proximate principles under such
conditions do not permit any organized being to appear.

(3)   Natural organic
matters, vegetable or animal, tissues and humors, under
like experimental conditions, always change of themselves,
by a phenomenon of fermentation, and at the same time the
microzymas, give birth to vibrioniens by evolution.

(4)   The fibrin of the blood
is not a proximate principle; it is  a false 
membrane containing microzymas, whereof the
intermicrozymian gangue is a specialA-ized albuminoid
substance.

(5)   It is owing to its
microzymas that fibrin decomposes oxygenated water, that
it liquifies starch of amidon and that it can be
dissolved, undergoing chemical change, in very dilute
hydrochloric acid.

(6)    The microzymas of
fibrin in liquified starch undergo vibrionian evolution
notwithstanding the presence of creosote.

(7)    Fibrin liquifies
spontaneously in carbolized water without the microzymas
undergoing vibrionian evolution.

(8)    The fibrinous
microzymas are special; they can produce lactic and
butyric fermentation in liquified starch.

(9)    Natural
albuminoid matters are mixtures, reducible by direct
analysis into exactly defined proximate principles.

(10)  The albuminoid matters
reduced to proximate principles are very complex molecules
composed of less complex ones, amides and their
derivatives of the fatty and aromatic series. There exist
of such less complex molecules, constituting an albuminoid
molecule, quaternaries like urea, quinaries like taurine,
which is sulphuretted; like hematosine, which is
ferruginous; casein, in addition to the sulphuretted
molecule, contains one which is phosphuretted; it has then
six elements.

(11)  There are several fibrins
constituted as are those of the blood.

(12)  There are a great number of
different specific albumens which coagulation does not
differentiate.

(13)  The zymas are special
albuminoid matters, likewise definable as proximate
principles; they are always a functional product of the
microzymas.

(14)  The yellow liquid of the
blood, besides its albumen, contains a haemozymas.

(15)  The haemoglobin of the red
corpuscle, reduced to a definite proximate principle,
decomposes oxygenA-ated water by its noncomplex feruginous
molA-ecule, haematosine, and becomes colorless.

(16)   The red corpuscle of
the blood is a true cellule, having a cell-wall and its
proper content. This content is constituted especially of
haemoglobin and micro-zymian-molecular-granulations, the
microzymas whereof decompose oxygenated water as do those
of the fibrin.

(17)   The blood contains a
third anatomical element, the
haematic-microzymian-molecular-granularions. It is the
albumenoid atmosphere of these granulaA-tions which form,
by allotropic transformation, the intermicrozymian gangue
of the false membrane called fibrin.

(18)   The flowing tissue is
a content, whereof the vessels, arteries, veins and their
appendages form the container.

(19)   The three orders of
anatomical elements of the flowing tissue only find their
conditions of existence complete in their containers
during life.

(20)   After issuing from the
vessels these conditions of existence being no longer
fulfilled, the alteration of the flowing tissue commences.

(21)  The microzymas of the
different parts of the circulatory system possess alike
the property of decomposing oxygenated water without being
absolutely characteristic of them, for the microzymas of
almonds and of other parts of plants and of beer yeast
also possess this property. But there are animal tissues
whose microzymas do not disengagethe oxygen of oxygenated
water.

(22)  The microzymas, anatomical
elements, are living beings of a special order without
analogue.

(23)  The spontaneous changes of
natural animal matters, whether the microzymas have or
have not undergone vibrionian evolution, thanks to free
access of air, lead always under certain conditions to the
complete destruction by oxydation of the product of those
changes; that is to say, reduce them to the mineral
condition, carbonic acid, water, nitrogen. But the
microzymas under whose influence the oxydation is effected
are not attacked; in such wise that all which is purely
proximate principle in a tissue, in a cellule and in the
bacterium, having undergone total destruction, the
microzymas remain, and bear testimony to the existence of
the vanished organization.

(24)  The geological microzymas of
certain calcareous rocks and of chalk, those of the dust
of the streets and of the air also bear testimony to the
microzymas which functioned as anatomical elements in the
tissues of organisms of geological epochs even as they
function in those of the present time.

(25)  That which in the air have
been called germs are essentially the microzymas of the
entire destruction of a living organism.

(26)  Normal air contains neither
pre-existing germs nor the things which have been
improperly termed microbes, supposed to ascend from age to
age to parents resembling them.

(27) The air contains normally no
pathogenic microzymas. The carbon bacteridium of Davaine
in the product of the evolution of diseased microzymas,
either of haematic-microzymian-molecular-granulations, or
those of the blood globules.

(28) There is no living matter which is
not morphologically defined; that which has been called
protoplasm in the cellule always contains microzymas as
anatomical elements.

Here, for persons whom it may interest, follows a list of
memoirs and articles wherein may be found the historical
succession of the ideas which have enabled the resume
contained in the postface to be written:

On the influence which pure water or water charged with
various salts exercise at a low temperature (a froid) upon
cane sugar (moulds and spontaneous generations). Annales de
chimie et de physique. 3e serie, Vol. XLVIII (1855 and
1856). C. R., Vol. XL, p. 436. and Vol. XLVI, p. 44, and
Annales de chimie et de Physique, 3e serie. Vol. LIV, p. 28
(1858).

Memoir upon generations called spontaneous and upon
ferments. Annales de la Societe Linne de Maine et Loire,
Vol. VI (1863), and see C. R.. Vol. LVII. p. 958.

Note upon alcoholic fermentation. C. R,, de 1'Academic des
Sciences, Vol. LVIII, page 601 (1864), and Montpellier
Medical, Vol. XII.

Upon alcoholic fermentation. Reply to M. Berthelot C. R.,
Vol. LVIII, p. 1116 (1864).

On some new soluble ferments (Anthozymas). C. R.. Vol. LIX.
p. 496 (1864).

On the origin of the ferments of wine. C. R,, Vol.
LIX  p. 626 (1864).

On the escape of heat as a product of alcoholic
fermentation. C. R., Vol. LX, p. 241 (1865).

Memoir upon nefrozymase. Montp. Med.. Vols. XIV and XV.

On the cause which matures wines. C. R.. Vol. LXI. p. 408
(1865), and Vol. LXIX. p. 892 (1869).

On physiological exhaustion and on the vitality of
beer-yeast. C. R., Vol. LXI, p. 689 (1865).

On the harmlessness of the vapors of creosote in the
breeding of the silkworm. C. R. Vol LXII p 1341 (1866).

On the parasitic disease of the silk worm. C. R., Vol.
LXIII. pp. 311, 341, 391, 425, 552, 693, 1 147 ( 1866), Vol.
LXIV, pp. 231, 873,980, 1042, 1043. 1185 (1867); Vol. LXV,
p. 42; Vol. LXVI, p. 1 160 (1868)-Vol I .XVII. pp. 102. 443
(1868); Vol. LXLX, p. 159 (1869).

(On the role of the calcareous earths in butyric and lactic
fermentations, and of the living organisms which they
contain (microzymas). C. R., Vol. LXIII, p. 451 (1866).

Microzymas in the waters of Vergeze. C.R.,Vol.LXIII, p.559,
and Bull.Soc.Ch.,Vol.VI,p.9,and Vol. VII, p. 159 (1866).

On the role of the microscopic organisms of the mouth in
digestion, and especially in the formation of the salivary
diastase: in common with Prof. Estor and Saintpierre. Mont.
Med., Vol. XIX

On the molecular granulations of fermentations and of the
tissues of animals (microzymas). C. R., Vol I, XVI. pp. 366.
1382(1868).

On the nature and function of the microzymas of the liver;
jointly with Prof. Estor. C. R,. Vol. UCVI, |i I, 'I
(IHftS).

On the origin and development of the bacteria; jointly with
Prof. Estor. C. R.. Vol. LXVI, p. 859 (IHftH)

On the reduction of nitrates and sulphates in cenain
fermentations. C. R., Vol. LXVI, p. 547 IIIU.H)

On the spontaneous alcoholic and acetic fermentation of
eggs. C. R.. Vol. LXVII. p. 523 (1868).

On the microzymas of pulmonary tubercle in the cretacious
state; jointly with Prof. Estor. C. R., Vol. LXVII. p 9600
(1868)

Facts to serve for the history of the origin of bacteria;
natural development of these little plants in the frozen
parts of several plants. C. R., Vol. LXVIII. p. 466; Mont
Med., Vol. XXII, p. 320 (1869).

Conclusions relating to the nature of the mother of vinegar
and the microzymas in general. C. R., Vol I XVIII, p, 877;
Gazette Medicale de Paris, 8 May, 1869.

On the alcoholic fermentation by the microzymas of the
liver. C. R., Vol. LXVIII, p. 1567 (1869).

Researches relating to the microzymas of the blood and the
nature of fibrin; jointly with Prof. Estor. C.R  Vol.
LXIXp 713 (1869).

Note for use in the history of the microzymas contained in
animal cellules; by Prof. Estor. C. R., Vol. LXVII, p 529

On the nature and origin of the blood globules; jointly
with Prof. Estor. C. R, Vol. LXX, p. 265 (1870)

On the geological microzymas of divers sources. C. R., Vol
LXX p. 914 (1870).

On the carbonic and alcoholic fermentations of sodic
acetate and of ammonium oxalate. C. R., Vol. LXX. p 69
(1870).

See also:

On the circulation of carbon in nature and the instruments
of this circulation; exposition of a chemical theory of the
life of the organized cellule; by A. Bechamp, Paris,
Asselin; Montpellier, Seguin.

Of the microzymas of the higher organisms; by Messrs. A.
Bechamp and A. Estor. Mont. M ed., Vol. XXIV, p. 32.

Exposition of the physiological theory of fermentation,
according to the researches of Prof. Bechamp, by M. Estor.
Messager du Midi (1865).

[The student is to understand that the above list comprises
but a small fraction of the scientific work of the late
Professor A. Bechamp; a fuller list, though still imperfect,
occupies eight of the large folio pages of the Moniteur
Scientifique (Paris) for December, 1908, and these labors
were spread over fifty-three years, from 1853 to 1905
inclusive. Genius, has been defined as, in one aspect at
least, the "faculity for taking infinite pains," and this
faculty was possessed by M. Bechamp in an almost infinite
degree. The world has yet to learn how much it owes to this
remarkable genius. The acknowledgment will be resisted by
all those interests which fatten upon the ignorance and
trusting confidence of the people. But thanks to his
researches and discoveries it cannot be long before the
medical profession will recognise the dangerous errors into
which it has been led by those who succeeded in establishing
a "conspiracy of silence" around Bechamp and his
discoveries.aTrans.]

---

  

**AUTHOR'S POSTFACE**

This postface consists of a note read by Professor Bechamp
before the Academy of Medicine on the 3rd of May, 1870. It
establishes an important date in the history of science
during the last three decades of the last century. The
microbian doctrines were not yet imagined; nor were they,
till several years after, as a result of the plagiarizing of
the microzymian theory.

**THE MICROZYMAS, PATHOLOGY AND
THERAPEUTICS.**

Chauffard has recently published an important work
on the treatment of smallpox by carbolic acid. His
conclusions interest me greatly, and I desired to make the
matter clear to the Academy. In a note which appeared in the
Transactions of the Academy of Sciences (Vol LXVI, p.366), I
said, in reference to a note of Chauveau on the molecular
granulations of the vaccine virus:

"From the study and meaning of the molecular granulations
which are born or act in certain fermentations and which I
have named microzymas, to the study and meaning of those
which exist normally in all the tissues of organized beings,
and also in the cellules of those tissues, was natural. My
satisfaction, then, was extreme when I saw Chauveau enter
upon this path, and, from another point of view, confirm the
observations made in the laboratory of the chemist. I said
from another point of view; I was wrong, because from the
physiological point of view where I had placed myself and
whence I studied what is called fermentation, the
experiments of Chauveau, on the molecular granulations of
the vaccine virus, are closely connected with mine. I place
the molecular granulations in solutions of simple organic
matters; Chauveau in the organic and organized matters of
living beings."

From a time long ago certain diseases have been compared to
fermentations. We may go back to Stahl and Willis and
probably still earlier for this, though that is not
important, for, as was remarked by Babinet, "Antiquity has
told everything; when it told truly, it was simply a
wonderful accident, and it proved nothing."

My researches upon fermentations and ferments, particularly
upon molecular granulations, date back some fifteen years,
and those which Professor Estor and I conducted for the
purpose of generalizing my earlier observations have led to
this result: that the animal is reducible to the microzyma.
But the microzyma, whatever its origin, is a ferment; it is
organized, it is living, capable of multiplying, of becoming
diseased and of communicating disease.

All microzymas are ferments of the same order - that is to
say, they are organisms, able to produce alcohol, acetic
acid, lactic acid and butyric acid.

In a state of health the microzymas of the organism act
harmoniously, and our life is, in every meaning of the word,
a regular fermentation. In a state of disease, the
microzymas do not act harmoniously, and the fermentation is
disturbed; the microzymas have either changed their function
or are placed in an abnormal situation by some modification
of the medium. This was what I tried to make clear by a
positive example of a kind which would leave no room for
misunderstanding either the extent or the bearings of the
conclusion.

The harmonious function of a bird's egg is to produce a
bird. During incubation the chemical acts which are
accomplished within it result in the transformation of the
materials of the yolk and the white into the various
chemical compounds which will form the various organs of the
complete animal.

While these chemical acts are being accomplished, no gases
other than the normal gases of respiration are set free.
But, if that which will be the embryo is abstracted from the
egg, it contains nothing organized but the microzymas. That
which will be the embryo is itself, at first, only a
collection of microzymas. From the chemical point of view,
everything within the egg is the work of the microzymas.

What will happen if in the egg we proceed to mix up those
elements within the egg which were not destined to be mixed
together? Donne said and demonstrated that the egg becomes
putrid. I am of the same opinion, but this has to be
explained.

If, as was done by Donne, everything in the egg is mixed up
by violent shaking, there is soon observed an escape of
carbonic acid gas, hydrogen and a trace of sulphuretted
hydrogen. When the escape of gas has ceased, the contents of
the egg, from being alkaline as it was before the mixture,
have become acid; the odor is disagreeable, but gamey only,
distinct from the horrible odor of rotten eggs, which are
alkaline.

If we then examine what has happened to the materials of
the egg, the albuminoid substances and fatty matters are
found to be unchanged. The sugar and glucogenic matters have
disappeared, and in their place we find alcohol, acetic acid
and butyric acid. What has then taken place has not been a
putrefaction, but a distinctly characterized fermentation.
The violent agitation has not killed anything which was
organized within the egg; only the order of its contents has
been disturbed.

The microzymas have been thrown into media which was not
intended for them; those of the white into the yolk, and
vice versa. Having been forced to take their nourishment
from materials not intended for them, they have reacted in a
new manner, but without any change in their nature or
appearance.

I could multiply such examples and show that the same
microzyma, free or enclosed in a cellule, acts in the former
condition as a lactic or butyric ferment, in the latter as
an alcoholic ferment. I have reported the example of what
happens in the egg because in this instance nothing foreign
intervenes; fundamentally, the egg is an animal in posse.

But the microzymas may be regarded from another point of
view. Not only are they individually ferments, but they are
also able to produce bacteria. This ability, alike for all,
does not manifest itself equally for all under the same
conditions. This amounts to saying that in each natural
group of beings, and also within each centre of activity
within each organism, the microzymas possess a certain
specificity. What I mean is that the microzymas of dogs,
sheep, birds, etc, and those of the liver, the pancreas, or
the blood, for instance, although morphologically identical
in appearance, and even identical in certain aspects
chemically, are nevertheless different. What is remarkable
is that the bacterium derived from the microzyma possesses
the same function as that microzyma; it is a ferment of the
same order. Not only is the microzyma a builder of the
bacterium, but it is also a builder of the cellule; but in
this new condition its functions may be entirely changed.
The microzymas which are butyric ferment, and which produce
bacteria which are also butyric ferments, may produce
cellules which are alcoholic ferments.

Finally, the microzyma may become diseased and may
communicate the diseased condition. The first time that my
attention was called to this subject was in relation to my
studies of the diseases of the silk worm. On examining the
eggs of a nursery in which there were many morts-flats, I
was struck with the presence in these eggs of molecular
granulations, motile like the others, but more abundant, of
which a large number seemed united in 2, 3, and 4 grains,
like the chaplets of microzymas.

I asked myself if there might not be a relation of cause
and effect. All the eggs which presented this characteristic
yielded morts-flats, and those worms which did not die
produced butterflies which in turn produced eggs possessing
this same character. Finally, when the disease was at its
worst, the animal and sometimes the eggs contained bacteria.
There is then for the silk-worm a characteristic which
enables one to say, ab ovo, that the caterpillar which will
be born of this egg will be afflicted with a certain
disease. I have not yet had an opportunity to study the
different viruses from this point of view, but there can be
little doubt that those of smallpox and syphilis contain
specific microzymas, i.e. they transport the disease of the
individual from which they originate. These two examples
have led to the proposal of the specificity of certain
diseases called infectious. I do not contradict this.
Nevertheless, when we see that smallpox and syphilis are
inoculable upon certain animals, and that anthrax is not
communicable to dogs nor yet to birds, it is certainly right
to ask wherefore!a

*[a. The admirable caution of this true
man of science is worthy of notice. When almost the whole
scientific world had gone crazy over belief in the
"specificity of disease," M. Bechamp says merely: "I do
not contradict this."  The translator is of opinion
that disease is not an entityaa thingabut a condition, and
that the opinion of its being an entity is answerable for
many of the errors of modern medicine. The reasons for his
opinion will be given on a fitting opportunity. A large
sect, calling themselves "Christian scientists," deny the
reality of sickness and say that it is "an error." There
can be no question but that a large part of the illnesses,
especially of many wealthy persons, is imaginary only, and
these can be cured by Christian science, mental healing,
hypnotic suggestion and the like. I have been unable to
find any rational foundation for the rest of the claims of
these sectarians. The desire of so many physicians to
prevent such persons from attempting to heal those who are
willing to be treated by them is of the like character to
the persecutions initiated by Torquenmado and practiced in
these days by the Russian Church. a Trans.]*

Notwithstanding many remarkable works, nothing is more
obscure than the cause which presides over the development
of diseases and their communicability. But what we can
affirm is that when we are sick, it is we who suffer, and
that the suffering is a cruel reality. This is because the
cause of our diseased condition is always within ourselves.
External causes contribute to the development of the
affliction and hence of the disease only because they have
brought about some material modification of the medium in
which live the ultimate particles of the organized matter
which constitutes us, namely, the microzymas. These external
causes, by a succession of changes brought about, and
depending on a crowd of variables, bring about correlatively
a further change, which then bears precisely upon the
physiological and chemical status of the microzymas.

The tendency of the most recent researches is to show that
miasms, like viruses, contain living microscopic organisms,
something analogous to microzymas and bacteria, which
proliferate in the blood or tissues of the animal and make
it sick. I do not believe that things happen in that manner.

Every phenomenon having a cause, I admit the existence of
organized particles in miasms, but I do not believe in their
proliferation in the organism, a proliferation which has
nowhere been proven, up to the present time, and which many
experiments positively contradict. Two authors, for
instance, who agree in regarding the malignant pustule as a
fermentation and who also agree that the blood of an animal
attacked by a disease can communicate it to another animal
of the same species, agree no longer when they endeavor to
explain what they observe. For Davaine, the virulence of the
carbuncular blood is due to the species of bacterium to
which he gave the name of bacteridium. For Sanson, this
virulence is due to a specific putrid change in the blood.
According to him, the bacteria have nothing to do with it.
Often they are not to be found in it; nothing organized can
even be seen. He even doubts that the bacteria are animals,
or plants, or even living beings. And the author remarks -
and this time truly - that putrid albuminoid matter,
although containing bacteria and even bacteridia, cannot
communicate anthrax, even to an animal susceptible to it.

What does all this mean?  If neither bacteria nor the
products of the putrefaction of albuminoid matters
communicate anthrax?

I will try to explain these contradictions.

Davaine made an experiment which I regard as a very
important one upon this question. He inoculated some very
parenchymatous plants with some putrid matter of plants, in
which bacterium termo or something similar to it was
present. In an opuntia and in an aloe, he said, the bacteria
propagated while preserving their primitive characters.
Inoculated from these plants upon another aloe, they gave
birth to long filaments divided into 2, 3, or 4 articles or
segments. These long filaments, being innoculated upon a new
species of aloe, produced corpuscles in a fine powder.
Lastly the long bacteria, inoculated upon the species of
opuntia and of aloe, which were the subjects of the first
inoculations, reproduced the bacterium termo. These facts
cannot be disputed. The authority of Davaine guarantees
them, but their interpretation seems to me to be open to
question.

On the other hand, when I examined the frozen parts of
several species of plants (belonging to various families),
in which previous to the congellation there had been no
lesion whatever, I always found bacteria of several kinds,
not to say species, according to the specific nature of the
frozen plant, and in the healthy parts, adjacent to the
latter, there was not a trace of bacteria; nothing but
normal microzymas. This proves that bacteria can develop in
plants without inoculation, just as they can develop and
even exist normally in man throughout the entire length of
the digestive canal.

*[a "Individual aptitudes,"
that is, in she altered medium, abnormal and therefore
diseased, and productive of a diseased condition, but not
necessarily that of the inoculated matter. a Trans.]*

I would then explain the experiment of Davaine by saying
that by the wound and the introduction into this wound of
certain bacteria and of the liquids which saturate them,
this savant produced a lesion and a change of medium which
permitted the normal microzymas of the inoculated plants to
evolve according to their own individual aptitudes,a and
there was no proliferation of the inoculated bacterium.

It is the same with animals. It is not the inoculated
organisms which multiply, but their presence and the liquid
which saturates them causes a change in the surrounding
medium which enables the normal microzymas of the organism
to evolve in a diseased manner, either reaching or not
reaching the state of a bacterium. The disease is not the
consequence of the new mode of being of the normal
microzymas; the fever which ensues is only the result of
this new method of functioning and of the effort of the
organism to rid itself of the products of an abnormal
fermentation and disassimilation, while inducing a return of
the diseased microzymas to the physiological condition.

This theory, which is founded upon facts ascertained by
indisputable experiments, explains, among other things, why
the blood of carbuncular sheep containing bacteridia
inoculated upon dogs or birds does not induce the appearance
of bacteridia and the development of the carbuncular
disease, as Davaine has shown. But is there any difference
in the purely chemical materials of the blood of a dog, a
bird and a sheep? They contain the same albuminoid and other
matters, the same salts, the same fatty bodies, and under
other conditions, the microzymas found there certainly
evolve into bacteria. The only difference which exists, as
is proved by the experiment itself, must be in the
histological elements of the blood of these animals and in
their unequal susceptability. If then the bacteridae
inoculated upon birds and dogs do not multiply as they
should have done, it is certainly not that the chemical
medium is different; and if anthrax does not result from the
inoculation, it is because the microzymas of these animals
are unfit to evolve morbidly under the influence of the
medium which promotes the introduction of morbid materials.

To sum up, the microzymas are organized ferments, and they
can under favorable circumstances produce bacteria. Under
other circumstances they become builders of cellules. All
organisms, ab ovo, are created by them. In short, the
cellule, the bacterium itself, can rebecomea a microzyma,
and thus the microzymas are seen to be the beginning and end
of all organization. If that is true, we ought to encounter
them wherever organized beings have lived; and the fact is
that I have found them in all the calcareous rocks from the
oolithic to the most recent; the dusts of our streets swarm
with them, and there as everywhere they are ferments of the
same order. Not all of them are morbid. If they were, we
would be living under a constant menace; but there may be
morbid ones among them.

*[a. Would it not be more
agreeable to the facts discovered by Prof. Bechamp to
regard the much smaller microzymas which result from the
final evolution, as the actual offspring of the parent
microzymas via the bacteria, like the butterfly from its
parent butterfly via the chrysalis? - Trans.]*

What relation is there between the above and the work which
I recalled at the commencement?

The following:

It is now a long time, from the beginning of my researches
upon ferments at a time when nobody occupied themselves with
the question of spontaneous generation, since I demonstrated
(in opposition to generally received ideas) that creosote
(and phenic acid, for at this time this acid was sold as
creosote, especially in France), in a non-coagulating dose,
did not impede a fermentation that had already commenced. I
showed that in the same dose, these agents prevented the
appearance of organized ferments in the most fermentiscible
mixtures. And I gave as explanation for this the fact that
they opposed the germination or hatching of the germs of
microphytes or microzair ferments which the air might bring
to the mixtures, thus confirming an old experiment of Humer,
recalled by Chevreul, and precisely proved by that savant,
i.e. that the vapors of the essence of turpentine, in a
confined space, hindered the germination of seeds and caused
the destruction of those which had begun to germinate. I
also demonstrated that the same doses of these agents did
not hinder fresh muscle from acting on fecula starch, to
liquify and to cause it to ferment, nor finally the
appearance of bacteria in the mixture. I concluded from this
that the muscle must contain ferments already developed,
living, and active of themselves, since creosote did not
prevent the fermentation from beginning. This observation
was the point of departure for the researches that Estor and
I undertook upon the evolution of the microzymas of the
higher organisms into bacteria. In ending my earliest
observations, in 1866, I advised the use of creosote and
phenic acid in the rearing of silk worms, for the purpose of
preventing the birth of the vibrating corpuscle, which is
the vegetable parasite of the pebrine.

At the same period Dr. Masse, starting from the same point
of view, employed the same agent to dry up the fecundity of
the spores of the microsporon mentagrophytes of parasitic
sycosis.

In 1868 my friend, Dr. Pecholier, inspired by similar
ideas, published his researches regarding the treatment of
typhoid fever by creosote; he proposed to prevent the
appearance and multiplication of the typhoid ferment. Later
Gaube published a work in confirmation of that of Dr.
Pecholier. The same year Calvert reported the experiments
made at Mauritius by Drs. Barrault and Jessier on the
application of phenic acid in the treatment of typhoid and
intermittent fevers.

The above is the connection of the ideas and origin of the
employment of creosote and carbolic acid in therapeutics.
The theory of this employment is as follows:

Creosote dries up the fecundity of the germs which produce
disease,a in conformity with the principles enunciated by me
in 1857. The following experiment, while maintaining the
principle, gives it a wider meaning and places it in
connection with the first parts of this discourse.

*[a. Diseased conditions. -- Trans]*

Beer yeast is a complete organism, though reduced to the
state of a simple cellule. As an alcoholic ferment, in a
sugared medium it preserves indefinitely its cellular form.
But under other conditions, things happen differently. Beer
yeast, it has been said, does not cause starch to ferment;
that is an error; it causes it to ferment, but in a
different manner to sugar--- that is all. If it is
introduced into starch of fecula, with some very pure
calcic-carbonate (not from the calcareous rocks), the whole
being creosoted to hinder the influence of germs of the air,
the starch will be liquified, a fermentation will be set up
and the yeast disappears by degrees and is finally replaced
by an innumerable quantity of superb bacteria. The
fermentation is acetic, lactic and butyric instead of being
alcoholic. It may be said that it was the bacteria which
were the ferments; granted, but observe that these bacteria
are the issue of the beer yeast, of its microzymas. That
settled, in other experiments, the same quantities of yeast,
calcic carbonate and starch being employed, and double and
triple the quantity of creosote, the starch was still
liquified, and the fermentation proceeded, but the globules
of yeast were not destroyed, and the bacteria did not
appear. The yeast was not killed; the creosote when used in
greater amounts has only prevented the evolution of the
microzymas into bacteria.

Creosote, which resists the blossoming of the germs of
microphytes and microzoairs in fermentiscible media,
preventing thus the commencement of fermentation, does not
hinder a fermentation already commenced and where there
exist already adult organisms. But in certain doses it is a
moderating agent which, according to the experiments just
mentioned, regulates the function of the cellule and its
microzymas, which it prevents evolving into bacteria.

The explanation of the role of carbolic acid and creosote
in therapeutics is easy to understand, if account is taken
of the researches which have permitted this hasty resume to
be made. These agents do not hinder the physiological
functioning of the histological elements of the organism,
but they arrest the morbid evolution of the microzymas, the
too rapid destruction of the cellules, and tend, doubtless
by modifying the medium, to bring back into harmony the
functioning of the deviated microzymas.

This recalls unavoidably the agents used in the old
therapeutic devices which our ancestors employed; camphor,
essences, musk, etc. It is true that it was empirically that
they fulfilled the indications which, after many deviations,
we now supply like them, but instead we use new methods
which rely on experimental and positive data.a

*[a. This expression, and some
statements in the parts of this "postface" immediately
preceding it, have been cited by microbiologists to
support the assertion that M. Bechamp believed in the germ
theory of disease. Such a statement illustrates a
consciousness of the weakness of their position and their
eagerness for calling in aid occasional expressions of
their opponents. The truth is that the word "germ" is used
in a fast and loose way by the microbists, and there is a
meaning in it which it might be said that "germs" have
produced this or that diseased condition. All which serves
to show the importance of exactness in the use of
language, a fact rarely borne in mind or carried into
practice by these savants. It would be out of place to
enter into a disquisition hereon here; besides the theory
itself is destined to fall, "with a great bursting of
bubbles." so soon as the writings of Prof. Bechamp become
widely known. His "Microzymas et Microbes," and his
designation of the microbian theory in "Les grands
problemes medicaux." p. 11 ,as "La plus grande sottise
scientifique de ce temps," sufficiently indicate his
opinion. a Trans.]*

And, in conclusion, I beg the permission of the Academy to
repeat here something which Professor Estor and I said in a
recent work upon this subject:

"After death (leaving here the domain of pathology to enter
into that of the physiology of the species), it is essential
that matter be restored to its primitive condition, for it
has only been lent for a time to the living organized being.
In recent years an extravagant role has been assigned to the
airborn germs; the air may bring them, it is true, but it is
not necessary that it should do so."

The microzymas, whether in the state of bacteria or not,
are sufficient to assure by putrefaction the circulation of
matter.

The living being, filled with microzymas, carries in itself
the elements essential for life, disease, death and
destruction. And that this variety in results may not too
much surprise us, the processes are the same. Our cellules,
it is a matter of constant observation, are being
continually destroyed by means of a fermentation very
analogous to that which follows death. Penetrating into the
heart of these phenomena we might really say, were it not
for the offensiveness of the expression, that we are
constantly rotting!

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